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Commentary: For two weeks in May 2024, protests by pro-independence indigenous Kanaks in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia erupted into a wave of rioting; erection of barricades; and burning of factories, shops and homes with the deaths of seven people – five Melanesians and two gendarmes. Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement had been consistently engaging with the 1988 Matignon then 1998 Nouméa Accords with Paris in an evolving process as part of their struggle for self-determination. The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of three referenda. However, after France moved to unilaterally break with the Accords and declare independence as being off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest. This article recalls the influence of one of the leaders of the 1980s upheaval, Éloi Machoro.

Photoessay: A unique feature of Pacific Journalism Review, compared with many other journalism and media research journals, has been a particular focus on photography and documentary. Contributors have been eclectic and varied, ranging from activist photojournalist John Miller (Ngāpuhi), who charted the new wave of Māori assertiveness from the first Nga Tamatoa protest at Waitangi in 1971 and who offered a research portfolio on the Ngatihine Land/Forestry legal dispute in Northland Aotearoa, to Ben Bohane’s ‘Melanesian mythical places with unreported conflicts’, to Kasun Ubayasiri’s ‘Manus to Meanjin’ study of refugee migration, to Filipino Fernando G. Sepe’s stunning but shocking portrayal of President Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial ‘war on drugs’ (in reality a ‘war on poverty’), through to Todd M. Henry’s Tongan ‘Gangsters in Paradise’ and the realm of kava in New Zealand. At least a dozen portfolios have been published by the journal and this article examines and reflects on some of the highlights. The photoessay is completed with a portfolio of protest photographs from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand during eight months of Israel’s War on Gaza.