Silver linings around dark clouds: Tourism, Covid‐19 and a return to traditional values, villages and the vanua

Abstract

The global pandemic has adversely affected tourism globally, particularly in small island states heavily dependent on tourism. The closure of borders to regular flights for over a year in places such as Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands and Vanuatu, where this research was undertaken, has resulted in massive job losses. Many tourism employees have left the once‐bustling tourist hubs, returning to villages and family settlements. Such clear urban to rural migration behaviours do not dominate movement patterns in the Pacific, but are an important and enduring strategy when shocks strike. In the case of the pandemic‐induced migration to villages, former tourism workers have had to engage in a complicated process of adapting to the communal setting, employing new – as well as traditional – strategies to sustain a livelihood. Thus, this paper will discuss how the pandemic has influenced return migration patterns in the Pacific, and the implications of this shift. Findings suggest that, despite their financial struggles, people have adapted to life in their ancestral homes by rekindling their relationships with kin and increasing their engagement on their customary land. They have relearned about traditional Indigenous knowledge, diversified their skills and reconnected with their social and ecological systems. This spiritual homecoming observed in the Pacific ultimately shows that there can be silver linings to the dark clouds of the current disorder.

Traditional knowledge for climate resilience in the Pacific Islands

“…In the last decade, there has been a revival of traditional knowledge in the Pacific Islands and a growing acknowledgement of both its utility and cultural acceptability (Kitolelei et al, 2021; Korovulavula et al, 2020; Tui & Fakhruddin, 2022; Wilson & Forsyth, 2018; Winter et al, 2020). In addition, the experience of COVID‐19 led many Pacific peoples to return to their rural roots where they learned to re‐value traditional knowledges and practices (Iese, Wairiu, et al, 2021; Movono et al, 2022).…”

“…Other tools were commonly deployed following an extreme event that impacted the supply of key goods and services; such tools include communal work, preserved today in practices like the Fijian solesolevaki , and the periodic use of taboos on accessing particular places and/or utilizing their resources in order to allow the supply of these to recover (Movono & Becken, 2018; Robertson et al, 2020). Recent research shows that urban–rural migration driven by COVID‐19 in the Pacific Islands has led to an improved understanding and use of TK for environmental management among many Pacific Island peoples (Iese, Wairiu, et al, 2021; Movono et al, 2022).…”

Pacific perspectives on aid and development

“…Remittances from Pacific migrants and the diaspora make a very significant contribution to island state economies and the well‐being of families. In addition, during the COVID‐19 pandemic, many people in locations all over the Pacific did remarkably well to feed themselves, create alternative livelihoods, and maintain reasonable levels of well‐being during long periods of border closures (Movono et al., 2022). A great deal of self‐directed development has occurred.…”

Analysis of Spatial Patterns and Socioeconomic Activities of Urbanized Rural Areas in Fujian Province, China

“…For example, the villagers in the Kaliabu village in Indonesia could increase their incomes by providing online logo design services to international customers [23]. Other non-agricultural economic activities, such as tourism [24][25][26], E-commerce [27,28], and rural enterprises [13,29,30],…”