Contact Details
Email judy.bennett@otago.ac.nz
Academic Qualifications
1980: PhD (History) Australian National University
Research Interests
Professor Bennett's research interests are in Pacific History, Environmental History and Australia's and New Zealand's relations with the Pacific Islands.
Judy's most recent books include Oceanian Journeys and Sojourns: Home thoughts Abroad, which she edited in 2015, which considers human mobility and its social meanings in the Pacific.
Judy was the lead investigator of her first Marsden-funded project, entitled "Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen” with Associate Professor Angela Wanhalla in 2010-2012. That book has been published by University of Hawaii Press and the University of Otago Press (2016)
If you are looking for further information on the Mothers' Darlings research project, or you are looking for your American serviceman father or relative, please follow this link:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/usfathers
and see Youtube: Children of Conflict, a documentary shown in Maori TV on Anzac Day 2014 which traces the experiences of some of the children of the wartime Pacific.
Currently leading her second Marsden project (2015-2017: Constant coconuts), the project focuses on the history of the coconut and its related commodities in the tropical Pacific and seeks to discover the meanings and implications attached to these commodities along the chain from producer to consumer.
Research Profile
• Former co-editor and current board member of 'The Journal of Pacific History' (Canberra).
• Editorial Board of 'Pacific Affairs' (Vancouver).
• Assessor of Pacific-related applications for the Australian Research Council.
• Referee for 'Agricultural History' (USA), 'Pacific Studies' (Hawaii), 'Global Environmental Politics' (Sydney).
• Board member of the Pacific History Association.
• Member of the Forest History Society
• Member of the University of Otago's Centre for Research on Colonial Culture.
Publications
Bennett, J. A., & Poyer, L. (2023). World War II and the Pacific. In A. P. Hattori & J. Samson (Eds.), The Cambridge history of the Pacific Ocean (Vol. 2): The Pacific Ocean since 1800. (pp. 588-613). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108226875.031
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2023). The Pacific world: Doing history from lagoons to the deep. In R. T. Jones & M. K. Matsuda (Eds.), The Cambridge history of the Pacific Ocean (Vol. 1): The Pacific Ocean to 1800. (pp. 107-124). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108539272.008
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2022). Growing coconut palms in the Pacific Islands: Colliding knowledge and values. Environment & History, 28(1), 17-52. doi: 10.3197/096734019X15755402985659
Journal - Research Article
Bennett, J. A. (2021). Fluid frontiers and uncertain geographies: US controls on immigration from the Pacific, c. 1880−1950. Journal of Pacific History, 56(3), 236-257. doi: 10.1080/00223344.2017.1406319
Journal - Research Article
Bennett, J. A. (2020). [Review of the book Pursuing respect in the Cannibal Isles: Americans in nineteenth-century Fiji]. Journal of World History, 31(4), 817-820. doi: 10.1353/jwh.2020.0058
Journal - Research Other
Bennett, J. A. (2009). Natives and exotics: World War II and environment in the southern Pacific. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 439p.
Authored Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2000). Pacific Forest: A History of Resource Control and Contest in Solomon Islands, c.1800-1997. Brill Academic, Leiden: White Horse Press, Cambridge, 512p.
Authored Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (1999). Solomons Islands History: Christianity and Colonialism. Honiara: Curriculum Development Centre, 100p.
Authored Book - Research
Bennett, J. A., & Wanhalla, A. (Eds.). (2016). Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 379p.
Edited Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (Ed.). (2015). Oceanian journeys and sojourns: Home thoughts abroad. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 390p.
Edited Book - Research
Bayliss-Smith, T., & Bennett, J. A. (Eds.). (2012). An Otago storeman in Solomon Islands: The diary of William Crossan, copra trader, 1885-86. Canberra, Australia: ANU E Press, 95p.
Edited Book - Research
Ballantyne, T., & Bennett, J. A. (Eds.). (2005). Landscape/community: Perspectives from New Zealand. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 181p.
Edited Book - Research
Bennett, J. A., & Russell, K. J. (Eds.). (2003). Journeys in a small canoe: The life and times of a Solomon Islander [by L. M. Gina]. Canberra: Pandanus Books, 301p.
Edited Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2023). The Pacific world: Doing history from lagoons to the deep. In R. T. Jones & M. K. Matsuda (Eds.), The Cambridge history of the Pacific Ocean (Vol. 1): The Pacific Ocean to 1800. (pp. 107-124). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108539272.008
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A., & Poyer, L. (2023). World War II and the Pacific. In A. P. Hattori & J. Samson (Eds.), The Cambridge history of the Pacific Ocean (Vol. 2): The Pacific Ocean since 1800. (pp. 588-613). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108226875.031
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). Bora Bora: "Like a dream". In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 31-41). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). No Bali Ha'i: New Hebrides. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 118-145). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). On the atolls: Gilbert Islands. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 270-299). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). Prologue: War comes to the Pacific. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. xxi-xxiv). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). The Solomon Islands: Off the radar. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 228-242). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). Tonga in the time of the Americans. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 165-182). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). Wallis (Uvea) Island: A different kind of love story. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 146-164). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2016). War surplus? New Zealand and American children of indigenous women in Sāmoa, the Cook Islands, and Tokelau. In K. Pickles & C. Coleborne (Eds.), New Zealand Pacific empire. (pp. 179-194). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A., & Wanhalla, A. (2016). Introduction: A new net goes fishing. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 1-30). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Wanhalla, A., Bennett, J. A., & Anderson, R. (2016). Epilogue. In J. A. Bennett & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific: The children of indigenous women and US servicemen, World War II. (pp. 300-308). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2015). John Burke, historian and collector: Taking Solomon Islands back to the United States after World War II. In J. A. Bennett (Ed.), Oceanian journeys and sojourns: Home thoughts abroad. (pp. 246-275). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2015). Seeking the heart of mobility. In J. A. Bennett (Ed.), Oceanian journeys and sojourns: Home thoughts abroad. (pp. 10-36). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A., Leckie, J., & Wanhalla, A. (2015). Mothers' darlings: Secrets and silences in the wake of the Pacific War. In C. Twomey & E. Koh (Eds.), The Pacific War: Aftermaths, remembrance and culture. (pp. 214-232). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2014). A vanishing people or a vanishing discourse? W.H.R. Rivers’s ‘psychological factor’ and the depopulation of the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides. In E. Hviding & C. Berg (Eds.), The ethnographic experiment: A. M. Hocart and W. H. R. Rivers in Island Melanesia, 1908. (pp. 214-251). New York: Berghahn Books.
Chapter in Book - Research
Bennett, J. A. (2012). 'Inevitable erosion of heroes and landmarks': An end to the politics of Allied war memorials in Tarawa? In M. Gegner & B. Ziino (Eds.), The heritage of war. (pp. 88-106). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Chapter in Book - Research