The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs is an academic journal covering a wide range of disciplines with the aim of providing comprehensive coverage of contemporary developments in the entire Pacific Islands region, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. It features refereed, readable articles that examine social, economic, political, ecological, and cultural topics, along with political reviews, book and media reviews, resource reviews, and a dialogue section with interviews and short essays. Each recent issue highlights the work of a Pacific Islander artist.
The Contemporary Pacific appears semiannually. Its first electronic edition appeared in 2000 on Project MUSE. Back issues are being added to an open-access archive in the University of Hawaii at Mānoa's ScholarSpaceinstitutional repository.