Translocal livelihoods, urban agriculture, and disaster relief for urban migrants and rural kin in Vanuatu

Keywords: development; translocality; food; disasters
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 23

Abstract

This paper examines how long-term migration and disaster evacuations have shaped traditional foodways in the Melanesian island country of Vanuatu. It presents a case study of urban agriculture, food and water mutual aid in disaster relief, and translocal food distribution in the city of Port Vila. Alternatives to conventional economic indicators such as gross domestic product are on the rise in Oceania, notably the Vanuatu government’s mainstreaming of traditional economy discourse that emphasizes traditional Melanesian livelihoods. This article advances an argument that cities also have traditional production, exchange, and consumption. We argue this through the concept of translocality, which allows us to see how not only people and materials but also ideas and practices travel from place to place and become embedded in multiple places. We draw together three lines of thought to form this argument: the village mode of production, diverse economies, and translocality. Data come from the authors’ fieldwork to support and research migrant livelihoods in the city of Port Vila, Vanuatu from 2017 to 2020. The case study documents surveys of agrobiodiversity in 27 urban backyards; a community-based mutual aid network to distribute food from urban to rural kin; and urban agriculture responses to disaster evacuations and COVID-19-related unemployment. This study reveals how urban places are nodes for generating and channeling traditional forms of economy for migrants, for example by noting how urban agriculture is practiced as a way to plan for future migrations of rural kin. Conclusions address the significance of intertwined livelihood practices for resilience.