Join 2025 National Library of Australia Fellow, Dr Alexis Bergantz, to discuss his recent Fellowship research focused on the history of the South Pacific Commission.

During his Fellowship, Dr Alexis Bergantz explored how in 1947, Australia helped establish the South Pacific Commission (now the Pacific Community) to promote cooperation and improve the welfare of Pacific peoples. Based in Noumea, it was the first body to bring together colonial powers and later, Pacific Islander voices, yet its history is little known in Australia. This talk draws on the archives of diplomat William Douglas Forsyth, a founding figure of the SPC, to uncover the political and personal struggles involving Australia, France, and Indigenous leaders that shaped the organisation and contemporary visions of today’s Blue Pacific.