From bananas to power: Pacific scholar reclaims history of regional resistance

A Pacific scholar has uncovered how something as everyday as bananas helped shape political power across the region - from resistance movements in Sāmoa to the foundations of today’s Pacific Islands Forum.

Dr KDee-Aimiti Maʻiaʻi (Fasito’outa, Sapapali’i, Penicuik) was conferred her PhD from the University of Oxford last month. Her thesis, Fa’i Pasifika: Regional Agricultural Development in a Changing Pacific, 1915–1975, examines how a single crop became central to power and politics across the Pacific.

On the back of becoming the first Pacific woman awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, KDee has already stepped into a new role: Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland’s Te Tomokanga postdoctoral Fellow.

“It still feels surreal,” she says, reflecting on a journey that took her between the United Kingdom and the Pacific to undertake her research.

The scholar comes from a family of academics. Her late grandfather, respected Sāmoan physician Papaliʻi Dr Semisi Maʻiaʻi, was a pioneer in Pacific healthcare and the first Sāmoan doctor to graduate from the University of Otago Medical School.

KDee seemed destined to follow a similar path, until she left school at 16 while attending Avondale College. She worked full-time for nearly four years before eventually returning to study.

Enrolling in the University of Auckland’s New Start course, she excelled - going on to complete her degree, an honours year, and ultimately earning the Rhodes Scholarship in three years.

“I know it looks really flash,” she says. “But I didn't finish high school, I did ‘New Start’ when I was an adult - this could be anyone.”

That lived experience now shapes how she approaches Pacific history - looking for the stories embedded in everyday lives rather than elite narratives in isolation.

A story hidden in plain sight

At the heart of KDee’s research is a deceptively simple question: what if agriculture, not diplomacy or geopolitics, sits at the centre of Pacific regionalism?

Her answer begins with a photograph.

An image of her grandmother - a baby at her knees, holding an enormous bunch of bananas - discovered through her grandfather’s autobiography, became a turning point.

“I realised there was this massive story in bananas that we don’t know,” she says.

What followed was years of research into Sāmoa’s banana export industry and its wider political ripple effects, from local resistance movements to the emergence of key regional institutions.

Bananas as resistance, strategy and unity

KDee’s thesis traces four interconnected stories, each demonstrating how agriculture shaped Pacific political life.

In the early 20th century, Sāmoans were already politicising bananas. During the Mau movement, banana plantations became sites of resistance - with growers halting exports, sabotaging shipments, and using production as leverage against colonial administration.

“The bananas were never apolitical,” she explains.

From there, her research follows the regional ripple effects - including the spread of the rhinoceros beetle, an agricultural pest that inadvertently triggered the involvement of global development organisations such as the United Nations in the Pacific.

She also documents the establishment of the region’s first agricultural college in Sāmoa, now part of the University of the South Pacific - an early experiment in regional education and cooperation.

One of the most striking threads is the story of the Pacific Island Producers Association, a collective of Pacific governments that lobbied New Zealand’s state-endorsed private monopoly for fairer banana trade conditions.

“This wasn’t plantation agriculture,” she explains. “Anyone and everyone could participate - villages came together to export collectively.”

That collective political action would go on to reshape regional relationships.

“We wouldn’t have the Forum if it weren’t for bananas,” she says, pointing to the way shared trade struggles brought Pacific governments together in new and coordinated ways - laying groundwork for what would become the Pacific Islands Forum.

Challenging narratives in Pacific History

Beyond its historical insight, KDee’s work challenges how Pacific stories are framed and retold. “We’re often told what Pacific history is,” she says. “There are these really particular stories that get prioritised.”

Too often, those narratives centre on struggle and deficit. Her research instead highlights Pacific innovation, agency, and strategic thinking.

“The Pacific was saying: we’re going to be part of the global world - but on our own terms.”

It’s a reframing that resonates strongly with Pacific communities navigating identity today - particularly across the diaspora, where questions of belonging and historical visibility remain constant.

Returning home to share the work

KDee returned to the region to present her work at the Pacific History Association Conference in Sāmoa in December 2025. Her presentation titled ‘Fa’i Pasfika’ was awarded the PHA Teresia Teaiwa Prize whilst her accompanying essay was awarded the JPH Gunson Essay Prize. It was a “full circle moment” she says. An opportunity to share her work with the people and the region that made it all possible.

Now back in Aotearoa, KDee is energised by her new role.

The Te Tomokanga postdoctoral fellowship in Pacific Studies marks a return to the department where she once studied and taught.

Her focus for the next two years is clear: making the research accessible.

She is working to transform her thesis into a book, a public history exhibition, and even a children’s book - alongside developing teaching resources for schools.

“I really believe in it as a story of importance,” she says. “But it’s also just a really cool story.”

Reclaiming what has always been ours

KDee’s work is about reclaiming Pacific narratives - bringing overlooked histories to the surface. It is also a reminder that all Pacific stories have value and importance even if they may not immediately appeal to contemporary trends in Pacific thought.

Stories of farmers, families, and communities who used what they had - land, crops, and collective strength - to shape political futures.

Stories that remind us the Pacific has never been passive.

And sometimes, those stories begin with something as everyday as a bunch of bananas.