In her catalogue essay for the exhibition sis – Pacific Art 1980-2023, Moana writer Lana Lopesi says she grew up being called “sis” by her girlfriends, but adds, ‘yet within Pacific diasporic spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand, there is often visible discomfort at any mention of the word “feminism”’.
It is a view shared by Samoan academic Moeata Keil. She notes in her essay: ‘I think somehow feminism has been misunderstood as something-to-do-with-the-West, as a Western way of thinking that contradicts Pacific cultures and customs.’
