- Fiji Health
- Cuba in the Pacific
- Global Citizenship
- International volunteering and voluntourism
- Corporate Community Development & CSR
- ICT & networking for development
- Other
Fiji Health
2024
Fiji’s HIV surge stems from a funding shortfall
With A. Rokoduru & A. Ravono. Invited commentary for East Asia Forum
In April 2021 Fiji made international news with stories of ‘horrific’ health care conditions, including hospital staff and patients without food, hospital operating theatres out of service, and shortages of beds, medicine, equipment, and blood. While Fiji appeared to be relatively well-prepared to respond to COVID-19 and had successfully avoided a major outbreak in 2020, a rapid increase in the number of cases in 2021 quickly overwhelmed the public health system.
2023
“Nobody should talk about it”: Fijian health system resilience and the COVID-19 pandemic.
With A. Movono & J. Thomas-Maude, IDS Working Paper Series. Massey University.
HIV/AIDS is surging in Fiji, with a 260 per cent increase in new infections between 2010 and 2022. The rise partly stems from rising illegal drug use, but must be viewed in the context of a significant decline in funding for prevention and awareness initiatives since the end of the Regional Response Fund in 2013. Although a recent agreement has been made to provide some financial support, much more funding is needed to effectively tackle the worsening crisis and address the alarming rise in HIV infections.
Cuba in the Pacific
2024
Cuba, New Zealand, and the challenge of doctors for the Pacific.
Invited article for New Zealand International Review.
Medical co-operation has been a well-known part of Cuba’s foreign policy for over five decades. What is less known is that country’s commitment to training doctors for the world, the reach of this programme into the Pacific and New Zealand’s involvement in the programme.
2023
“We are the ones who will have to make the change”: Cuban health cooperation and the integration of Cuban medical graduates into practice in the Pacific.
With C. Werle, Human Resources for Health. 21 (1), 1-10.
This paper responds to Asante et al. (in Hum Resour Health, 2014), providing an updated picture of the impacts of Cuban medical training in the Pacific region based on research carried out in 2019–2021, which focused on the experiences of Pacific Island doctors trained in Cuba and their integration into practice in their home countries.
The gift of health: Cuban medical cooperation in Kiribati.
With C. Werle & H. Leslie, Pacific Dynamics. 7(1).
Since 2006, 33 I-Kiribati students have undertaken medical education in Cuba and returned home as doctors, but little is known about how they translate the Cuban preventive model of care to medical practice in the Pacific context. The research addresses this gap through qualitative fieldwork in South Tarawa.
2022
The gift of health: Cuba’s development assistance in the Pacific.
With R. Huish & C. Werle, The Pacific Review. 35(1), 90-115.
Global Citizenship
2024
Book chapter: ‘It’s complicated’: Reflections on teaching citizenship in Aotearoa New Zealand.
With G. Dodson, E. Kau., C. Neill & R. Shaw. in Settler Responsibility for Decolonisation: Stories from the Field. Routledge
2022
Edited Book: Tū Rangaranga: Rights, responsibility & global citizenship in Aotearoa New Zealand. With M. Forster, R. Hazou, D. Littlewood & C. Neill. Massey University Press.
2021
Weaving together: Decolonising global citizenship education in Aotearoa New Zealand.
With M. Forster & R. Hazou. Geographical Research Special Edition on Decolonising the University from the Antipodes: Geographical Thought and Praxis. 60(1), 86-99.
International volunteering and voluntourism
2023
Othering or authenticity?: Voluntourism and cultural exchange in Peru and Fiji.
With J. Thomas-Maude, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 56, 155-162.
As the tourism industry emerges from pandemic shutdowns and border closures, so too is “voluntourism”, the controversial combination of overseas volunteer work and more traditional tourist experiences. This has led to a resurgence of critiques, and to calls for the industry to take criticisms on board, examine past practice, reassess the role and impact of volunteering, and to take the opportunity to rethink the practice of volunteer tourism.
2021
Identity and Cultural Exchange during English-Language Voluntourism (EVT) in Lima, Peru: A Post-Colonial Analysis.
With J. Thomas-Maude & V. Walters, Journal of Language, Identity & Education.
Book Chapter: New Zealanders as International Volunteers. Tūtira Mai: Making change in Aotearoa New Zealand. Massey University Press
2019
Global encounters: Voluntourism, development and global citizenship in Fiji.
The Geographical Journal. 185, 338–351.
Passion, paternalism, and politics: DIY development and independent volunteers in Honduras.
Development in Practice. 27(6), 880-891
2014
Medical voluntourism in Honduras: ‘Helping’ the poor? Progress in Development Studies. 14(2), 163-179.
Corporate Community Development & CSR
2019
Indigenous well-being and development: Connections to large-scale mining and tourism in the Pacific.
With E. Richardson, E. Hughes, & L. Meo-Sewabu, Contemporary Pacific. 31(1), 1-34x.
Reversing the lens: Why corporate social responsibility is not community development.
With G. Banks, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 26(1), 117-126
2017
Conceptualising Corporate Community Development.
With G. Banks, R. Scheyvens & A. Bebbington, Third World Quarterly. 37(2), 245-263
ICT & networking for development
2017
Techno-optimism or Information Imperialism: Online Networking, Social Media and Development.
Information Technology for Development: Special edition on Social Media for Development: Outlining Debates, Theory and Praxis. 22(3), 380-399.
2014
Networks for development: Volunteer tourism, ICT and the paradoxes of alternative development. Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR) 37(1), 48-68
Other
2019
Lali’an vs. Improved cook stoves: how change happens in urban households in Timor-Leste.
With T.N. Tan, Annals of Anthropological Practice. 43(2), 72-85.
2017
Memory-work as ethnographic method: Academic mothers remember. With T. Farrelly, R. Stewart-Withers & L. Gibson, SITES: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies. 14(2), 1-26.
Dr Sharon McLennan 