Contact person: Dr. Ajit Lokhande

As in the field of “Research and Exchange” no authorised post for the continent Oceania is intended. 

The tasks of this Desk are in particular:

• Contact person for applications, enquiries and initiatives from Oceania 
• Examination of project applications from Oceania
• Maintaining and developing contacts between partners
• Collecting information on the political, social, church and theological situation in Oceania
• The documentation of world-church and theological impulses from Oceania and imparting these to the German-speaking regions
• Giving impulses towards the networking of theological reflection in Oceania
• Initiating and/or carrying out research projects on Theology and Philosophy in Oceania
• Looking after visitors from Oceania
• The responsibility for contributions from Oceania for the book series “Third World Theology” and the magazine chakana  

Apart from the two states of Australia and New Zealand – which only belong to “Oceania” in an extended sense – the region of “Oceania” is divided up according to the ethnic identity of the population in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. All of the oceanic islands together cover an area of land of approximately one million square kilometres; they are scattered over an area of sea amounting to approximately 70 million square kilometres.