Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2007

Research in Action

Pacific transnationalism in crisis

When is the movement of people and goods across international borders called globalisation and when is it transnationalism - and why does it matter?

Dr Helen Lee, front left, with her
research team - at rear Rebecca
Tauali’I and Dr Steve Francis;
back row (from left), Christina Latu,
Maopa Latu, Toakase Lavaka;
front row Dr Lee and Meliame Fifita.

While scholars, governments and institutions sometimes get confused about where one ends and the other begins, what it means in the Pacific was clearly evident when international Pacific specialists convened in Melbourne late last year to consider the implications of Pacific transnationalism.

Among 50 scholars from diverse spheres of interest, there was common understanding of the term - as one aspect of globalisation, defining the movement of people, goods, ideas, and money to and from Pacific island nations and their overseas diasporas. (The diasporas are based primarily in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.)

They also shared a common perspective on its relevance: that national borders may blur, but the spirit and practices of transnationalism are critical to the economic and cultural survival of most Pacific states.

With Pacific emigration diminishing and diasporas apparently weakening their ties to their home countries, this migrant-based form of transnationalism may also disappear. The nub of the issue is, according to conference convenor, La Trobe University anthropologist Dr Helen Lee, that many Pacific island nations are heavily dependent on remittances from emigrant islanders in the ‘big three’ host countries - remittances which, on current trends, are ‘highly likely’ to dry up.

According to Dr Lee, whose ARCfunded project, Pacific Futures and Second Generation Transnationalism, deals specifically with this issue in Tonga (see story page 10), second-generation islanders in many overseas diasporas are showing all the signs of homeland weariness - resenting their parents’ financial obligations to their home communities, and unwilling to inherit the same debt.

‘The same kind of processes are occurring right across the different migrant populations, with younger people growing up feeling resentful about remittances because they’ve gone without while their parents have channelled significant portions of their income back to their home islands,’ Dr Lee says.

‘These younger people have been raised in Australia, New Zealand and America, they have individualistic values, they want to accumulate wealth, not give it all away; and some of them feel alienated from their homelands in the sense that they may not have language and cultural skills, so they’re not fully recognised as authentically Samoan, Tongan or whatever. A lot of issues discourage them from being actively involved.’

If second and third generation migrant islanders do disinherit their traditional obligations the implications for their homelands are huge.

At stake potentially are the island economies of Tonga, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, and the Cook Islands, and the cultural coherence of the overseas diasporas themselves - at least partly held together abroad by their mutual obligations.

‘What’s going to happen in the future?’ asks Dr Lee. ‘There was quite a lot of talk at the conference about the fact that these remittances are highly likely to decline because of the weaker transnational ties of the second generation, and the fact that governments and the countries themselves are not really thinking about this.

‘Because of the tightening of immigration policies it’s much harder to migrate out of these countries now, so the flow of new migrants is diminishing, yet there’s an expectation that remittances will keep at the same level, or even increase. That’s just going to be impossible.’

These and other issues threatening Pacific states acquired timely poignancy during the conference against a backdrop of daily media broadcasts showing Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa in flames: riot-based fires also fuelled, arguably, by fears for the island’s economic future.

As convenor, Dr Lee had to allocate time during the conference for the spontaneous groundswell of homeland-oriented empathy - the well-being of Tongans at home clearly paramount on an agenda already bristling with survival issues.

Yet this heart-felt empathy is the very link in the diasporic chain that appears to be fraying. With Tongans (as with most Pacific peoples), crises at home tend to generate instantaneous fund-raising within the diaspora - whether or not people can afford it or continue to sustain it.

‘People tend to run out to the nearest ATM and withdraw as much money as they can to donate - and often go hungry as a consequence,’ Dr Lee says.

While crisis-generated fund-raising illustrates the transnationalist dynamic, it also underscores growing concerns about the capacity of diasporas to continue providing long-term financial support.

A corollary concern (according to Dr Lee an issue that’s barely on the radar of governments and inter-governmental institutions like the World Bank), is how weakened these Pacific communities will be at both ends if this financial support dries up.

‘Worst case scenario is those countries’ economies will collapse, and that’s been canvassed since the mid-80s when people first started to mention this,’ says Dr Lee.

‘It’s an issue that’s just been swept under the carpet but now, as that first wave of migrants from the late 60s and 70s are getting older and less able to send remittances, people are starting to think about what’s going to happen ... and it’s not looking good.’

The Tongan crisis may even prove a litmus test for the future of Pacific transnationalism, Dr Lee says.

‘It will be very interesting to see what happens with the second generation. This could spark them to suddenly become more interested in what’s going on in Tonga and to get more involved - or they could become more alienated.’