Fijian academic from University of Canterbury wins top award
ANew Zealand-based Fijian political sociologist, Professor Steve Ratuva, has won a prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship to carry out research as visiting professor at three leading American universities. The universities are Duke University in North Carolina, Georgetown University in Washington DC and University of California in Los Angeles. The award is the most prestigious academic fellowship offered by the United States for some of the world’s leading academics to carry out research or teaching in US universities. Professor Ratuva is currently director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Canterbury. He will carry out research on “Horizontal inequality and affirmative action—a comparative study of Pacific Island minorities in New Zealand and United States” and will work in partnership with some of the world’s leading experts in the field. The award followed a rigorous and highly competitive process of research assessment, review and interview and is in recognition of Professor Ratuva’s international research expertise as an interdisciplinary social scientist.
Part of his international recognition was his recent appointment as Chair of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) research committee on democratisation and the military and member of the IPSA Research Commission. He is also a recipient of a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden research award.
He is also former President of the Pacific Islands Political Science Association, founding editor of the new academic research journal, Pacific Dynamics: Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and has published widely in the areas of Pacific regional politics; sociological and political processes theories; cultural change; conflict resolution; social protection; affirmative action; ethnic identity and politics; global, regional and national security; socio-economic development; electoral engineering; and constitutional reform. He was worked in a number of universities including the University of the South Pacific, University of Sussex, Australian National University, University of Auckland and visiting fellow in a number of international universities.