Abstract
Challenging the perception that academic research in the Pacific is an ‘English only’ space, this introduction to the special issue, In Our Own Words: Histories in Languages of Oceania, examines the barriers, challenges, and benefits of publishing in Indigenous languages. It tackles two questions that many scholars, both Indigenous to the Pacific or not, may face in their careers. First, is it worth publishing in an Indigenous language? Second, who is ultimately responsible for disseminating research to the ‘researched’? This special issue introduction speaks to the innovation, advocacy, and resilience of Pacific literary pioneers of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Albert Wendt and Epeli Hau‘ofa among others. Building on their foundational work in decolonizing the Western-dominated space that is academia, the special issue aims to demonstrate the potential for researchers in Oceania to be world leaders in publishing multilingual research.