Acclimatising to Higher Ground

Life for people on atolls is hard, affected by droughts, rough seas and other adverse climatic conditions, and now, rise in sea level threatens their very inhabitance. No wonder kinship is the foundation of atoll societies, traditional and modern! This book presents a multidisciplinary, retrospective analysis of a Pacific Atoll People living in several countries but held together as a diaspora through notions of kinship.

The People have ancestral, cultural, social and continuing residential connections with Nikunau Atoll, at the centre of the Pacific Ocean and once a Cinderella of the British Empire. The analysis explicates their present diasporic circumstances and the pathways through which these arose historically. The intention is to provide a basis for better prospects for succeeding generations from a critical, better-informed standpoint.

The analysis relies on the partisan stance of the author, whose kinship ties with I-Nikunau (= people who identify with Nikunau) are affinal, and his 30-year immersion among the People in question. In addition, a large quantity of literature sources and other secondary data are woven into the analysis, as situations and events are grappled with, articulated, interpreted and written into the book.

The circumstances are analysed under 14 themes, namely, geographical, demographical, economic, environmental, cultural, societal, etc. The analysis should stir the waters of recent research about Nikunau and Kiribati, much of it concerned with environmental changes making uninhabitable Nikunau, Tarawa and other atolls where I-Nikunau reside, and imagining their resettlement on higher ground, for example, New Zealand, where several diasporic communities exist already.

This recent research refers frequently to the social, cultural and economic matters covered in this book, indicating how relevant and important these matters are to the future of I-Nikunau and I-Kiribati. Furthermore, this relevance and importance may apply to the future of other peoples still inhabiting the world's atolls and facing whatever challenges this future may bring, climate-related and otherwise.

Contents

I INTRODUCTION

1 Research Approach

II I-NIKUNAU IN THE PRESENT

2 On Nikunau Atoll
3 On (South) Tarawa
4 Beyond Kiribati

III RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF I-NIKUNAU AND INTERPRETATION OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES

5 Geographical Circumstances (te mauri)
6 Demographical Circumstances (te mauri)
7 Economic Circumstances (te tabomoa)
8 Environmental Circumstances (te mauri)
9 Biological Circumstances (te mauri)
10 Nutritional and Corporeal Circumstances (te mauri)
11 Political Circumstances (te raoi)
12 Spiritual Circumstances (te raoi)
13 Educational Circumstances (te mauri)
14 Social Circumstances (te mauri ao te raoi)
15 Organisational Circumstances (te raoi)
16 Distributional Circumstances (te tabomoa)
17 Cultural Circumstances (te raoi)
18 Societal Circumstances (te mauri ao te raoi)

IV CONCLUSION
References