Michael Spann

The University of Queensland | UQ · School of Political Science and International Studies

This article aims to adds to critical discussions around entrepreneurship in the Pacific. By drawing on an example of an entrepreneur from rural Solomon Islands, it illustrates how complex negotiations between cultural and commercial imperatives affect and influence cultural and economic decision making. The objective of this article is to argue fo...

In this paper, my aim is to add to the discussions of sorcery in Melanesia by focussing on its relation to economic agency in the context of a case example from Malaita, Solomon Islands. Using Taylor's (2015) categories of ‘distributive’ and ‘possessive’ agency as a critical point of departure, I illustrate how sorcery can be considered as an outco...

Cultural and social relations that are constitutive of alternative ways of conceiv- ing and practicing development exemplify “living other-wise” (Shilliam 2015, 8) to the central premises of the global development agenda. That is to say, commu- nities who are actively trying to create sustainable alternatives have been contesting the dominant visio...

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are an important framework that sets the development agenda for the next 15 years. Through targets and means of implementation, the SDGs appear to speak to development challenges in a comprehensive way; however, they are highly problematic. This is apparent in their conception and understanding of sustainabi...