“It’s a coffee with a purpose”: perspectives on thinking and working politically in the Pacific

Thinking and working politically is an approach to manoeuvring within social and political realities to achieve development goals, which some see as a new orthodoxy [Teskey 2017.Thinking and Working Politically: Are We Seeing the Emergence of a Second Orthodoxy? Governance Working Paper Series, Issue 1. Massachusetts: Abt Associates]. This research explores the practice of thinking and working politically in the Pacific, through in-depth interviews and observation with nine Pacific Islander staff working within a bilateral aid programme in Samoa,Tonga, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands. The findings provide a rich description of what thinking and working politically entails in small,highly connected island communities, with insights into how these processes can be supported in official aid programmes.