Is Australia part of the Pacific? Re-imagining Australia’s Pacific identities and relationships for an ‘Island’ future

Since the beginning of colonisation, Australian authorities have had a persistent desire to control the Pacific. While Australia is a long-standing key partner for Pacific Island states, there is an underlying discontent with the often domineering and exploitive nature of Australia in the region. Seeking to understand why this approach to diplomacy in the Pacific has been so hard to change for Australia, I suggest it is because ideas of Australia as a powerful regional administrator have become so central to its collective identity that they have been fused into the diplomatic, strategic, and political culture in Canberra. Using lenses of ontological security, narratives, and articulation theory, I examine how this identity has evolved through three vignettes: the initial portrayal of Australia as a Western, continental, colonial controller; the discursive construction of Australian primacy in relation to the Pacific and its peoples; and an examination of recent diplomatic interactions between Australia and Pacific partners. Drawing on Teaiwa’s vision of articulation theory, I suggest these ideas have become akin to a bodily part of Australia’s core identity concerns—and it will generally act to preserve its sense of this self. However, while difficult, change is possible. In a forward-looking coda, I propose that future change is funnelled towards ‘islanding’ Australia. A fundamental reorientation of identity, culture, and practice that embraces Australia’s vulnerability and possibility could open the space for a more productive future with Pacific partners and a more comfortable relationship with Australia’s own core identity.