Dr Mere Taito was recently awarded the 2026 Tracey Banivanua Mar PhD Prize, by the Australian Association for Pacific Studies (AAPS), for her thesis titled Kavei Se Tae! — A Genealogy of Rotuman Texts: Reading Early 20th Century Rotuman Publications; Writing Multilingual Archival Digital Visual Poetry.
Born in Fiji and raised on the island of Rotuma, Dr Taito immigrated to New Zealand in 2007.
Rotuma is a volcanic island group located about 650km north of Fiji, acting as a self-governing dependency, with a distinct culture and language.
For her doctoral research, she applied creative and form-specific reading methods to analyse early to mid-20th century multilingual Rotuman mission archival texts, and designed a genre of poetry — archi digi vispo — in response to these methods of reading.
Multilingual archi digi vispo fuses archival content, multilingual text, visual elements, and digital functionalities, and is positioned in her doctoral research to support Rotuman language regeneration among the scattered population.
Last year, the University of Otago celebrated the completion of her thesis, which is believed to be the world’s first doctoral thesis focused on Rotuman literature with English and linguistics.
It was awarded ‘‘exceptional status’’ by the division of humanities at the university.
Now her thesis has been awarded the prestigious Australian prize for her outstanding work in the field of Pacific Studies.
Dr Taito was delighted with the recognition.
‘‘Tracey Banivanua Mar was an exceptional and distinguished Pacific studies scholar.
‘‘It has been my absolute honour to receive this award that recognises her contribution to Pacific studies in Australia and abroad.
‘‘I am extremely grateful to the judges and the Australian Association of Pacific Studies for this recognition.’’
An AAPS spokesperson said her work ‘‘stood out for its originality, depth and impact’’.
‘‘The thesis embodied an indigenous commitment to writing and speaking back, to language revitalisation, to culturally-rooted methodology and to heart-full scholarship.’’
The judges said her thesis was ‘‘an imaginative, rich, and multilayered work’’.
‘‘Taito offers an incisive reading of early 20th century Rotuman texts, bringing the remarkable clarity of her literary analysis together with careful attention to archival objects, and her own creative practice.
‘‘This scholarly, analytical and creative work combines to produce something that breaks the mould of what a PhD can be.’’
The judges were struck by the originality and sophistication of her work, and also by its ‘‘joyousness’’.
‘‘It is a powerful contribution to the study of Rotuman literature, and to a creative and decolonial Pacific studies.’’
Dr Taito is now the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in Native American and Indigenous Studies at the Centre for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) and Northwestern University’s English department, in Chicago.
