Are we home yet? Paamese migration and urbanisation a generation on

Abstract

This research considers socio-economic continuity and change in urbanisation and internal migration from the island of Paama, to Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila. Data were collected from 90 households on Paama, and 74 households in Vila, and compared with parallel data collected a generation earlier in 1982-3. On Paama, rural life had changed; subsistence agriculture was less crucial, trade stores were more common, new technology was available, and monetisation had increased, but population was stable. Livelihood activities were similar to those of the early 1980s, circular migration remained minimal, household characteristics influencing mobility were notably similar, return migration was rare, and migrants in Vila continued to participate in the translocal Paamese community. By 2011 gendered mobility norms had altered; women were migrating with greater independence than in the past, and the mobility rationales of men and women had begun to converge. In Port Vila, urban commitment was increasingly evident; migrants had been living in town for longer periods than a generation earlier, the second generation accounted for a considerable proportion of the urban population, and there was widespread recognition of the difficulties associated with return to Paama after an extended absence. However, there was no evidence that first generation migrants were any less committed to town residence than the second generation. New forms of sociality had emerged; social networks had expanded to include workmates and neighbours, and there was a tentative emergence of class relationships. Nonetheless, for the majority of Paamese migrants, kin continued to be the basis of the most important social networks. Despite the tendency of longitudinal research to focus on superficial visual change therefore, continuity of the fundamental organising principles of Paamese life, centred on kinship and an ‘island home’, were significantly more important for urban and rural life and livelihoods.