Planned relocation and everyday agency in low‐lying coastal villages in Fiji

McMichael, Celia; Katonivualiku, Manasa; Powell, Teresia

doi:10.1111/geoj.12312

Cited by 47 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Cultural aspects such as Fenua in Tuvalu (Stratford et al 2013 ) and Vanua in Fiji (Williksen‐Bakker 1990 ) sit at the core of Pacific Island culture to relate people, their societies, and their identities to nature, land, and natural resources, intertwining with people’s mental health and wellbeing. Relocation and migration can therefore have substantial mental health and wellbeing impacts though the loss of place attachment, ancestral connections, and identities, which in turn can lead to eroded belief systems, family ties, and local and cultural knowledges (Stratford et al 2013 , McMichael et al 2019 , Latai-Niusulu et al 2020 , Singh et al 2020 ). The mental health and wellbeing effects of forced migration—and subsequent loss of land, culture, and identity—were demonstrated among the Banabans forcibly relocated to Fiji during colonial times (Tabucanon 2012 ).…”

Section: Mental Health and Wellbeing In Sids Under Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

A review of mental health and wellbeing under climate change in small island developing states (SIDS)

Kelman

Ayeb‐Karlsson

Rose-Clarke

et al. 2021

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Small island developing states (SIDS) are often at the forefront of climate change impacts, including those related to health, but information on mental health and wellbeing is typically underreported. To help address this research lacuna, this paper reviews research about mental health and wellbeing under climate change in SIDS. Due to major differences in the literature’s methodologies, results, and analyses, the method is an overview and qualitative evidence synthesis of peer-reviewed publications. The findings show that mental health and wellbeing in the context of climate change have yet to feature prominently and systematically in research covering SIDS. It seems likely that major adverse mental health and wellbeing impacts linked to climate change impacts will affect SIDS peoples. Similar outcomes might also emerge when discussing climate change related situations, scenarios, and responses, irrespective of what has actually happened thus far due to climate change. In the context of inadequate health systems and stigmatisation of mental health diagnoses and treatments, as tends to occur globally, climate change narratives might present an opening for conversations about addressing mental health and wellbeing issues for SIDS.

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Section: Mental Health and Wellbeing In Sids Under Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

A review of mental health and wellbeing under climate change in small island developing states (SIDS)

Kelman

Ayeb‐Karlsson

Rose-Clarke

et al. 2021

Environ. Res. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Likewise, human response patterns to these physical changes are equally nonlinear and may be far less predictable than simplistic models of inundation and reactive migration imply. As can be seen today across island nations, cultural practices define the adaptive response of coastal communities, which can result in polarized agendas, such as the planned relocation programs in Fiji ( 38 ) versus the climate-migration resistance seen in Tuvalu ( 34 ). It is perhaps unlikely that coastal reorganization in coming centuries will lead to new resource availability on scales capable of supporting entire communities, as found on Scilly for past millennia.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear landscape and cultural response to sea-level rise

et al. 2020

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Rising sea levels have been associated with human migration and behavioral shifts throughout prehistory, often with an emphasis on landscape submergence and consequent societal collapse. However, the assumption that future sea-level rise will drive similar adaptive responses is overly simplistic. While the change from land to sea represents a dramatic and permanent shift for preexisting human populations, the process of change is driven by a complex set of physical and cultural processes with long transitional phases of landscape and socioeconomic change. Here, we use reconstructions of prehistoric sea-level rise, paleogeographies, terrestrial landscape change, and human population dynamics to show how the gradual inundation of an island archipelago resulted in decidedly nonlinear landscape and cultural responses to rising sea levels. Interpretation of past and future responses to sea-level change requires a better understanding of local physical and societal contexts to assess plausible human response patterns in the future.

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“…They are coming up because the sea is underneath. When we dig a little bit we see the sea‐water” (McMichael et al, 2019, p. 6). Gray et al (2014) found that residents of Tralee Bay in southwest Ireland and the Outer Hebrides in Scotland predominantly expressed concerns about SLR in terms of loss of land and erosion affecting coastal roads and infrastructure.…”

Section: Spatial Perspectives: Vertical Rise and Horizontal Encroachmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal ways of knowing sea level rise: Bringing together multiple perspectives

McMichael

Kothari

McNamara

et al. 2021

WIREs Climate Change

Self Cite

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Sea level rise presents risks to ecosystems, populations, and infrastructure in low‐lying areas. This article considers diverse ways of knowing, understanding, and experiencing these risks. It explores differences and connections between knowledge produced through the technological methods of scientific research and that which emerges through the experiences and insights of local people. For example, while scientific assessments measure and forecast, among other things, the height and rate of vertical change in the sea level using instruments such as tide gauges and radar‐firing satellites, for local populations sea level rise is largely perceived and knowable through everyday processes and lived experiences of coastal changes as sea waters encroach onto the land. The review article reveals this diversity of knowledge and how it is produced. It considers how these different forms of knowledge might coalesce in ways that can more effectively inform understandings of, and responses to, the varied effects of sea level rise. Focusing specifically on spatial and temporal understandings of sea level rise—as the vertical rise of sea levels and inward encroachment of sea water, and timescales from the everyday to the decadal and centennial—this article concludes by arguing for the importance of integrating scientific measurement and modeling with local knowledge. It suggests that local and Indigenous knowledge should not merely represent an enrichment of scientific facts, but rather that bringing together local/Indigenous and scientific knowledge can provide significant ways of knowing and sensing the world that can build the resilience of social‐ecological systems. This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Perceptions of Climate Change

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Planned relocation and everyday agency in low‐lying coastal villages in Fiji

Cited by 47 publications

References 54 publications

A review of mental health and wellbeing under climate change in small island developing states (SIDS)

A review of mental health and wellbeing under climate change in small island developing states (SIDS)

Nonlinear landscape and cultural response to sea-level rise

Spatial and temporal ways of knowing sea level rise: Bringing together multiple perspectives

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