Vanuatu

"This report contains a brief of the (a) field trip to Kumi village and Nataleira and (b) lessons and experiences shared between community reps, Fisheries officials and JICA representatives from Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. The field trip was on Tuesday (11th December 2013) and the meeting was held as part of the FLMMA Annual Lessons sharing in Colo-i-Suva, Fiji,  on the 12th of December.

Sharing was on three main themes in relation to natural resource management: Alternative Livelihoods, Governance and Reef restocking. Although there were a lot of similarities such as ‘various alternative livelihood inititatives’, ‘restocking of near depleted marine resource’, ‘community engagement and empowerment’ and ‘adaptation of traditional skills and knowledge’. There were also some notable differences such as ‘lack of traditional marine tenure in Tonga’,  ‘the FLMMA network which networks and strengthens community efforts’.
Overall, there were lots of lessons to share but little opportunities for it, which could really enhance locally managed efforts for sustainable natural resource management."

Pat Kirch’s work throughout Oceania has been driven by the idea that islands lend themselves especially well to comparative analysis. Recently, Kirch has argued that the most elaborate forms of Oceanic socio-political hierarchy, ideological control, and agricultural intensification evolved in the Hawaiian archipelago, resulting in the emergence of archaic states. In Vanuatu, in contrast, elite power was much less institutionalized, and nothing state-like had emerged in the archipelago at the time of European contact. Starting from two very different forms of social organization, the colonial and post-colonial histories of Vanuatu and Hawai‘i are markedly different as well. Archaeology has a useful role to play for understanding why this might be, especially since it can provide a perspective that reaches beyond the limited documentary sources available for people living on the peripheries of state power in the modern world. Materials from agents of the state living in non-state space, and inmates in a state institution are compared to explore the interpretive potential of a common thread of behavior, termed “counterpower”.

"The melanesian archipelago of Vanuatu is made up of a multitude of islands. One of them, located in the North East is Pentecost Island. On this island, the activities of women and those of men are very separate in everyday life as during the ceremonies. Dancing is also performed either by women or men, sometimes together, but in separate groups. This work is essentially devoted to the music of the women of the island. The first part, of an ethnographic nature, is named "The music of the life cycle". It describes the sociocultural context of the two societies in Nothern Pentecost and emphasizes on the musics which highlight the important moments in the life of its inhabitants. The ceremonies which include these musics are shown through the observations of the daily life.
The second part is devoted to the musical analysis which aim to discover the logics of this music without an explicit theory. The analysis is carried out by type of music related to sociocultural occasions. They are based on a corpus of 43 musical examples, which are transcribed and recorded on a CD enclosed with this work. The analysis is focused on the scales, the intervals, the structures and the rhythms.
The last part studies the role of music in ceremonial exchanges. A parallel is thus established between music and traditional money in the form of red braids, made exclusively by women. Music under the rule of copyright has an economical aspect which is also studies.
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Examining the use of no-confidence motions contributes to the global debate about democracy and illustrates of the diversity of approaches to democracy in our part of the world. Here, I look at three countries to demonstrate this: Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Tonga

Les représentations de l’Océanie, en sciences sociales comme en littérature, n’accordent généralement qu’un rôle très secondaire à ces personnages de coolies agricoles, petits commerçants ou commis de magasin, souvent relégués à l’arrière-plan des personnages faisant réellement sens. De l’histoire coloniale à celle des indépendances politiques (acquises par la plupart des îles du Pacifique Sud entre 1960 et 1980), le face-à-face entre l’Occident et les populations autochtones n’a laissé que peu de place aux communautés d’origine asiatique, pourtant présentes dans la région depuis la fin du 19ème siècle. L’anthropologie océaniste, longtemps dominée par une perspective patrimoniale, a surtout cherché à « comprendre les systèmes culturels et sociaux indigènes avant qu’ils ne soient balayés par les forces de la modernisation », en se repliant vers les régions les plus isolées à mesure qu’avançaient les frontières de l’expansion occidentale et la mondialisation des échanges (Barker, 1990). Enfin localement, les mouvements de « renaissance culturelle » ont inspiré, depuis les années 1970-1980, des discours politiques ou religieux sur la tradition qui mettent l’accent sur les liens entre un peuple et une terre, et construisent ainsi des identités nationales d’où la notion de diversité culturelle est largement absente. Ce livre éclaire donc une dimension relativement méconnue des sociétés océaniennes en donnant un premier aperçu des recherches en cours sur l’histoire et la situation contemporaine des diasporas asiatiques du Pacifique Sud. Les textes qu’il rassemble sont issus d’un atelier interdisciplinaire organisé dans le cadre des congrès biannuels du réseau Asie-IMASIE.

There is mounting evidence that Pacific communities will be seriously threatened by the impacts of climate change before the end of the century.  The policy community has rallied around migration as one strategy to meet this challenge.  This paper describes the effects of circular labour migration on a rural community in Vanuatu to argue that migration should not be seen as a panacea to the problems of climate change.  While population mobility can offer communities an opportunity to secure their livelihoods, it also contributes to the vulnerability of those ‘left behind’.  This paper describes three main ways migration-affected change can contribute to community vulnerability, namely that it leads to: a reliance on remittances as a source of income; a decrease in the viability of local institutions; and a shift away from subsistence agricultural production.  Based on this examination, this paper argues that unless labour mobility is used as part of a broader adaptation strategy, it will be unable to offer Pacific communities a viable way to abate the impacts of a changing climate.