The book talk, organized by the ARC discovery grant project “Unfreedom, Voices, Redress: Plantation Cultures of the Western Pacific” (in cooperation with the GHL), will discuss recent publications by a writer, an artist and a historian. The guests will engage in the question how indenture, blackbirding and other forms of dependency re-ordered the Western Pacific after slavery was abolished in the British Atlantic and in the US. It also wants to pay special attention to not only Pacific but also Pacific women’s voices to shed light on the history of vast numbers of Indian, Pacific and Melanesian peoples displaced through (forced) migration and laboring on plantations that emerged in contexts of British (and German) colonial endeavors.

Books discussed:
Margaret Mishra, Women, Indenture, and Resistance (Oxford UP, 2026)
Kirsten McGavin, Untethered: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Papua New Guinea (Kokomo Ink, 2025).
Jasmine Togo-Brisby, Ungeographic (Pâtaka Art + Museum, 2025)