Will Rollason is Lecturer in Anthropology at Brunel University, UK, having received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Manchester in 2008. He has published on mimesis, race, and the postcolony in Papua New Guinea in the context of sports, marine resource harvesting and clothing. His monograph, We are Playing Football, was published by Cambridge Scholars Press.

• Introduction: Pacific Futures, Methodological ChallengesWill RollasonChapter 1. Imagining the Future: An Existential and Practical ActivityLisette JosephidesChapter 2. The Hanging of Buliga: A History of the Future in the Louisiade Archipelago, PNGWill RollasonChapter 3. Why the Future is Selfish and Could Kill: Contraception and the Future of PaamaCraig LindChapter 4. Gambling Futures: Playing the Imminent in Highland Papua New GuineaAnthony PicklesChapter 5. The Future of Christian Critique: Lost Tribes Discourses in Papua New Guinean PublicsCourtney HandmanChapter 6. A Cursed Past and a Prosperous Future in Vanuatu: a Comparison of Different Conceptions of Self and HealingAnnelin EriksenChapter 7. Chiefs for the Future? Roles of Traditional Titleholders in the Cook IslandsArno PaschtChapter 8. A Coup-Less Future for Fiji? Between Rhetoric and Political RealityDominik SchiederChapter 9. The Devouring of the Placenta: The Crisscrossing and Confluence of Cosmological, Geomorphological, Ecological, and Economic Cycles of Destruction and Repair in Ruatoria, Aotearoa/New ZealandDave RobinsonChapter 10. The Human Face of Climate Change: Notes from Rotuma and TuvaluVilsoni HerenikoList of Contributors

“Overall, the essays are well-written, structured, referenced, detailed and reveal instances of Pacific life not well known or previously published, and this makes Pacific Futures a useful addition to any library of fieldwork reports theoretical pieces and general anthropology works.” · Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies“The plural ‘futures’ of the book’s title highlights the value of ethnographic research into the diversity of projects of Oceanic peoples, but also the indeterminacy and weakness of future as a singular or abstract analytical concept. But in their deliberate break from the slippages of dominant temporal tropes consigning people to a traditional past, or to a Western present, the authors of this collection make an important step forward, by allowing Pacific people to articulate their aspirations in their own terms.” · Pacific Affairs“Pacific Futures is a welcome book with a timely message for anthropology, told in many worthy ethnographies. The best news, perhaps, is that a future-aware anthropology does not sound so foreign to mainstream anthropology; the field can integrate and develop this line of thought without jarring change to our disciplinary perspective. In fact, I would argue that anthropology has been conscious of its own future for some time, so a future-conscious ethnographic and theoretical practice is entirely consistent with where the discipline is going in its own future.” · Anthropology Review Database“This book makes an important contribution to studies of the Pacific Island nations and societies by asking scholars to demonstrate how the activities of Pacific Islanders can be better understood by analysing the future as a field of possibility, action, and hopes.” · Karen Sykes, Manchester University