Dr Suliasi Vunibola | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Dr Suli Vunibola is a transdisciplinary scholar and a Climate Research Fellow at Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury and adjunct with the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research. Suli’s research interests broadly lie in the interdisciplinary areas of development studies, human geography, ethnography, ethno-ecology, climate crisis, and community production. The core of some of his research is around indigenous knowledge systems, community Indigenous innovation, alternative and pluriverse development, community-driven development, and social transformation in the Pacific. His doctoral research, for example, explored Indigenous alternative economic development on customary land in the Pacific through decolonised Indigenous methodologies.

Currently, he is pursuing research projects related to the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs-funded Pacific Ocean and Climate Crisis Assessment, where his role also involves building up a comprehensive Pacific climate database. Specifically, the focus is on climate-resilient development adaptation and mitigation measures, including Indigenous and local knowledge and system transitions, to reduce risks from the human-induced climate crisis. He also works on community self-determination projects with Indigenous communities across the Pacific, carbon colonialism, cognitive justice, regenerative sustainability, politics within neoliberalisation of development aid, food security and food sovereignty for Māori as indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Pacific diaspora communities.