How the Solomons plans to keep

tabs on foreign researchers

Over the past 20 years the Pacific has become a major arena for research. Thousands of resear chers have descended on Oceania to measure stone statues on Eas ter Island, record languages in the New Guinea Highlands, tag migratory fish in the Solomons, and conduct anthropological studies on Ponape. The value of that research to the islands, its impact on local communities, and the conduct of researchers are issues that have been the source of increasing concern to island governments.

The Solomon Islands Govern ment is no exception in this regard, and on July 28, 1982, it enacted a law entitled The Research Act 1982 “to control and administer the conduct of research in Solomon Islands and connected matters”.

The monitoring and control of research has been the subject of considerable misunderstanding in the Solomons and elsewhere.

Island governments not infre quently see research by outsiders as a new form of intellectual imperialism in which knowledge is the natural resource being ex tracted to the advantage of the visitors. What is more, those same governments argue with justification that they and their people seldom enjoy a return from the research conducted in their nations. Researchers, on the other hand, frequently maintain that islanders do not understand the demands of academe, the enormous costs involved in re search, and the fact that while they, the researchers, may be “rich” by islands standards, they are not necessarily rich by the standards of the outside world.

Nor, they are quick to add, are they ever likely to be much richer by virtue of their research. If anything they are likely to be poorer, research being for most a vocation rather than merely a job.

Some of them see payment of deposits for proper conduct of research as the last straw in a costly undertaking, not to men tion an affront to their character.

They point to research regula-

Professor ROGER M. KEESING has written (PIM Nov. p 7) of how the book Lightning Meets The West Wind, which he wrote in collaboration with PETER CORRIS, has become a hot political issue in Solomon Islands, with a provincial premier demanding that it be banned from sale in the country. Here Canadian academic Dr JIM BOUTILIER describes how the Solomon Islands Govern ment plans to regulate the activities of foreign resear chers in the country. It is a move which will be followed with close interest by governments throughout the region.

tions that have clearly been bur densome and unrealistic. But, in the final analysis, they do not have a constituency to whom they are answerable in the way that island governments do.

Complicating matters still further for both parties is the way in which research becomes so readily politicised: the way in which governments, rightly or wrongly, interpret a researcher’s involvement in local affairs as being somehow political, and the way in which researchers find themselves caught between the aspirations of “their” people and the demands of the central government.

Concern about such real or imaginary involvement led the Solomon Islands Government to stop issuing research permits for some time in the early 1980 s.

Now, fortunately, the Minister of Education, Training, and Cultur al Affairs, Michael Evo, has ap pointed Henry Isa as research officer to streamline the issuing of permits and the monitoring of research. The minister is to be congratulated on the wisdom of his choice. Isa’s background at the University of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands Museum, his exposure to foreign researchers, and his sympathetic and accommodating nature fit him ideally for the post.

In some respects it is not an enviable position since Isa must reconcile the expectations and demands of researchers with the needs and well-being of the is landers. Working from a modest little office in the ministry, Hen ry Isa has set about putting the Solomon Islands research

business back on the tracks.

He kindly spent an hour with me explaining in detail the Re search Act and the government’s research policy which will put flesh on the bare bones of the legislation.

While the policy has not yet been issued in its final form at time of writing, the main provi sions are already in place. When a letter is received from a resear cher requesting permission to conduct research Isa sends back a “Research Application Form A” which asks, among other things, for a curriculum vitae or resume, a description of the research pro posal, and a statement of the benefits that will accrue to the people of the Solomons from the research. When this blue form is completed and returned a re search committee is convened to assess the worth and practicabili ty of the proposal.

The assessment process can be a lengthy one, and Isa mentioned the dismay expressed by resear chers when they learned that re search applications should be lodged not less than nine months prior to the date when research is scheduled to commence. He as sured me that this provision was designed to meet a “worst poss ible situation”. In the case, for example, of someone wishing to do research on Sikaiana the re quest would move from the re search officer’s desk (with the research committee’s recommen dations attachedjto the ministry of home affairs, and thence, via the provincial office in Auki, to the village elders on Sikaiana.

There might very well be delays at each stage as the committees

involved in vetting the applica tions at each stage meet infrequently.

In addition, the government has drawn up a priority list over and against which the request is evaluated.

If a request is received to work in the field of education a top priority area in terms of its value to Solomon Islanders it is probably more likely to be viewed with favor than a request to do ethnomusicology. But each case, Isa pointed out, will be judged on its own merits, and researchers may be requested to reshape their proposals to take into account local needs and sen sitivities. He cited several cases where the local political climate was not conducive to research at present, and described how re searchers had been placed else where to the satisfaction of all.

When a research permit has been granted researchers are re quired to pay two fees: A re search fee and a deposit fee. The research fee is designed to cover the administrative costs involved in processing the research re quest, while the deposit fee is intended to ensure that the re search is carried out in accord ance with the terms and condi tions of the permit. The deposit fee is recoverable if those terms and conditions have been met.

The scale of fees has not been laid down yet and will, I am told, vary depending on the nature and geographical scope of the research.

It is Henry Isa’s intention to circulate these new research guidelines as widely as possible to academics and institutions in terested in Solomon Islands research.

Inquiries should be made to: Research Officer, Ministry of Education, Training and Cultural Affairs, P.O. Box 584, Honiara, Solomon Islands.

It is to be hoped that publica tion of the long awaited guidelines will bring to an end a period of considerable uncertain ty and apprehension in the minds of researchers about the conduct of their work in the Solomons.