Strong Pacific Focus for Postdoctoral Researcher

27 August 2013

Strong Pacific Focus for Postdoctoral Researcher

Oceanic linguistics specialist Dr Farzana Gounder has been awarded a 2013 Postdoctoral Fellowship Award by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences which will allow her to dedicate a whole year to research focussing on narrative and identity constructions in the Pacific.

The native Fiji Indian was drawn to the University of Waikato because of the strong Pacific research focus, particularly within the Linguistics programme.

“Being a person from and of the Pacific, I have a strong passion for contributing to scholarly knowledge on the diverse and unique narrating features found within the Pacific region, an area that is research-rich, yet currently understudied,” says Dr Gounder.

During her one year term here at Waikato, Dr Gounder will be focussing on editing a volume with John Benjamins, titled Performing Narrative Identities in Oceania in the prestigious Studies in Narrative (SiN) series. The book has attracted considerable interest, with both national and international contributors.

Dr Gounder will also be writing journal articles, a book chapter, speaking at some national conferences as well as putting on some seminars and workshops at the University.

“This award has given me a wonderful opportunity to immerse myself in research. It’s stimulating to be part of such a strong research culture, surrounded by people who are so passionate about their research,” says Dr Gounder.

Her mentor is Dr Julie Barbour, an accomplished linguistics researcher who currently holds a prestigious Marsden grant to study the mood systems in the oceanic languages of Vanuatu.

The FASS Postdoctoral Fellowship is a one year award funded by Strategic Investment Funds. The aim was to attract emerging international researchers and to provide pathways for completed PhD students to enhance their capacity to move into an academic career position.

The position attracted a large number of applications who were attracted both to particular research foci in units, centres/institute in the faculty, and by the international profile of many of our research staff.

In carrying out research at the University of Waikato, Dr Gounder intends to build relationships with other researchers in Oceanic studies on campus, nationally, and internationally for further collaborations. “My research for the foreseeable future will be in Oceanic linguistics, as the Pacific is where my own identity lies.”

ENDS

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