The Cross-Disciplinary Workshop is organised each year by the Faculty of Humanities at UIC Barcelona with a view to broaching a cross-disciplinary subject from the humanities from a multidisciplinary perspective. This year, the Workshop’s theme is indigenous cultures in the Pacific Region.

Under the title “Colonisation and indigenous cultures of the Pacific Region”, three academic experts from different universities, all members of the Spanish Association of Pacific Studies (AEEP), have contributed their perspective and specific knowledge on the Pacific.

It began with a talk by UIC Barcelona Faculty of Humanities lecturer, Dr Xavier Baró, who outlined the history of Spain’s presence in the Pacific, from colonisation to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1989, formally marking Spain's exit from the Philippines.

Then, the rector and lecturer of AbatOliba CEU University, Dr Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga, gave a presentation on the linguistic landscape of the many islands that make up Oceania. Rodríguez-Ponga pointed out that although English and French are the most widely spoken languages across the archipelago, you can still find minority languages spoken by very few people that have survived because they form part of a local community.

The historian and honorary president of the Spanish Association of Pacific Studies, Dr Francisco Mellén, closed the workshop with a talk on the mysteries surrounding the island of Rapa Nui, popularly known as Easter Island, and world famous for the gigantic monolithic statues that have watched over the land for almost a thousand years. Mellén raised some of the most well-known hypotheses about the moai regarding the island’s colonisation, their construction, the statues’relocation and the hieroglyphic writing.

Dr Judith Urbano, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, opened the event, which was held online given the current circumstances.