Unaisi graduated with a Bachelor of Law from the University of the South Pacific (USP) in 2008 and is admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor in Fiji. She also holds a Master of Laws and postgraduate qualifications in legislative drafting and tertiary teaching.
Unaisi has over 10 years’ experience in academia and has held positions in Nauru as a senior government lawyer (legislative drafting) for the Department of Justice and Border Control and most recently as Legislative Counsel for the Parliament.
Unaisi’s thesis involves the interdisciplinary research of Indigenous identity from a legal, historical, social and cultural perspective.
HDR project title: “Indigenous Identity in Fiji: Na Vanua, Na Lawa, Na Kawa Ni Bobula”
Scholarship: University of Queensland Research Scholarship (UQRS)
Supervisors: Emeritus Professor Jennifer Corrin and Professor Reid Mortensen
Project overview: The discussion surrounding indigeneity and the Indigenous identity has been made even more complex for countries that had entered an era of independence with a legal system inherited from their former colonisers, in addition to an existing system of customary laws. Unaisi's PhD examines how Indigenous people are defined in Fiji and by comparison, under international law and in other jurisdictions. Unaisi's thesis provides a detailed historical account of Fiji from pre-colonial (traditional setting), the impact of British colonial policies on the Indigenous Fijian identity and the hangover of those policies on Indigenous Fijians today. An important component of the thesis is the exploration of the impact of that identity on other minority Indigenous groups in Fiji, specifically the descendants of those taken to Fiji during the blackbirding period.
Publications
- Unaisi Narawa ‘Adoption in Nauru’ in J. Corrin, S. Farran (eds.), The Plural Practice of Adoption in Pacific Island States, The World of Small States 5
- Unaisi Narawa ‘Fiji’ in Jennifer Corrin & Tony Angelo (eds) (2021) Legal Systems of the Pacific: Introducing Sixteen Gems, Intersentia
- Unaisi Narawa ‘Australasian Conference Association Ltd v Mere Sela & Ors [2007] FLR 12: A Case Analysis’ (2021) 26 CLJP/JDCP 45
- Unaisi Narawa ‘An Identity Claimed? The Case of Tamavua-i-wai’ (2012) 2 Journal of South Pacific Law
- Unaisi Narawa (2022) The Lonely Learner: Teaching Law in the Pacific, 2022 Australasian Law Academics Association Conference, Melbourne, VIC Australia, 7-9 July 2022