Migrants vers la ville communautés translocales et le mythe du retour au Vanuatu : le cas de Paama

Abstract

Urbanization in Vanuatu has increased rapidly in recent decades. Circular mobility has gradually given way to urban permanence as second and third generations grow up in urban centres. Migrants from the small outer island of Paama are numerically signiicant in the capital Port Vila with more Paamese living there than in their 'home' island. Few have returned to Paama, despite a substantial proportion of all generations professing intentions to do so, 'one day', after other goals had been realised, while maintaining economic and social ties with island residents. Constraints to return included secure urban employment and housing, access to education and health services, the location of kin, fear of sorcery and intermarriage with people from other islands, while few welcomed the challenges of returning to more subsistence-oriented livelihoods and lifestyles. hose who had returned to Paama were mainly individuals with particular social status in island life, rather than people seeking to develop economic opportunities, on an island where employment and other economic activities are scarce, and carrying capacity limited.

The genomic landscape of contemporary western Remote Oceanians

“…We also explored the direction of the inferred migrations, and found that both female and male migrations mainly occurred from the northernmost and southernmost islands towards the center of the archipelago (Fig. 3 C ), where Port Vila – the largest city – has developed (37).…”

Contracting Margins? Liquid International Migration in the Pacific

“…While the diversity of migration possibilities has increased, the legal rights and entitlements of Pacific island migrants have tended to decline -including the right to stay -exemplifying a new stratification and inequality within migration. Foreign migrants are all too likely to be seen as foreign workers on temporary visas, easily able to be replaced and removed and denied citizenship and residential status: a new precarity (Underhill and Rimmer, 2015;Petrou and Connell, 2017). Temporary agricultural workers are denied permanency but encouraged to return every year, in order to take advantage of their acquired skills, becoming "permanently temporary" and constantly floating, a situation that does nothing for equity, challenges the etymology of "guest" workers and may enhance domestic problems.…”

“…Towns and cities have grown rapidly in the years since independence, and most urban residents are in Melanesian cities and towns. Urban birth rates are high, and a growing proportion of urban residents are now of a second or higher generation with few ties to "home" areas and limited ability and will to return (Petrou and Connell, 2017). Population densities are highest in capital cities despite the active discouragement of urban migration and residence.…”

“…Over generations migrants are well placed to contribute to development at home through their familiarity with needs, and remittances contribute both directly and indirectly to welfare and human capital formation. Remittances, whether from more or less permanent migrants, especially overseas, or from seasonal workers, are of enormous and growing importance, even in the smaller islands of Melanesia, where they have contributed to the emergence of a "singaut economy" (Rasmussen, 2015;Hayes, 1993;Wilson, 2013;Petrou and Connell, 2017). Both unskilled and skilled migrants sustain remittance levels at high levels, over long time periods, often more than twenty years, while skilled migrants may also provide advice ("social remittances") on education, health and other matters (Connell and Brown, 2004;Brown and Connell, 2015).…”

Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in a Telecoupled World: Insights From Vanuatu

“…The situation is different for internal migration. Younger people in particular migrate to the economic centers of the country, as these places offer, for example, more diverse educational or employment opportunities than the islands of Torba (Petrou and Connell, 2017). There is a more or less regular exchange of money and goods such as clothing, technical appliances or food between the people who have left and the families who have stayed behind.…”