Solstice Middleby

Solstice Middleby

Higher Degree by Research Candidate

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics


In addition to her PHD Candidacy, Soli is an author, partnership broker and former Australian Diplomat to the Pacific. She has lived and worked across the Pacific Region for the last 20 years, making homes in Goroka and Suva and establishing a wide base of Pacific connections. Soli has supported Pacific-led development through partnerships approaches, innovation and multi-stakeholder collaborations working with AusAID, DFAT, IUCN and most recently as the CEO of the Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC) where she led the program towards a Pacific led approach from 2018-2021. Soli is the Director of Coconuts and Kurrajongs, and online store showcasing Pacific products and has been involved with various community projects including the first TEDx event to be held in a Pacific Island Country and Tokani: Friends of the Fiji Museum. Soli's doctoral research is focused on Pacific regionalism, specifically how power is understood and exercised within the practice of regional agreement making within the Pacific Islands Forum.

My doctoral research is exploring  how power works within Pacific Regionalism to centre or decentre Pacific interests. This comes at a significant time as the Pacific ‘region’ is contested space for responding to a growing range of uncertainties, including climate change, COVID-19, and geostrategic competition that can’t be addressed at local or global level alone. I am use ethnographic methods that foreground Pacific perspectives to explore how power is both understood and exercised within the the ‘practice’ of consensus agreement-making within the Pacific Islands Forum as my unit of analysis. Outcomes hope to include a greater understanding of the political dynamics that evolve and consolidate the Pacific ‘region’ and an assessment of the state of Pacific-centred regionalism.

 

  • Offices Held

    Date Office Name Institution Country
    2018 - 2021 Chief Executive Officer Australia Pacific Training Coalition Fiji
    2012 - 2015 Regional Counsellor Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Fiji
    2005 - 2009 Development Specialist AusAID Papua New Guinea

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