SEAFARERS' “MARITIME CULTURE” AND THE “I‐KIRIBATI WAY OF LIFE”: THE FORMATION OF FLEXIBLE IDENTITIES?

This paper aims to examine how seafarers from the Pacific Republic of Kiribati cope with the experience of working with crews of different nationalities, and, further, how the exposure to different cultures during their journeys through international waters influences both their own identity as well as their perceptions of I‐Kiribati culture. Based on examples from open and semi‐structured interviews with seafarers working on German merchant ships and Japanese fishing vessels, the paper questions the application of concepts of “hybridity” in the case of these I‐Kiribati men in favour of the idea of “cultural flexibility”. It further considers to what degree seafarers strongly rooted in the clearly confined cultural values of Kiribati have adapted the values received through their training and employment by German or Japanese and Korean companies and officers. The paper adds to the framework of transnationalism by advancing the notion of emporion, in which the circular and transversal journeys of seafarers are viewed as a connecting space between land‐based areas; a space which provides a basis for an extended knowledge and understanding of different cultural outlooks as well as relations between nations.     

EXPRESSING “LOCAL CULTURE” IN HAWAI'I*

ABSTRACT. Detached from the mainland and with a distinct historical ethnic geography, the conquered kingdom of Hawai'i, now the fiftieth state, is the only U.S. state with an Asian and Pacific Islander majority as well as the highest percentage of racial and ethnic intermarriage. Hawai'i's population reflects the tensions between the culturally pluralistic “spirit of aloha” and the ethnic‐cum‐social stratification that has evolved from its historical economic geographies. In this article I focus on one of these strata—what is referred to as “local” culture—discussing its ethnogenesis and contemporary manifestations, and I apply Jonathan Okamura's 1981 model of situational ethnicity to examine how locals and new immigrants negotiate the ethnic dynamics and social expectations of their daily lives. I also discuss various ways in which “localness” is represented on O'ahu's economic landscape, with an analysis of the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, as a holistic expression of local culture.     

Hard times in Apia? Urban landlessness and the church in Samoa

This paper presents findings from a study about the relationships between social change and settlement change in Samoa, where a form of landlessness is emerging in low income areas of the main town, Apia. It examines changing reciprocal kinship arrangements with respect to customary rural village plantation land and changes in both individual and household relationships with the church. Although these relationships are typically closely bound in Pacific island societies, recent field‐based research has revealed the expansion of landless urban settlements with households that are alienated from rural village‐based kin and, by extension, customary land.     

The end of the Pacific? Effects of sea level rise on Pacific Island livelihoods

As in the past, most Pacific Island people live today along island coasts and subsist largely on foods available both onshore and offshore. On at least two occasions in the 3500 years that Pacific Islands have been settled, sea level changes affected coastal bioproductivity to the extent that island societies were transformed in consequence. Over the past 200 years, sea level has been rising along most Pacific Island coasts causing loss of productive land through direct inundation (flooding), shoreline erosion and groundwater salinization. Responses have been largely uninformed, many unsuccessful. By the year 2100, sea level may be 1.2 m higher than today. Together with other climate‐linked changes and unsustainable human pressures on coastal zones, this will pose huge challenges for livelihoods. There is an urgent need for effective and sustainable adaptation of livelihoods to prepare for future sea level rise in the Pacific Islands region. There are also lessons to be learned from past failures, including the need for adaptive solutions that are environmentally and culturally appropriate, and those which appropriate decision makers are empowered to design and implement. Around the middle of the twenty‐first century, traditional coastal livelihoods are likely to be difficult to sustain, so people in the region will need alternative food production systems. Within the next 20–30 years, it is likely that many coastal settlements will need to be relocated, partly or wholly. There are advantages in anticipating these needs and planning for them sooner rather than later. In many ways, the historical and modern Pacific will end within the next few decades. There will be fundamental irreversible changes in island geography, settlement patterns, subsistence systems, societies and economic development, forced by sea level rise and other factors.     

‘The global warming clock is ticking so see these places while you can’: Voyeuristic tourism and model environmental citizens on Tuvalu's disappearing islands

At a time when climate change is being defined and grappled with around the world as a looming large‐scale environmental crisis, low‐lying Pacific islands are being publicized in a range of practices as ‘disappearing islands’, and their inhabitants as future ‘climate refugees’. This paper is concerned with the disappearing island as a space in which new intersections between environmentalism and tourism can be explored. It analyzes specifically western representational practices associated with climate change imperatives on Tuvalu, an atoll state in the central Pacific. New phenomena are emerging there such as climate change tourism and the transformation of the islands into showcases of renewable energy. These phenomena are analyzed in order to understand how climate change meanings are being shaped by various participants in the debate. I argue that Pacific islanders are heroized as climate change saviours when environmentalists attempt to locate ethnocentric notions of environmentally harmonious, ‘traditional’ culture on disappearing islands. Further, islanders are objectified in the rhetoric of climate change tourism. Imagined destinies for atoll dwellers as climate saviours are sited uncomfortably alongside voyeuristic gazes turned towards inundated islands. Competing forces of compassion and voyeurism produced in the name of the Tuvaluan indigene are entrenching an iconic role for the Tuvaluan atoll dweller as climate change hero/victim.     

Twenty years of change in the Fijian periphery: The case of the Kadavu Island

This paper reviews changes in the development and peripheralized status of the Fijian island of Kadavu from a 20‐year perspective. A combination of microgeographic studies in three villages and a mesogeographical analysis show that the conditions of internal dependency found in Kadavu in the early 1980s had not changed much: the pattern of cash crop production and trade remained almost entirely dependent on the yaqona (Pacific kava) beverage crop; shipping services provided by core agents had not improved; the island had experienced significant outmigration; and government initiatives to change the trend were limited. These elements perpetuate a core–periphery structure in Fiji that hampers the development of a self‐sufficient periphery. For Kadavu villagers, however, the benefits derived from the continued form of non‐capitalist production afford them a certain degree of autonomy vis‐à‐vis the market economy, which might be to their advantage under the ongoing conditions of peripheralization.     

Climate change and community resilience in Samoa

Being resilient in the face of climate change seems especially important for island societies, which face the effects of rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, changing wind patterns and sea level rise. To date, most studies of adaptation and resilience among Pacific island communities have used indicators and methods rooted in Western science and neo-classical economics. These have been criticized as being locally irrelevant and inadequate to appreciate the dynamic nature and social structures of island communities and their capacity to adapt. This paper challenges the paradigm that defines resilience as a return to equilibrium, by using a non-equilibrium, cultural ecological lens. The non-equilibrium view of resilience sees the social systems of island nations as highly dynamic and undergoing persistent adaptation in the face of changing environmental factors. Field-based research undertaken in eight villages in Samoa found that, through constant exposure to environmental change over extended periods of time, communities have become resilient and are in a position to adapt to future changes. In developing future policy in relation to climate change, Pacific island governments need to develop a more nuanced understanding of islanders’ perceptions and historical actions in the context of both their physical locations and their dynamic socio-cultural systems.     

MAPS AND METAPHORS OF THE “SMALL EASTERN SEA” IN TOKUGAWA JAPAN (1603–1868)*

ABSTRACT. This article examines the ways in which oceans were depicted in Japanese geographical writings and maps from the Tokugawa period. It uses these texts to understand how early modern Japanese visions of the Pacific and of maritime Asian waters constructed epistemological frameworks through which the Japanese saw their place in an increasingly complex web of regional and global connections. In the absence of actual adventure on the “high seas,” Japanese writers, artists, and mapmakers used the inventive power of the imagination to fill in the cognitive blank of ocean space. I argue that the definition of early modern oceanic space was profoundly ambiguous, a legacy that, it can be argued, left its mark on Japan's modern relationship with the Asian Pacific region.     

太平洋岛国对澳大利亚地缘战略影响的历史考察

历史上太平洋岛国对澳大利亚地缘战略的影响以第二次世界大战为分水岭，主要分为三个阶段：二战前是地缘战略缺失阶段，当时澳大利亚无视周边地缘环境，将国家安全系于遥远英帝国的庇护，忽视近邻岛屿的防御屏障作用，导致国家遭受战火；二战时期是地缘战略构建阶段，随着澳美战时同盟成立，太平洋上的海空航线成为澳大利亚的“生命线”，澳大利亚的独立防务意识也不断加强，意图凭借《澳新协定》将太平洋岛国纳入势力范围；二战后是地缘战略丰富阶段，在太平洋岛国发展问题日益突出和岛屿地区安全态势日趋复杂的背景下，澳大利亚实施援助战略以促进地区的繁荣与稳定。未来，澳大利亚将继续保持该地区最大援助国的地位。     

LAND–USE CHANGES AND CONSERVATION OF THE HAWAI‘I ‘AMAKIHI

Hawai‘ian honeycreepers have undergone widespread extinction and population declines due to human disturbances, including habitat fragmentation, introduced predatory mammals, alien competitors, and introduced avian diseases. The Hawai‘i ‘amakihi (Hemignathus virens) is one of seven extant Hawai‘ian honeycreepers that, like all other native honey‐creepers, vanished from the low‐elevation native forests on the island of Hawai‘i due to these disturbances. But recent observations indicate that ‘amakihi have begun to recolonize low‐elevation forests in eastern Hawai‘i. In this article we discuss the current abundance of Hawai‘ian ‘amakihi in a suburban habitat on the island of Hawai‘i. We also examine the ‘amakihi's relative preference for native or exotic vegetation. Recolonization in low‐elevation habitats underscores the importance of the remaining native forests. However, concurrent with this recolonization, eastern Hawai‘i is undergoing a residential building boom that has resulted in increased deforestation and forest fragmentation. Thus the future of honeycreepers is uncertain, given the widespread environmental changes taking place in eastern Hawai‘i.     

THE ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY OF CARIBBEAN ISLAND NATIONS*

ABSTRACT. Within the hazards‐ and disaster‐research community consensus exists as to factors that magnify or attenuate the effects of extreme natural events on local places. But less agreement and understanding exist concerning the methods or techniques for comparing hazard vulnerability within or between places, especially small‐island developing states. Using two Caribbean nations, Saint Vincent and Barbados, as study sites, we asked which island has the greater level of hazard vulnerability, and why. Results indicate that, although neither island has a large portion of its population living in extremely hazardous locations, Barbados has many more residents in risk‐prone areas. The methods used in this research provide valuable tools for local emergency managers in assessing vulnerability, especially through the delineation of highly vulnerable hot spots. They can also help donor organizations interested in vulnerability reduction on islands use their resources more efficiently.     

In Pursuit of Moving Targets: New Zealand Population Geography in the South Pacific

New Zealand population geographers in the South Pacific islands early focused on resource issues, especially in Fiji and the smaller island states politically linked to New Zealand. This later extended into analysis of the structure of village level economic and social development, notably in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Fiji. These analyses contributed to a clearer understanding of the substance of development at a key turning point in the region's history - the transition to independence. Migration, or mobility, and urbanisation attracted enormous interest throughout the region, with lengthy debates ranging over migration models, urban permanence, the ideology of return and metaphors of mobility, establishing the most distinctive thrust of New Zealand research in the region. Practical research, involving censuses and consultancies, has directly contributed to development. Despite the valuable historical legacy the extent and significance of New Zealand work on the population geography of the Island Pacific has now dwindled.     

The Decision‐Making/Accountability Spatial Incongruence Problem for Research Linking Environmental Science and Policy

Increasingly, scholars engage policy makers around fundamental, complex questions on environmental change in interdisciplinary settings. Researchers attempting to develop robust contributions to knowledge that can support policymaker understandings in this context face significant inferential challenges in dealing with the spatial dimension of their phenomenon of interest. In this paper, we extend an understanding of well‐defined methodological challenges familiar to applied spatial scientists by explicitly articulating the Decision‐Making/Accountability, Spatial Incongruence Problem, or DASIP. Three case studies illustrate how spatial incongruences matter to researchers who work on complex, interdisciplinary problems, while seeking to understand decision‐making or policy‐related phenomenon: urban heat‐island mitigation research in Arizona, water transfer conflicts in Kansas, and hydraulic‐fracturing debates in Texas. With such examples, we aim to evoke a deeper understanding of this problem in applied research and also inspire thinking about how scholars might innovate methods for creating knowledge about environmental change that supports spatially accountable decision making.     

Security Implications of a Worst-case Scenario of Climate Change in the South-west Pacific

This paper examines the links between climate change and security in the island states of the South-west Pacific. A worst-case scenario of climate change is presented which suggests that land will be lost or rendered uninhabitable in all Pacific Island states as a result of climate-change impacts. Loss of land is the focus of this paper for two reasons. Firstly, land is interwoven in the lives of many Pacific Islanders; it provides economic, cultural and spiritual security at a number of geographical scales. Secondly, a focus on land demonstrates clearly how an environmental threat such as climate change can undermine economic, societal, political and military security in the island states of the South-west Pacific. Clearly, climate change is an important threat to human security, and should be dealt with accordingly.     

Medium‐term fluvial island evolution in a disturbed gravel‐bed river (Piave River,Northeastern Italian Alps)

River islands are defined as discrete areas of woodland vegetation surrounded by either water‐filled channels or exposed gravel. They exhibit some stability and are not submerged during bank‐full flows. The aim of the study is to analyze the dynamics of established, building, and pioneer islands in a 30‐km‐long reach of the gravel‐bed Piave River, which has suffered from intense and multiple human impacts. Plan‐form changes of river features since 1960 were analyzed using aerial photographs, and a LiDAR was used to derive the maximum, minimum and mean elevation of island surfaces, and maximum and mean height of their vegetation. The results suggest that established islands lie at a higher elevation than building and pioneer islands, and have a thicker layer of fine sediments deposited on their surface after big floods. After the exceptional flood in 1966 (RI > 200 years) there was a moderate increase in island numbers and extension, followed by a further increase from 1991, due to a succession of flood events in 1993 and 2002 with RI > 10 years, as well as a change in the human management relating to the control of gravel‐mining activities. The narrowing trend (1960–1999) of the morphological plan form certainly enhanced the chance of islands becoming established and this explains the reduction of the active channel, the increase in established islands and reduction of pioneer islands.     

Seismic stratigraphy and paleogeographic evolution of Fairway Basin,Northern Zealandia,Southwest Pacific: from Cretaceous Gondwana breakup to Cenozoic Tonga–Kermadec subduction

We present the first comprehensive seismic‐stratigraphic analysis of Fairway Basin, which is situated on the rifted continent of Zealandia in the Tasman Sea, southwest Pacific, between Australia and New Caledonia. The basin is 700 km long, 150 km wide, and has water depths of 500–3000 m. We describe depositional architecture and paleogeographic evolution of this basin. Basin formation was concurrent with two tectonic events: (i) Cretaceous rifting during eastern Gondwana breakup and (ii) initiation and Cenozoic evolution of Tonga–Kermadec subduction system to the east of the basin. To interpret the basin history we compiled and interpreted 2D seismic‐reflection profiles and make correlations with DSDP boreholes and the geology of New Caledonia. Five seismic‐stratigraphic units were defined. The deepest and oldest unit, FW3, folded and faulted can be correlated with volcaniclastic sediments and magmatic rocks in New Caledonia that are associated with Mesozoic Gondwana margin subduction. Alternatively, given the basin location 200–300 km west of New Caledonia and inboard of the ancient plate boundary, the unit could have formed as Gondwana intra‐continental basin with no known correlative. The overlying unit FW2b records syn‐rift deposition, probably associated with Cretaceous Gondwana breakup. Subaerial erosion supplied terrigenous sediment into the deltas in the northern part of the basin, as suggested by the truncation surfaces on the basement highs and sigmoid reflector geometries within unit FW2b respectively. Above, unit FW2a records post‐rift sedimentation and passive subsidence as the Tasman Sea opened and the Fairway Basin drifted away from Australia. Subsidence led to the flooding of the basement highs and burial of wave‐cut surfaces. Eocene compressive deformation resulted in minor folding and tilting within the Fairway Basin and was associated with the formation of many diapiric structures. The top of unit FW2 is an extensive unconformity that is associated with erosion and truncation on surrounding ridges. Above this unconformity, unit FW1b is interpreted as a turbidite system sourced from topography created during the Eocene tectonic event, which we interpret as being related to Tonga–Kermadec subduction initiation. Pelagic carbonate sedimentation is now prevalent. Unit FW1a has progressively draped the basin during Oligocene to Pleistocene subsidence. Many small volcanic cones were erupted during this final phase of subsidence, either as a delayed consequence of subduction initiation, or related to Tasmantid and Lord Howe hotspot trails. The northern Fairway Ridge remains close to sea level and its reef system continues to supply carbonate detrital sediments into the basin, most likely during sea‐level lowstands. Fairway Basin contains a nearly continuous record of tectonic and paleoclimatic events in the southwest Pacific since Cretaceous time. Its paleogeographic history is a key piece in the puzzle for understanding patterns of regional biodiversity in the southwest Pacific.     

Ecological Crises or Marginal Disruptions: the Effects of the First Humans on Pacific Islands

There is considerable debate concerning the effects of the first humans on the environments of the Pacific Islands. Much disagreement has arisen because of the differing techniques used to fix the time when the first humans arrived on particular islands. There is also considerable discussion about how stable, at a variety of timescales, Pacific Island environments were in the absence (or presence) of humans. John Flenley has proposed that archaeological dates significantly underestimate the times of initial human arrival on many Pacific Islands, the most accurate estimates of which come from palynological analyses. This paper offers some support to this view, from consideration of reef‐growth hiatuses in Fiji, yet doubts that initial human arrivals were coincident with ecological crises. There is considerable evidence that natural climate changes, particularly short‐term ones, caused major ecological and environmental disruptions on Pacific Islands, during both their pre‐ and post‐settlement histories, and that human arrival was marked in most cases by only marginal disruptions.     

Kadavu Island, Fiji: Fluvial Studies of a Volcanic Island in the Humid Tropical South Pacific

This paper examines features of drainage and stream channel form and process on the mountainous volcanic island of Kadavu in the humid tropical South Pacific, and interprets the findings in relation to island environmental characteristics such as geology, regolith soils, topography, vegetation and climate. At island and sub-island scales, drainage patterns are linked to the geographical arrangement and topography of the late Cenozoic volcanoes. Stream channel and bedload characteristics demonstrate the importance of both deep saprolite weathering profiles for supplying sediment into the fluvial system, and the high energy nature of the fluvial transport regimes. Landscape chemical denudation is estimated at 50-85 mm per 1,000 years from baseflow solute concentrations converted from water conductivity readings.
Relative tectonic and sea-level stability during the late Holocene and the largely undisturbed rainforest and savanna vegetation on the island suggest that climatic factors control rates of fluvial processes on Kadavu. Streamflow records show particularly that tropical storms can have a big impact. The effects of possible increasing numbers of cyclones in the South Pacific and human vegetation disturbance on Kadavu are considered.     

The new blackbirds? Vanuatu guestworkers in New Zealand

An agricultural guestworker scheme for Pacific island states began in New Zealand in 2007 to remedy domestic agricultural labour shortages. Vanuatu was one of the first countries to take advantage of the scheme. After a pilot venture in 2007 greater numbers of workers were recruited in 2008. In Tanna, the recruits, though mainly male, represented a cross‐section of the population. Their objectives were income generation for education fees, house building and eventually small business development. Early returnees acquired significant capital and met some of these objectives. The scheme has benefited both countries and the first generation of guestworkers.     

Who Is “Forest‐Dependent”? Capturing Local Variation in Forest‐Product Sale,Eastern Honduras

How researchers describe groups living within or near the world's tropical rain forests has important implications for how and why these groups are targeted for assistance by conservation and development organizations. This article explores how data about market behavior can be used to assess one aspect of forest peoples’ livelihoods: their “dependence” on forest resources as a source of market income. With the intent of revealing the importance of methodology to how we describe forest peoples’ livelihoods, I draw from a multiyear survey of market activity among the Tawahka Sumu of Honduras and distinguish nested measures of the Tawahkas’ engagement in forest‐product sale. Results indicate that whether or not the Tawahka —or any forest group — can be considered financially “dependent” on forest resources depends on the spatial and temporal scales at which data are aggregated. As a group, the Tawahka earned 18 percent of total market income from forest‐product sale, but their group profile masked a high degree of heterogeneity at the village and household level. Similarly, multiyear data indicated that while group‐level generalizations adhere from year to year, they belie considerable change in households’ market behavior across years. I discuss three ways in which the findings are relevant to the theory and practice of conservation and development in the humid tropics. I emphasize the importance of spatial scale in interventions, how market‐oriented conservation schemes can benefit from a broader conceptualization of the economic context in which forest‐product sale occurs, and how longitudinal analysis can reveal the dynamism of forest peoples’ livelihoods.