Samoa – COI

Dr Niki Alsford

Email: na29@soas.ac.uk

Prof. Alsford has extensive knowledge and experience working with Pacific Island nations. He is currently engaged in a longitudinal study of indigenous voices on climate change, and works closely with the Fijian community in the UK. He is Chair of the Austronesian Centre at the University of Central Lancashire and continues to work with the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Executive Yuan in Taiwan and the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines in Taipei.

Dr. Richard Moyle

Email: r.moyle@auckland.ac.nz

Richard Moyle, Honorary Research Professor in Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, and Adjunct Professor at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, has spent more than ten years of fieldwork in the Pacific and Aboriginal Australia since the 1960s. His publications include monographs on traditional music in Polynesia, Papua New Guinea and Central Australia, four bilingual volumes of oral tradition, and a dictionary of one Polynesian language. The former Director of the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music and Director of Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, he is also active in providing online access to field materials as an aid to adult language acquisition. An Honorary Life Member of The Polynesian Society, Richard’s ongoing research interests span Pacific history, oral tradition and the roles of traditional music in contemporary society. Speaking several Polynesian languages, he actively promotes ethnomusicological initiatives among Samoans in their country’s various creative outputs.