Islands and Resilience: Experiences from the Pandemic Era 981199966X, 9789811999666

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SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development Can-Seng Ooi · Roxane de Waegh · Cristina Alexandra Trifan · Yunzi Zhang   Editors

Islands and Resilience Experiences from the Pandemic Era

SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development Series Editors Asit K. Biswas, Third World Centre for Water Management, Los Clubes, Atizapan, Mexico Cecilia Tortajada, Los Clubes, Atizapan, Mexico

The importance of sustainable development has been realized for at least 60 years, even though the vast majority of people erroneously think this concept originated with the Brundtland Commission report of 1987 on Our Common Future. In spite of at least six decades of existence, we only have some idea as to what is NOT sustainable development rather than what is. SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development identify outstanding cases of truly successful sustainable development from different parts of the world and analyze enabling environments in depth to understand why they became so successful. The case studies will come from the works of public sector, private sector and/or civil society. These analyses could be used in other parts of the world with appropriate modifications to account for different prevailing conditions, as well as text books in universities for graduate courses on this topic. The series of short monographs focuses on case studies of sustainable development bridging between environmental responsibility, social cohesion, and economic efficiency. Featuring compact volumes of 50 to 125 pages (approx. 20,000—70,000 words), the series covers a wide range of content—from professional to academic—related to sustainable development. Members of the Editorial Advisory Board: Mark Kramer, Founder and Managing Director, FSG, Boston, MA, USA Bernard Yeung, Dean, NUS Business School, Singapore.

Can-Seng Ooi  •  Roxane de Waegh Cristina Alexandra Trifan  •  Yunzi Zhang Editors

Islands and Resilience Experiences from the Pandemic Era

Editors Can-Seng Ooi School of Social Sciences University of Tasmania Hobart, TAS, Australia Cristina Alexandra Trifan School of Architecture and Cities University of Westminster London, UK

Roxane de Waegh Auckland University of Technology Auckland, New Zealand Yunzi Zhang Northern Marianas College Saipan, MP, USA

ISSN 2196-7830     ISSN 2196-7849 (electronic) SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development ISBN 978-981-19-9966-6    ISBN 978-981-19-9964-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword

This book focuses on islands and resilience. It was John Connell who suggested that the term ‘buoyancy’ may provide a particularly apt interpretation of resilience when considering the development prospects of small island states. He cites a former Cook Islands High Commissioner to New Zealand who stated: Microstates are like a canoe in the wide-open sea It can sail freely or be navigated with purpose It survives only if one has learned nature’s challenges However watch out for the wrath of the trickster giant Remember that canoe size matters not to safety For there will come a time when the waves are bigger Bigger than even the canoe to surely sink it because life Depends not on canoe size But on the magic of buoyancy (Jonassen 1999, cited in Connell, 2007: 116).

This book is written by a group of authors who, for the most part, connected with each other for the first time at the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers conference in 2021. Sharing research on islands spanning from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Sea, all were presenting virtually at sessions on the theme of Tourism-dependent islands and the pandemic: grey clouds but also silver linings. The group bonded over their shared interest in the myriad of ways in which people on islands, who were particularly isolated due to border closures and lockdowns associated with COVID-19, were adapting and coping with their circumstances. There was also a shared enthusiasm to take the ideas from the sessions forward and work on something beyond the conference. This book is the product of those sentiments. While we hail from different disciplinary backgrounds and offer a mixed bag of dynamic early career scholars combined with some seasoned academics, we all share a similar ethos. We seek to challenge both fatalistic and romanticised narratives of islands and islanders: they are neither idyllic dots of land occupied by people steeped in ancient traditions and living lives of blissful self-reliance, and neither can they be generalised as small, fragile, vulnerable and dependent. These ideas v

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present an incomplete picture of the situation, and thus, in this book we seek to demystify islands and islanders through tangible examples. In the book, we focus on the strengths and adaptive capacities of island peoples which have come to the fore in our research. As a number of eminent scholars have told us, it is not helpful to constantly view islands or their peoples through a deficit lens. For example, in Our Sea of Islands, the late, great, Dr Epeli Hau’ofa cleverly revealed the folly of narrow perceptions of small islands which conceptualise them as minute and vulnerable: … if we look at the myths, legends, and oral traditions, and the cosmologies of the peoples of Oceania, it becomes evident that… their universe comprised not only land surfaces, but the surrounding ocean as far as they could traverse and exploit it, the underworld with its fire-controlling and earth-shaking denizens, and the heavens above with their hierarchies of powerful gods and named stars and constellations that people could count on to guide their ways across the seas. Their world was anything but tiny (Hau’ofa, 1994: 152).

The agency of island peoples in acting with autonomy and determining their own futures  – rather than being victims of environmental catastrophes or geopolitical negotiations – needs to be central to our discussions of resilience. This is encapsulated in the banners of Pacific youth leaders against climate change: ‘We are not drowning. We are fighting’. However, it is also inappropriate to understand resilience as something that island peoples have to sort out for themselves. The reality is that external forces, including colonial rulers, are responsible for many of the challenges that islands continue to face, and thus it is appropriate that external connections and resources are drawn upon to help build resilience on islands. In any case, Islands and Resilience thus provides an antidote to negative conceptualisations of islands and the potential of their peoples. It is a little book with a lot of heart and soul. In it, you can learn what resilience really means in relation to islands (beyond simple ecological or economic understandings), find out about social inclusion on islands, how wellbeing is being promoted for island peoples, read about resistance as a sign of the agency of island peoples and reflect on how we need to move beyond closed island systems to examine connections if we are to fully understand island resilience. Each chapter is written by a collective. Writers from different islands and continents were assigned to chapters so that we could be inspired and learn from each other geographically, theoretically, and empirically. As the author list will attest, community practitioners have also made important contributions to this book. This has resulted in original and innovative analyses and results. This book is targeted at academic researchers, students and practitioners interested in community development, economic development, tourism, disaster response, community wellbeing, social justice, decolonisation and neoliberal governance in island communities. As many of the island economies examined are also developing island states, this volume is also relevant to scholars investigating less developed economies.

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Read on, and discover how island peoples have negotiated changes, adapted and sometimes transformed systems in the face of enormous challenges to better serve their needs and interests. Island peoples have shown great resilience, and we can learn from this going forward. Massey University Palmerston North, New Zealand

Regina Scheyvens

References Connell J (2007) Islands, idylls and the detours of development. Singap J Trop Geogr 28(2):116–135 Hau’ofa E (1994) Our sea of islands. Contemp Pac 6 (1):147–161

Acknowledgements

The coming together of this book follows a series of sessions convened by Professor Regina Scheyvens and Dr Api Movono at the 2021 Annual Royal Geographic Society conference. The discussions during these sessions sowed the seed for further engagement among a group of globally dispersed academics and practitioners who share an interest in a broad range of topics to do with the contemporary framing of Pacific Island societies. What has resulted are five chapters that bring together case studies and insights from many countries across the Pacific and other regions. Many of the chapters in this book are developed based on existing collaborations between country-based and regionally based researchers. This is deliberate and crucial in the book’s moral approach to promoting embedded learning and collaborative, interdisciplinary research. It ensures the legitimacy of our arguments through local voices, experiences, and insights. As such, the authors would like to first and foremost collectively thank the many respondents for offering their valuable time to participate in the various studies. Their insights fundamentally shaped the main arguments in the book. Behind the authors of the chapters, there are a myriad of people that supported and contributed to studies. To name a few, we would like to thank Mana Tereza and Mhoi Tata (Timor Leste); Tokilupe Latu and Dr Semisi Taumoepeau (Tonga); Pita Neihapi, Vasemaca Malverus, Abel Sami, Regina Ephraim, Douglas Koran (Vanuatu), and Marta Muslin (Indonesia). The different studies draw from various sources of funding, including research support from universities, from Royal Society Te Apārangi, and an ACIAR-funded project on community-based fisheries management (FIS-2020-172) for the work in Vanuatu in chapter “Social Inclusion and Resilience”.

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Contents

Situating Island Resilience��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1 Yunzi Zhang, Can-Seng Ooi, Gemma Sou, Dirk J. Steenbergen, and Cristina Alexandra Trifan  Social Inclusion and Resilience ������������������������������������������������������������������������  17 Roxane de Waegh, Jenny House, Agustinha Duarte, Mele Fonua, Dedy Martins, Jason Raubani, Lopeti Tufui, and Dirk J. Steenbergen Well-being and Resilience����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  35 Regina Scheyvens, Anne Hardy, Roxane de Waegh, and Cristina Alexandra Trifan Resilience and Resistance����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  53 Gemma Sou, Can-Seng Ooi, and Yunzi Zhang Wayfinding Resilience����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  65 Apisalome Movono, Can-Seng Ooi, Anne Hardy, Marta Muslin, and Stroma Cole

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Situating Island Resilience Yunzi Zhang, Can-Seng Ooi, Gemma Sou, Dirk J. Steenbergen, and Cristina Alexandra Trifan

Abstract  Resilience as a complex concept has been recognised and employed to strategise mitigation policies and processes during disruptive events. Island resilience in particular is used to frame islanders and their societies as vulnerable entities combating uncertainties with limited resources and capacities. On the one hand, public discourse on island nations tends to centre around victimhood amid disasters; on the other hand, islands are portrayed as peaceful and idyllic paradise during regular times. This opening chapter uses the term ‘imaginary’ to signify such discourses that construct one’s understanding of island societies. We first outline the conceptual framing around the evolution of resilience. Then we elaborate on four prominent ‘imaginaries’ of Small Island Developing States and island societies in general. By unpacking the term ‘imaginary’, we aim to expose the dominant discursive framing of island societies to elucidate constructive avenues for locally owned progress and development in an increasingly variable and glocalised world. Keywords  Resilience · Island imaginary · Neoliberalism · Island paradise · Small Island Developing States

Y. Zhang (*) Northern Marianas College, Saipan, MP, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.-S. Ooi School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia G. Sou University of Manchester, Manchester, UK D. J. Steenbergen University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia C. A. Trifan School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-S. Ooi et al. (eds.), Islands and Resilience, SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2_1

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Islands and island cultures have long captured the imagination of people and researchers, often framed as ‘frontiers’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘unlike the mainland’ and ‘isolated and insulated’ (Lockhart et al. 1993). Island environments are also romanticised as pristine and idyllic paradises. Islands across the globe, however, differ significantly in size, climate, ecology, political economy and sociocultural realities. Sociopolitical histories of islands have undergone unique transformations from peripheral tribal indigenous societies to participants and activists in global governance and trade. The United Nations (UN) recognises the administrative status of 58 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea. In addition to their colonial pasts still having prevailing impacts on their modern socio-economic structures (McLennan and Ulijaszek 2015), SIDS today are also positioned to be part of solving major challenges that humanity faces, particularly in maritime affairs. Their critical and leading roles in protecting biodiversity and marine resources (Chan 2018) are further emphasised in their active participation and contribution in international collaborations for the Blue Economy and maritime security issues (Voyer et al. 2018). The concepts of vulnerability and resilience have long been used to represent island societies and geographies. Despite their limited capacity to cope with climate change, for example, islands are disproportionately affected by shifts in weather patterns and rising sea levels (UN 2021). Latin America and the Caribbean are most impacted by life-threatening climate events (World Meteorological Organization 2021); the 2017 Hurricane Maria caused losses of around US$ 68.6 billion across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique and the US Virgin Islands (Alves 2021; Phipps 2017). The category five Hurricane Dorian in 2019 was the worst cyclone and natural disaster ever encountered in the Bahamas (World Meteorological Organisation 2019). Similarly, Cyclone Winston, the worst storm ever documented in the Southern Hemisphere, hit Fiji in 2016 and impacted 62% of the country’s population, displacing more than 130,000 people (The World Bank 2017). More recently, the volcanic eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai in early 2022 directly affected more than 100,000 people, cut off communication channels with and within Tonga for weeks and led to a thick blanket of ash that compromised access to clean drinking water and damaged crops worth US$ 17 million (Witze 2022). In need of aid from other countries, Tonga also encountered its first COVID-19 wave following relief ships arriving in the country (AFP 2022). Although the geographical remoteness of islands has in many cases helped island societies keep the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic at bay in 2020, their connectedness and interdependencies to the global community have meant that COVID-19 outbreaks were inevitable. Island nations commonly have inadequate healthcare systems, particularly in the Pacific (Carreon and Jackson 2022), and this has justified rapid responses in closing their borders to international travel. With limited external visitors, many island societies have been able to maintain their daily ways of life during the pandemic with curfews in place to prevent virus spread (Carreon and Doherty 2021). However, prolonged border closures have impacted

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the local island economies, especially for those dependent on inbound tourism (Browne 2022), such as Cook Islands and Fiji, where tourism accounts for nearly 70% of their GDPs. Generally perceived as dependent on external capital due to their limited natural resources, many island states were forced to open their borders in 2022 or earlier and ease restrictions to allow international tourism back (Fox and Major 2022; Panapasa 2021; McCulloch 2022) after almost 2  years of battling against the COVID-19 pandemic with closed borders. While the capacity for adaptation has been shown to be integral to the culture and lifestyles of island societies, the disruption from COVID-19 and increasing climate change impacts have meant individuals, families and/or communities are experiencing multidimensional impacts on livelihoods, including food security, financial security and social-ecological well-being. Understanding how these extra burdens have been dealt with, or not, reveals aspects of resilience in small island societies that challenge common contemporary framings of island-based rural development, disaster relief and natural resource management sectors. The collection of chapters in this book seeks to expose and challenge assumptions and simplistic generalisations on island societies and their resilience to external disruptions. By unpacking the term ‘imaginaries’, a concept used to represent Other places and cultures in ways that reflect and enable relations of power, this book exposes the dominant discursive framing of island societies to elucidate constructive avenues for locally owned progress and development in an increasingly variable and glocalised world. In this opening chapter, we first outline our conceptual framing around the evolution of resilience and examine this in the context of governance in small island societies. We then identify four prominent ‘imaginaries’ of island societies that are applied and perpetuated in both the development literature and in practice. These include framings of SIDS and their societies as (1) against ahistorical terms that ignore the severe impacts of colonial legacies, (2) passive and dependent on external assistance, (3) vulnerable to environmental and nonnatural exogenous shocks, and (4) isolated, homogenous and ‘romantically’ traditional. The rest of the book is divided into four chapters that delve deeper into each of these imaginaries and explore how such reductionist representations have affected the various dimensions of island resilience.

1 Resilience Resilience as a complex governance framework (Chandler 2014) has come to underpin various interdisciplinary mitigation strategies addressing climate change, disasters, political fragility and urban inequity. The conceptual roots of resilience, however, can be traced back to ecological research and early equilibrium perspectives on ecosystem function, which emphasised the ability of a system to absorb shocks so as to maintain overall function, i.e. maintaining a stable state. Folke (2006: 253) outlines this evolution of resilience within the context of systems

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thinking and shows how the concept evolved through multidisciplinary involvement to encompass aspects that concern ‘the capacity for renewal, reorganisation and development’. While equilibrium perspectives sought to control change, resilience perspectives take change for granted and shift emphasis to a social-ecological system’s ability to cope with and/or adapt to change, allowing for renewal and reorganisation, for example, adaptive capacity. The recognition of connectedness to and potential interference by influences external to a system is critical here as it adds layers of complexity to the function of systems. Parallels exist with current globalised sustainable development discourses when one considering the complexity embedded within the dynamics between human agency and environmental processes. Peoples’ coping capacity in the face of natural hazards, for example, determines the success of disaster response. As such, resilience has increasingly gained traction and is frequently used as a concept to steer policy and action in the sustainable development and disaster relief domain. To continue Folke’s (2006) argument, resilience is not simply about reducing the physical vulnerability of infrastructure in the built environment. This argument has advanced by recognising that resilience is not simply about reaching equilibrium and stability in order to avoid the impacts of hazards; but it is also the ability to live with hazard and to adjust to drastic changes. From this position, resilience goes beyond reconditioning the built environment and restoring income and health levels. As Campanella argues, it is often the ‘thick concatenations of social and cultural matter that endows a place with its defining essence and identity’. Political ecology and global environmental change research also incorporate adaptive capacity in the discussion of resilience. Being able to adjust to changing circumstances amid sociopolitical change requires developing new plans, taking new actions and modifying existing behaviours. Ultimately, to withstand and recover from disruptions is particularly necessary when it is not possible or wise to return to the way things were. In the resilience literature, ‘external problems or threats’ are commonly viewed as exogenous disruptions. Events like earthquakes and typhoons, for example, are framed as apolitical and ahistorical threats that determine how vulnerabilities are produced. This perspective, however, does not fully comprehend how social, political and economic processes shape disaster risk over time. Apolitical conceptions of such threats drive apolitical solutions rooted in technology and markets, cementing rather than challenging the status quo that may have caused the perceived vulnerabilities in the first place. It wrongfully obscures power relations and implies that islanders must accept their fate as vulnerable subjects, and further that maintaining resilience is the community and personal responsibility. In turn, one loses focus on the general governance structure that has been poorly institutionalised. This then may result in perpetual systematic inadequacy and deficient political leadership on the state level.

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2 Island Resilience Islands are conventionally and conveniently understood as ‘a reserve of non-modern modes of interdependence, relation and feedback’ (Chandler and Pugh 2021: 397) and hence are considered in need of resources such as self-organisation and survival in times of adversity and crisis (Humbert and Joseph 2019). This sets islands in direct contrast to the powerful mainlands that offer aid and guidance during and after crises and disaster. In the 2021 Glasgow COP26 climate summit, the foreign minister of Tuvalu filmed his speech standing in knee-deep ocean water to starkly demonstrate that the island nation is vulnerable to, if not at the forefront of, climate change (Handley 2021). Robinson (2020) argues that small island states that produce climate refugees migrating to the mainland have a heightening role in the global dialogue on cooperation to seek climate justice. Furthermore, the advocacy for small island resilience should not only position itself within the global context but also call for island-centered theories as a new framework. Specifically, small island states should reject complete dependency on information know-how produced in the developed world and become proactive knowledge producers in research and public discourse (Robinson 2020, see chapter “Resilience and Resistance”). Indigenous island cultures generally embody multifaceted connections between local, regional and global practicalities in building resilience capacity (see chapter “Wayfinding Resilience”). Because small islands must combat the influences of climate change, endogenous and proactive actions form the primary frontline of resilience (Trundle et  al. 2019). In this process, it is believed that local community efforts should be highlighted and cherished. Trundle et  al. (2019) promote community-­oriented knowledge as a base to strengthen the sustainability of Pacific islands. Also, kinship networks, subsistence farming and community solidarity are suggested to be key components in resilience mechanisms for small islands in the Pacific (Ratuva 2021). While internal capacities continue to be called upon in resilience literature, not all studies agree that endogenous systems, in silos, are effective in combating the compound threats of exogenous disruptions. Weaver (2016) suggests that small islands are, sometimes mistakenly, understood as ambiguously marginalised states surrounded by geopolitical tensions and monolithic economic structures. Due to their heavy reliance on the tourism economy, small island resilience in the Caribbean is challenged by management deficiencies, lack of creativity of the private sector, dependency on grants and limited local access to tourism benefits. These lingering impacts prevent small islands from leveraging resources from within. In recent years, it has been observed that certain island states have emerged to be regional powers in international politics, such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea protecting their own strategic interests amid the intensified influences of Australia, New Zealand and China in the South Pacific (Wallis 2017). However, questions still remain regarding whether islands are indeed metamorphic and able to form long-term resilience.

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3 Governing Resilience Throughout this book, we understand resilience as a complex concept rather than a simple step of going back to old established systems or aspiring a ‘stable state’. However, within contemporary development and conservation practices, there is a tendency to frame resilience as the ability to return to a previous form of equilibrium and stability. This tendency is entrenched in dominant neoliberal forms of governance that focus on limiting government expenditures, maximising individual responsibility and the privatisation of industries and promoting the value of free-­ market competition for economic prosperity. In recognising that disruptions are part of the human condition, it is necessary that people have the capacity to learn, adapt to and make change during ongoing disruptive events. Much of the existing development literature primarily frames resilience as a state agenda (Krüger 2019), omitting the participatory and leadership capacities of local communities and individuals. This result is a state-centric and top-down approach that does not reflect how populations on the ground intuitively define, process and actualise resilience (Humbert and Joseph 2019). There appears to be a dominant ‘universalised’ conception of resilience accepted by governments at different levels. However, such an idea is largely driven by Euro-centric values and agendas and is not necessarily translatable to all contexts (Bourbeau and Ryan 2018; Wandji 2019). Risk can be managed by embracing new information, new experiences and progress made in science and technology. This willingness to change and adapt as individuals and as social groups is fundamental to progress. In considering this, resilience-thinking frames policy failure not as a lost opportunity but as a learning one that drives systemic progress in a complex world. Failure enables policymakers to learn from the revelation of these concrete and emergent interconnections. In spaces where top-down directives are absent, for example, collective solutions are often jointly determined by members of the community (see chapters “Social Inclusion and Resilience” and “Well-­being and Resilience”). Ironically, in contrast to interpretations of neoliberalism theory, neoliberal policy has evolved into highly regulatory and interventionist regimes. Neoliberal approaches have sought to govern through the instrumental use of social engineering with regulatory market techniques. In that, resilience has come to heavily emphasise individual preparedness, making informed decisions, understanding our roles and responsibility and showing adaptability to our situation and being able to get backup when things go wrong. New forms of power and governmentality emerge as a result that works from a distance through a liberal rationality of governance. Liberal, in this context, refers to the principle of respecting the individual, and neoliberalism pushes the focus on the individual to the limit. The liberal logic is then not about constant supervision and surveillance, instead the rationality of liberal government stresses the need to respect the freedom of economic processes through the deliberate self-limiting of government. Liberal rule relies on the private sphere

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and civil society as a way to disguise the imposition of market discipline as an exercise in freedom. In other words, neoliberalism works through the social production of freedom and the management and organisation of the conditions in which one can be free. Neoliberal ideas remain attractive in the mainstream as they seemingly bestow the individual with personal freedom and personal responsibility. Bureaucracy and the social structures of modern society are seen as hindrance to personal development and actualisation. Besides that, systems become cumbersome and obstructionist to efficient and effective social outcomes in society, as we experience the failures of health care, social housing and the like (see chapter “Social Inclusion and Resilience”). So instead, solutions to social and personal problems must come from the ground-up. Persons and groups at the ground level are in a better position to know their problems and also to find relevant and appropriate solutions. Resilience is part of this ground-up idea. This has been translated to the global level by countries being treated as individual entities that must solve their own challenges and grab new opportunities (see chapter “Resilience and Resistance”). Set in this context, resilience seems to be used as a conceptual frame in which individuals and/or communities, as part of the neoliberal regime, determine their own future after disruptive challenges. Such framing deflects responsibility for failed policies to the inevitable imperfections of established market mechanisms. In the case of SIDS, tourism is often considered a powerful tool for poverty reduction, but neoliberal tourism policies primarily aim at market expansion and tourism revenue growth without comprehensively understanding the core socio-economic needs of island communities (Scheyvens and Momsen 2006). For example, Scher (2010) has demonstrated that the traditional Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago is marketed as a commercial product to tourists, and the success of the local tourism is mainly measured based on monetary gains from the festivity. When its purpose is to maintain the economic flow and political governance, the authenticity of this cultural event and its relevance to the local heritage become questionable. Unfortunately, similar situations have been observed in other tourism-dependent island communities, where commercial success and market growth are key developmental indicators and a reductionist approach is favourably adopted to achieve community prosperity.

4 Island Imaginaries Islands and their societies are often framed and understood through discursive constructs that reproduce essentialist and reductive narratives. These constructs directly inform our understanding of the way disasters impact people and their way of life. As such, they directly inform resilience policies and programmes across small islands. In this book, we use the term ‘imaginary’ to signify the discursive constructs which shape the public and policymakers’ consciousness of island societies. Edward Said refers to the geographic imaginary as ‘how meaning is ascribed to

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physical spaces, how knowledge about these places is produced, and how these representations enable particular activities and interventions to take place within them’ (in: Kothari and Arnall 2017: 985). Imaginaries about islands often represent the Western, and/or colonial, ideas about islands. It has been argued that islands are Orientalised as exotic and pristine paradise getaways that are uninhabited and homogenous (Yee 2015). This has, for example, enabled and justified: (1) the rapid development of tourism we see across small islands today (Kothari and Wilkinson 2010); (2) the extraction of islands’ natural resources (Edwards 2014); (3) the eviction of entire island populations to install American satellite systems; and (4) the utilisation of islands as experimental spaces to test nuclear weapons (Gugganig 2021), medicines (López 2008) and technologies and policies for energy systems (Laurent et al. 2021). On the other hand, by overly emphasising island resilience in terms of community interests, one runs the risk of magnifying the imagination by the West of islands merely being communal, collectivist and homogenous entities. It perpetuates false notions that individual islanders may be less independent or innovative, and their personalities uncompetitive and docile. It also overlooks that islands are often adaptive and agile to sudden external disruptions with local and native knowledge and capacities. Policies and bodies of scholarship around disaster management commonly frame islands as being on the ‘front lines’ of climate change impacts (Kelman and West 2009), whereby islands have become the proverbial ‘canaries in the coal mine’. This instrumentalises islands and islanders as indicators of disaster impacts and as subjects through which new insights about adaptation can be observed and investigated (Chandler and Pugh 2021). These are just a few illustrations of how simplifications are not just metaphoric or imaginary but have material impacts on islands and island life. We examine several prominent imaginaries that shape our understanding of resilience in islands and of the implications of these constructs for disaster policies and programmes. The first imaginary to address is the conventional view of islands against ahistorical terms. One of the most consistent ideas about islands circulating in scholarship and policy literature is that disaster risk is a product of recent processes. Discourses (e.g. Shultz et al. 2016; Price et al. 2014) that seek to provide some form of measure of disaster risk often focus on the source of a disastrous event. Hereby disaster risk is framed around, for example, the magnitude of an earthquake, the ferocity of a hurricane, the infectiousness of a disease or the rise of the sea level. Alternatively, focus is put on the societal system that is being affected as the primary measure of disaster risk, recognising how the complex social, political, economic and other factors shape the vulnerability of small islands and the capacity of populations to adapt and recover. Literature on vulnerability across small islands reveals how factors such as income, health and education levels of the population, the built environment, governance frameworks, food and material reserves and the quality of emergency services dictate to what extent a hazard impacts small islands. However, both these perspectives that seek to measure disaster risk are based on conservative and ahistorical imaginaries of how and why small islands are seen to be so ‘disaster-prone’.

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For one, they neglect or poorly understand how disasters in small islands have historical roots in colonialism (Lewis 2012; see chapter “Resilience and Resistance”). Disasters are framed as ‘singularities’ that are disconnected from long-term colonial processes. Yet, when we broaden our temporal analysis of disasters, it may be observed how colonialism is deeply related to the vulnerability of many SIDS. For example, small islands are some of the most indebted countries in the world – a debt which limits their ability to build resilience – yet this debt is a symptom of colonialism and imperialism (Bishop and Payne 2012). The economic structuring of many small islands towards sectors like tourism, agriculture and fishing is not a simple consequence of physical geography. Rather, many small island economies are structured towards these sectors in line with neoliberal development and state-building models that involved establishing central government rule and globalised market connections. Such state-building processes premised a ‘debt crisis that was itself somewhat precipitated by countries’ insertion into a vastly unequal global system of relations post-independence’ (Sealey-Huggins 2017: 2445). The push for industrialisation from the West, which fuelled the resource extraction of many small island states, is also the driving force behind climate change (Williams 2005). Neglecting how colonisation shapes disaster risk tacitly creates imaginations of small islands as historically insular. At the same time, it ignores the indigenous and traditional methods in disaster reduction overshadowed by Euro-centric disaster management frameworks that emphasise external aid (Gaillard 2007). As a result, island communities are disempowered, their inner sociocultural fabrics neglected in combating uncertainties and a vulnerable fate accepted by many. Such a temporal interpretation of vulnerability negates the highly place-based sociocultural and political dynamics of island resilience (Kelman and West 2009). This analytical approach shifts attention away from the roles former colonial powers played in shaping island vulnerability. With this in mind, scholars such as Leon Sealey Huggins (2017) have called for climate reparations to be paid to former Caribbean colonies that are now bearing the brunt of climate change in large part because of the resource extraction that has undermined the capacity of Caribbean nations to adapt to climate change. The second imaginary we need to highlight is the assumption that small islands are externally dependent. They are imagined as economically and politically ‘small’ (Weiss 2015). This ‘smallness’ is equated with limited resources and low adaptive capacity (Nurse et al. 2001), whereby island economies are often described as ‘insular’, ‘remote’, ‘isolated’ and ‘lacking resources’. This language frames small islands as inherently dependent on foreign trade (see Briguglio 1995; see chapters “Social Inclusion and Resilience” and “Wayfinding Resilience”) and socio-economically homogeneous. Although more recent debates centre on small islands’ relationships to climate change, they continually apply reductive frames that small island populations are backward, helpless, vulnerable and in need of saving by others. While acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic and major humanitarian disasters certainly can result in the collapse of small island economies and therefore severely undermine the livelihoods of island peoples, we argue this is not a definitive societal collapse. As discussed in this book, collapse of current ways of life creates space for

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the innovation of new, and/or revival of old, ways of life. Therefore, we aim to challenge the dependency imaginaries that have followed small islands throughout their histories. Another imaginary that needs to be demystified is the similar environmental vulnerability profiles shared by small islands. The physical characteristics of small islands reproduce faulty impressions of vulnerable masses of land that are at the mercy of hazards, which  often describe islands as low-lying and having coastal zones that are larger than their total land area (Nunn and Kumar 2018). We recognise the important role that such physical characteristics play in determining the impacts of sea level rise, tsunamis or hurricanes. Indeed, there is a great wealth of research detailing the impacts of such hazards on islanders’ everyday lives and livelihoods. However, we contest that overemphasising the physical features of small islands, through common terms such as ‘sinking islands’, homogenises the diverse geographies of small islands. Disaster risk is simplistically understood as the result of an island’s exposure to a hazard. The severity of the hazard becomes the focal point, and insufficient attention is given to the social, political, economic or cultural characteristics of small islands which truly determine their resilience (Rivas 2019; see chapters “Well-­being and Resilience” and “Resilience and Resistance”). Emphasising the agency of hazards in disaster risk also justifies technocracy and neoliberal environmental governance as the antidotes. This is most obvious with sea level rise whereby the construction of seawalls (to reduce hazard severity) or the relocation of people (to remove exposure to hazards) is often seen as the most effective solution. These are technocratic solutions borne from top-down external decision-­making, which are detached from the everyday lives, needs and concerns of island peoples (Nunn et al. 2021). People living on small atolls are often encouraged to move to larger islands where they can be ‘protected’. In cases like in Maldives, discussions continue about how to relocate entire nations. Migration as adaptation has been widely criticised as being ignorant of people’s deep ties to places (Felli and Castree 2012). It downplays the social, cultural and spiritual attachment that island peoples have to their land and once more shifts our analytical attention away from the resilience of small islands, and the capacity of island peoples to live with hazards. We provide examples from various geographic locations around the world, which challenge the simplistic imagination that small islands and their populations are at the mercy of hazards that can only be addressed with technocratic solutions. Lastly, we call for one’s critical reflection on the isolated and romanticised imaginary of small islands, a typical imagination of many. The social and cultural heterogeneity of small island societies is often eclipsed by the discursive homogenisation of island peoples as primitive and backward populations who exist as ‘timeless’ and ‘unchanging’. While such imaginaries are lucrative for the tourism sector’s advertising of exotic experiences (Kothari and Edensor 2003), they have implications beyond tourism. Framing small islands as primitive and peripheral to modernity has been used to justify development interventions which centre on modernising small islands. Development interventions are designed and measured according to

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western definitions of development, which do not neatly translate to local cultural contexts. ‘Well-being’ is, for example, a key element and measure for the success of climate change support strategies on small islands (Meo-Sewabu 2015). Yet, how well-being is perceived and experienced by islanders can differ greatly to the western definitions that centre on materialism, individuality, hedonism and happiness (Diener et  al. 2003; see chapter “Well-­being and Resilience”). Well-being across small islands is often synonymous with upholding duties of care to one another and to the land (Fletcher et al. 2021). Therefore, western development interventions that aim to increase the resilience of small islands may directly undermine the well-­ being of island peoples. As we see, the vulnerability and resilience of small islands are discursively constructed (Kelman 2020). Emphasis on the agency of hazards and the limited resilience of small islands plays into imaginations of passive islanders who are stranded in the middle of oceans simply waiting to be saved by outsiders who can aid in their linear progression towards modernity (DeLoughrey 2019). This victimhood narrative is highly disempowering because fear does not automatically catalyse islanders to pursue resilience, and it does not motivate ‘developed’ countries to support islands through the reduction of their emissions which cause climate change, for example (Barnett 2017). From this position, the subsequent chapters set out to unsettle these imaginaries and reconsider their validity by drawing on empirical data about island resilience across multiple regions. In this sense, our book speaks to Chandler and Pugh (2021) who identify alternative framings of islands that increasingly and productively challenge the vulnerable, passive and dependent framings that have come to dominate academic, policy and media discourse.

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Prof. Can-Seng Ooi is a sociologist and Professor of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of Tasmania. His research career spans over three decades, during which he conducted research across many countries, including Australia, Denmark, Singapore, China and Malaysia. Some issues Can-Seng investigates are the local-turn in tourism, tourism-community relations, place branding, cross-­cultural management and the political economy of tourism. His personal website is www.cansengooi.com.  

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Dr. Gemma Sou is a Lecturer at the University of Manchester and a development geographer interested in human-environment relations. She is also a Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RMIT University, Australia. Gemma draws on postcolonial discourse to examine the everyday geographies and politics of climate change, as they relate to three spaces: home, development aid and creative research translation. Her personal website is www.gemmasou.com.  

Dr. Dirk J. Steenbergen is a social scientist and senior research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, Australia. His research is embedded in the field of (sub)tropical small-­scale fisheries, with particular interest in aspects of participatory rural development, collective action and co-management. Dirk draws from more than 15 years of grounded work in Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific.  

Cristina Alexandra Trifan is a Doctoral Candidate and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster, United Kingdom. Alexandra is undertaking a research project on the role and meaning of happiness in volunteer tourism in Fiji. Drawing on decolonising research and using culturally embedded indigenous methodology, Fijian Vanua Research Framework, her study uses a participatory, collaborative approach in which research assistants actively participate in the research. Her interests intersect with tourism, cultural anthropology, development studies, happiness studies and Small Island Developing States.  

Social Inclusion and Resilience Roxane de Waegh, Jenny House, Agustinha Duarte, Mele Fonua, Dedy Martins, Jason Raubani, Lopeti Tufui, and Dirk J. Steenbergen

Abstract  In interrogating the dynamics of social inclusion in small island communities and how that influences peoples’ resilience to sociopolitical and environmental changes around them, this chapter examines two imaginaries about island societies, namely, the romanticising of island customs, traditions and ways of life and the homogenous framing of small island communities. We challenge the unnuanced and dichotomous narratives that often dominate discussions about social inclusion by adopting an intersectional approach. This approach seeks to explore the complex and dynamic power relations within and between communities. We aim to develop a deeper understanding of why there are often unbalanced levels of resilience among particular groups of people or households within a community and how social mechanisms enable inclusion and/or perpetuate the exclusion of different groups. We draw on three case studies to examine resilience differentials across several island geographies: (1) gendered aspects of livelihood dynamism in Timor-­ Leste, (2) challenges for youth engagement in Tonga, and (3) indigenous and R. de Waegh (*) Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. House Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia A. Duarte WorldFish Timor-Leste, Díli, Timor-Leste M. Fonua Talitha Project, Nuku’alofa, Tonga D. Martins Blue Ventures Timor-Leste, Díli, Timor-Leste J. Raubani Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), Honiara, Solomon Islands L. Tufui Tongatapu 5 Youth Council, Nuku’alofa, Tonga D. J. Steenbergen University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-S. Ooi et al. (eds.), Islands and Resilience, SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2_2

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migrant relations in coastal communities in Vanuatu. We further use the impacts of COVID-19 to understand in our case studies the multidimensional nature of social inclusion and how interactions between different groups under stress can materialise in intensified inclusion or exclusion of social groups. Keywords  Social inclusion · Intersectionality · Tonga · Timor-Leste · Vanuatu In the context of small-island societies in lower-income countries, the ability of a community or group of people to overcome setbacks, disruptions and/or challenges depends for a large part on their capacity to act collectively and make decisions that are representative of most, if not all, voices (Jentoft et al. 2018). Resilience in these contexts then depends on how ‘well’ people live alongside one another in their everyday lives. Much has been written on social capital in the context of small-­ island, resource-dependent communities involved in, for example, tropical small-­ scale fisheries where dependence on common-pool resources requires collective management for sustainability outcomes. These analyses have usefully highlighted characteristics conducive to sustainability of the communities involved regarding leadership strength, social capital and community cohesion (Adger 2003; Bodin and Crona 2008), or of the resource base being drawn upon, such as clear boundaries of resource, connectivity of resource stocks and the presence of access rules (Ostrom 2000; Agrawal 2002). Given the limited capacity of human agency to influence the entire complex social-ecological systems that determine resource availability, community resource management is often preoccupied with managing social dynamics rather than resource stocks. In this context then, successful collective action that sees communities being able to organise themselves, integrate diverse and competing interests, mitigate marginalisation and resolve conflicts is fundamental to ensuring local resilience and local well-being (Folke et al. 2002). When crises occur, the structural inequities and systemic marginalisations which exist within and between communities can be exposed (McCarthy 2013; Sultana 2021), making the level of social inclusivity in decision-making and broader governance processes central to responding to disturbances equitably and sustainably. While there is a dearth of literature that interrogates the definitions of ‘community’ and how these subsequently manifest into development and conservation practice, there is a basic consensus that communities are heterogenous (Agrawal and Gibson 2001; Stone and Nyaupane 2013). Accepting this admits that social inclusion is therefore multidimensional. Often, however, discussions around social inclusion are portrayed along binary societal divisions, e.g. between women and men, or between rich and poor. Social inclusion arguments, therefore, often relate to a power division between two groups and, in doing so, insufficiently recognise broader social relations and power dynamics. Intersectionality provides an alternative lens through which to examine social inclusion and resilience by exploring how ‘social identities such as race, class, gender, ability, geography, and age interact to form unique meanings and complex experiences within and between groups in society’ (Hankivsky and Cormier 2010, p. 217).

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An intersectional approach reveals how the impact of crises cannot be understood in isolation or through the experience of single groups. Rather, they must be considered as overlapping disturbances which impact people across social groups, identities and locations (Sultana 2021). The ability of people to cope and adapt in the face of disturbances is limited, but this is more pronounced for marginalised groups, who may have less access to knowledge, resources or decision-making power. By applying political ecology perspectives to discussions on marginalisation and inclusion, we are able to unpack concepts of resilience with an understanding of power, agency, intersectionality and the different scales in which these relations play out, enabling us to ask, ‘resilience for whom and at what cost to which others?’ (Cote and Nightingale 2011, p. 485). In this chapter, we present cases which illustrate the three dimensions of social resilience; coping capacities  – the ability to cope with and overcome adversity, adaptive capacities – the capacity to learn and adapt to future challenges, and transformative capacities – the ‘ability to craft sets of institutions that foster individual welfare and sustainable societal robustness towards future crises’ (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013, p.  5). We, therefore, understand the process of strengthening resilience to involve sociopolitical developments that are inextricably linked with power dynamics and social relations. Applying this view of resilience to various social groups requires an examination of the empowerment of those groups. Empowerment is ‘the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such an ability’ (Kabeer 1999, p. 436). It can be experienced through various dimensions, including access to resources, increased agency and recognised rights and accomplishments. The links between empowerment and resilience are nuanced and poorly understood, but a key component is the role of agency (Coulthard 2012). Agency refers to the ability or capacity to ‘achieve’ (and/or deliberate towards) intended outcomes and is a form of power, albeit at times less visible (Cleaver 2009). Resilient people maintain their agency, allowing them to empower themselves, and as people become empowered, their increased level of agency will enable them to adapt and transform further. Here we explore how differences in peoples’ access to resources and level of agency can determine the extent to which their interests and claims are secured. In doing so, we reveal insights into the resilience of marginalised groups during disturbances. In this chapter, we examine the dynamics between and within minority and majority groups in island communities to understand the social mechanisms that allow for inclusion and/or the barriers that perpetuate exclusion. We do this firstly to understand better why there are varying degrees of resilience among people and households and secondly to examine how people use their agency to empower themselves and increase their resilience. We use the impacts of COVID-19 and other recent disruptions to understand the multidimensional nature of social inclusion and the ability of marginalised groups to adapt and even transform the institutions around them. The three cases considered are: (1) coastal women’s livelihoods in TimorLeste; (2) challenges for youth engagement in Tonga; and (3) indigenous and migrant relations in coastal communities in Vanuatu. It is important to note that these case studies present with a success bias, and in recognising that, we do not claim to

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explore the full range of potential exclusions in society. Instead, we seek to demonstrate with these three cases how different marginalised groups leverage disturbances to increase their resilience despite the disproportionate challenges they face. These case studies draw on existing research projects conducted in collaboration with local partners, supplemented with more targeted key informant interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather information on context and history, activities, governance arrangements and the effects of COVID-19. Where practical and appropriate, language translators and cultural facilitators were used to conduct interviews. Furthermore, in-country researchers provided expertise in all aspects of study development, from study design to data collection and analysis. The methods applied in these cases strongly advocate decolonised approaches to research where insider researchers and outsider researchers combine perspectives to explore multiple framings of truths. Insider researchers are those who are members of the research communities, while outsider researchers are not part of the study community (Fletcher 2019). As such, this chapter allows us to explore ongoing collaborations between academic and practice-oriented researchers, as well as community-­embedded researchers. This enables insights and results from this chapter to be fed back to respondents and other participants in the research as part of an ongoing co-learning processes.

1 Women in Fisheries: A Case from Timor-Leste The impact of COVID-19 on coastal livelihoods has been varied and significant, with gendered dimensions. In this case study, we explore the enabling conditions and motivating factors which allowed Tereza to cope and adapt during this disturbance. Tereza and her fishery group, MHOI TATA, from Watabou, Timor-Leste, lost much of their business when the COVID-19 pandemic led to extensive lockdown restrictions. However, they were able to leverage government support and the lockdown circumstances to change their business model and cultivate their own independent incomes, despite the challenges they faced. People in coastal communities in Timor-Leste rely on a variety of livelihood activities. This diversity and dynamism are an important part of ensuring resilience in the face of shocks that can impact particular activities, e.g. farming, fishing and businesses (Mills et al. 2017). Women are responsible for the home and are also expected to take part in many livelihood activities. However, they face additional challenges due to social norms that often limit their earning potential, independence, agency or safety (Nabilan 2015). Established in 2011, MHOI TATA (named after Tereza’s grandchild) is a group of fishers and fish sellers who fish, buy and sell fresh fish, and operate a kiosk. Prior to COVID-19, being a member of this group provided Tereza with a good income of US$ 30–50 per day, but the travel restrictions brought in by the pandemic limited people’s movement, especially for domestic and international tourists, and led to a major loss of income for Tereza and others like her. The restrictions also impeded

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fishing, gleaning, farming and other subsistence activities during the State of Emergency, preventing residents from using ‘traditional’ food sources to compensate for the loss of other income or food sources. It in turn resulted in fish price fluctuations due to limited supply and shrinking access to markets. Coastal communities across the country struggled due to a loss of income caused by the lack of public transport, which reduced visitors and access to markets and middlemen, thus impacting their ability to sell and purchase food. These disruptions forced coastal communities to adapt their fishing activities to the restrictions by changing fishing grounds or time at sea, modifying how they sold their fish and, in some cases, reopening locally managed marine areas to fishing (Blue Ventures, unpublished). These changes to marine management were attributed to the need to catch more fish for consumption, as well as to the decrease in tourists paying access fees to the community for snorkelling and diving in protected areas. The suspension of public transport forced MHOI TATA to take a new approach to selling their catches: We put our fish in buckets on our heads and walked around the neighbourhood to sell our fresh fish. Thank God, people bought all of our fish, and we went home with empty buckets but money in our wallets… People were stuck at home, but they still needed to eat. So, we could sell the fresh fish they needed each day.

By making the most of the COVID-19 situation, MHOI TATA could build on their business and increase their quality of life. Tereza said: A few years ago, my roof was in poor condition, and our house was very small, but now if you visit my home, you will see that it is nice already. The kiosk is bigger, and we have a fridge to store more fish. This all happened because I knew how to take advantage of the situation. When COVID-19 happened, everyone was afraid and stayed at home. Some of my fellow women and I carried our fish outside of the house, and we made good money.

COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on the informal employment sector (Mata Dalan Institute 2020) and also on women, who are likely to have informal jobs and take on the majority of unpaid household labour (CARE 2020). In Timor-­ Leste, the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods has been widespread, which is particularly concerning in a country with 41.8% of the people living below the poverty line (World Bank 2016) and 22.6% experiencing undernutrition (FAOSTAT 2022). As a result, gendered dimensions of this impact can become an afterthought. Many women’s livelihood groups (Fig. 1) and other community initiatives stalled due to the lack of transport, reduced support from nonprofit organisations and the uncertainty and fear caused by the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 response from the government was not deliberately designed to target women, results from this study reveal that if support is provided at the right moment during a disturbance, it can enable women and others to empower themselves. As part of their COVID-19 support programme, the government provided the group with a boat that allowed MHOI TATA to increase their fishing efforts. Research shows that independent income and changes in social norms can enable women to increase their bargaining power at home and in society (Agarwal 2001). For example, for Tereza, her ability to make the most of the COVID-19 situation has brought material benefits and improved her well-being. She encourages women to pursue business opportunities where they can:

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Fig. 1  Rara’a Traditional Atauro is one women’s group in Timor-Leste that makes an income using seafood products. (Photo: Blue Ventures) My advice to other women is not to sit at home and wait for men to work and earn money for you. As partners within the home, help each other to find ways to sustain your livelihoods. When women and men all have their own income, it reduces conflict in the home.

Looking to the future, Tereza has plans to continue to grow her business by breaking into new markets, such as purchasing a truck for transporting the fish to the mountains where high demand exists. Such an initiative would contribute to Tereza’s family’s resilience and well-being, but it would also increase inland communities’ access to good quality and nutritious fish (Steenbergen et  al. 2019). Tereza’s dedication and entrepreneurship in the face of challenges caused by COVID-19 have the potential to improve the resilience of her family, her community and her future customers.

2 Youth Resilience: A Case from Tonga In this case study, we explore the role of youth in society in Tongatapu, the largest and most densely populated island in the Kingdom of Tonga, where the capital city of Nuku’alofa is situated. The inhabitants of Tongatapu are a diverse group, including nobles, elders, government ministers, various religious groups, entrepreneurs, farmers, fisherfolk, teachers, students, mechanics and other tradespeople, Chinese immigrants and increasing numbers of young Tongans migrating to the growing capital city in search of social and economic opportunities.

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This study investigates how youth (which in Tonga includes individuals of all gender aged 15–34) defines well-being and how they perceive their role in supporting the well-being of their community and natural environment. We examine how two major disruptive events may have impacted this perceived role: the COVID-19 pandemic and the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption on 15 January 2022 (Zuo et al. 2022). We explore how interactions between different social groups under stress can intensify the inclusion or exclusion of youth seeking to support the wellbeing of their community. We derived three main findings from the insights and lived experiences of youth  participants: (1) well-being is perceived as  a state of inclusivity and collaboration; (2) to achieve well-being, youth participants believe that they must collectively participate in community projects and seek opportunities to engage in purposeful community developments that lead to empowerment; and (3) the disruptive events created various opportunities for youth to demonstrate their agency by taking control of their actions and increasing their decision-making skills.  The main revelation that emerged from the findings  is the link between agency, collective action, empowerment and resilience. Tonga has been characterised as one of the most hierarchical and highly stratified societies in Polynesia (Fotu et al. 2011). Within a scheme of social stratification, rank becomes merely one form of social differentiation to be assessed in the same fashion as material resources, power or authority (James 2003). In Tonga’s traditional hierarchal social structure, youth sit relatively low (Gray et al. 2019), meaning that youth are not as engaged as they should be in community development opportunities or within the family. Due to the traditional social hierarchy, which continues to perpetuate exclusion, youth have become far too dependent on their parents, leaders and elders to make a change within the community. Yet parallel to this dependence, there exists a growing desire for inclusivity and demand for access to opportunities that empower youths to become leaders: We are the future of the community, and I believe we should be given the space and opportunity to not just voice our opinions but also the opportunity to build our capacity as future caretakers of these communities. For me, wellbeing is a community where we are working together – youth, men, and women.

The need to be engaged in meaningful work and the longing for empowerment led to the creation of Tongatapu 5, Tonga’s first youth council established in Tongatapu’s western constituency. The youth council aims to engage youth by increasing their participation in various community development projects. Their goal is for youth to develop a sense of agency by participating, taking action and becoming less dependent. In addition to increasing active participation, the youth council has developed a series of capacity development programmes to increase awareness on a variety of different topics: We had the ministry of land and national resources come talk to us about how to sustain water resources in Tonga; we invited preachers to talk about mental health and spiritual health; we invited people to talk about COVID-19 and what is happening around the world, and how to stay safe, how to be responsible citizens of Tonga – we had a justice week for our youth where we invited people from the ministry of justice and representatives of the police. So that is what my council is trying to do – we are trying to build the capacity of the youth.

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It is always challenging to measure the success of capacity development programmes. However, the youth’s collective  and diverse responses to the series of cascading disruptive events that started in early 2020, and continue today, are a testament to the youth council’s achievements in empowering young Tongans. In the following quote, a participant from a different constituency of Nuku’alofa, one which does not have a youth council, describes their commendation of the youth council’s efforts: What these disasters showed us is that youth empowerment programmes that are already running are actually really effective– because when disasters happen, young people who were in that space are already empowered to step up and take the initiative and be the leaders.

Participants of this study recounted countless examples that demonstrate youth’s vital role in supporting their community, voluntarily and professionally. For example, after the major volcanic eruption on 15 January 2022, many young women and men volunteered with the Tonga Red Cross to distribute aid to isolated families (Fig. 2). Young teachers delivered lessons via radio and online platforms, while the schools were closed. Young women wrote inspiring blogs for mental health awareness. Early career nurses and trainee doctors worked 24-h shift. Older siblings took over parenting roles, while their parents, aunts or uncles were on seasonal work programmes abroad and unable to return. The disruptive events of COVID-19 and

Fig. 2  Tonga youth delivering aid to remote families after Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption. (Photo: Talitha Project Tonga Inc)

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the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption created many opportunities for youth to step up and serve the community. However, just as it is important not to romanticise island societies’ traditional customs, we must not idealise the notion that participation in times of crisis will lead to the sustained empowerment and inclusion of a marginalised group. Youth members that stepped up during these disruptive events represent a small percentage of youth in Tonga – the ones who were already engaged before the disasters and who had access to education and training opportunities. In the following quote, a participant sheds light on some of the  complexities found within marginalised groups in Tongatapu’s heterogenous island communities: It’s not new young people that have stepped into volunteering roles and lead these spaces – it’s young people that were already in these spaces. The level of engagement is only as good as the level of awareness and access to these opportunities. But awareness comes with the willingness to learn and getting educated. We should better equip youth with the necessary skills and mindset to know how to stand up, how to take initiative, and how to be a leader and make decisions. So, what I would like to see from our government after noticing this increase in engagement, is to create more opportunities – not disasters – but opportunities for young people to be engaged and keep that ceiling of purpose sustained [sic].

The disasters temporarily increased the involvement of educated and previously empowered youth, but, more importantly, they served as a catalyst for youth empowerment by demonstrating the youth council’s success. As this case study demonstrates, there is a strong link between agency, access to opportunities for meaningful collective action, empowerment and resilience. In recent news, the government of Tonga has publicly recognised the youth council for their achievements, creating an example for other constituencies to follow in their footsteps.

3 Inclusion and Exclusion of Migrant Groups: A Case from Vanuatu In Vanuatu, history shows how unpredictable natural disasters have disrupted island societies on many occasions, leading to resettlement of displaced people in or next to indigenous communities. Drawn through customary kastom links, kinship networks or simply by proximity, governance arrangements that emerge between such groups reveal both tensions and collaboration. This case study interrogates such intersections between a minority ‘migrant’ group (Melemat village) and an indigenous group (Mele village), with distinctions defined around entitlement to land and resources. We examine how the historical absorption of migrants has materialised into interwoven, intergenerational power relations and sociopolitical dynamics that still largely impact village life across both groups and which, over time, have become legitimised through various agreements and policies. The village of Melemat adjoins Mele village on the island of Efate. It was established following the displacement of people from Mat village (or Maat) on Ambrym island in the 1950s. In 1951, a volcanic eruption forced the villagers of Mat to

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evacuate to the nearby island of Epi, which was subsequently hit by a cyclone later that year, destroying their shelters and forcing their second displacement. After arriving on Efate, the evacuees were offered jobs to work on a coconut plantation. In agreement with the plantation owner and a prominent chief on Efate, the former Mat residents were granted access to land to build houses adjacent to the Mele community, establishing what is now known as Melemat. While formal historical records could not be traced, accounts from respondents indicate that in the years following their first settlement, the Melemat community became more permanent with the reported transfer of land (either by purchase or customary grant) in the mid-1950s and mid-1960s. This established Melemat’s recognition in the ‘marae’ (residency system) of that area. The people of Melemat resided there under the auspices of chiefs from Mele, as their ‘nawotalam’, a superior title-holding group that oversees subordinate social groups. Respondents from both Mele and Melemat noted that during the tumultuous years running up to Vanuatu’s 1980 independence, there was a passing of one specific ‘nasaotonga’, a common (sometimes annual) customary ceremony that sees subordinate land title groups offering the first yam harvest (in addition to livestock offerings) to a superior title-holding group. While previous nasaotonga had been carried out as the conventional means to reinforce hierarchal title claims, the significance of this nasaotonga was the difference in its interpretation in relation to imminent independence. Melemat elders recalled how offerings exceeded any previous nasaotonga as an agreed means to enshrine a higher title status prior to the anticipated transition into an independent post-colonial administration. Mele elders, however, noted how their leaders recalled this nasaotonga as a definitive recognition of their relationship, thus functioning to secure the hierarchal title arrangement before any potential reshuffle that could result from the administrative transfer. These contradicting interpretations lie at the foundation of the much of ongoing tensions between these groups. The declaration of independence in 1980 set off a myriad of land claims and disputes across Vanuatu, as boundaries were redrawn with the newly established national constitution stating that land be returned to rightful kastom landowners. The lands around Mele and Melemat were no different. Chiefs in Mele claimed their kastom land title as constitutional, including land that Melemat disputed as rightfully theirs, following the customary payments and agreements made prior to independence. At a meeting between prominent title-holding chiefs across Efate in the early 1990s, an agreement was reached on the boundaries between what is now known as the area councils of West Efate, including Ifira, Mele, Erakor, Eratap and Malorua. The proceedings of these meetings did not include title holders of Melemat, as they were seen as ‘mankam’ (immigrants), a title some leaders in Melemat dispute given the past customary transactions. With the passing of elders (and their knowledge and experience) and the verbal nature of customary agreements, written law is increasingly taking precedence. As one respondent from Melemat noted: ‘our elders knew exactly what was discussed and agreed […] but with them passed away, we cannot recall the same information to make our voice heard [sic]’.

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Fig. 3  A typical Vanuatu forest-fringing household garden with taro and cassava crops. (Photo: Dirk Steenbergen)

Currently, most of Melemat’s housing and communal infrastructure (e.g. church) is built on land that has been formally recognised as Melemat land. Residents can harvest natural resources within those boundaries according to their own by-laws; however, the land around Melemat is disputed, including the more fertile flats. Mele’s formal ownership over much of the cultivatable land means Melemat residents either cultivate land along forest fringes (Fig.  3), infertile slopes or attain leases from Mele landowners to access fertile plots. Illustrative of this, one Melemat youth leader noted that: ‘under most lease agreements, landowners only allow us to cultivate short-term crops […] no fruit trees are allowed in fear that we may claim the land if we have trees on it’. Others noted how Mele landowners often prefer to hire wage labourers from the outer islands to work their land over workers from neighbouring communities to avoid potential land claims. Access to fertile land, therefore, remains a prime challenge for most Melemat households. One Melemat women’s group leader noted: ‘Recently, a market house was built in the village centre; however, we have no land to cultivate crops, so our market house is empty. […] The issue is limited access to land, not access to a marketplace’. While Mele residents hold the constitutional land title based on customary entitlement, the grey nature of on-the-ground ownership claims has led to a governance vacuum over disputed lands in which intrusions are allowed. Both Mele and Melemat residents complained of the residents from Ambrym island, who, despite not being from the original Mat community, recently established dwellings as ‘self-­ determined rightful claimants’ under the Mele-Melemat kastom arrangement. Other

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cases were noted where Mele owners had sold off disputed land to foreign investors in an attempt to eject themselves from further conflict while gaining financial benefits from its sale. The disruptions caused by COVID-19 restrictions, including the closure of international borders in March 2020 and then the first domestic outbreak in early 2022, impacted the dynamics between Mele and Melemat. While land disputes subsided markedly in early 2022, many respondents attributed this to the government lockdown policy, implying that people spent less time working the land. Some groups, like the youth in Melemat, utilised the COVID-19 emergency to voice autonomy. The establishment of their own COVID-19 taskforce, for example, was initiated in response to the suggestion from the government that Melemat fall under the Mele COVID-19 taskforce. However, there were examples where collaboration between the communities increased, such as the joint decision between leaders from both communities to establish a shared dispensary as a central COVID-19 testing and vaccination centre. So, while grievances persist between residents from each village, emergency conditions did make way for collaborative engagements. Similarly, respondents also referred to social connections that exist through marriage and kin, although these often materialise into more specific inter-household relations rather than at the community level. Cases of migration and resettlement in Vanuatu show how new governance arrangements emerge as amalgamations of central state and customary governance structures. Especially in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, what materialises is the result of complex interactions shaped by power dynamics, sociopolitical institutional rules, new and old social relations and entrepreneurship of individuals or groups who effectively translate opportunities to serve interests. It sketches far more dynamic, pluralist and contested arenas than the common framing of island societies as spaces of customary harmony.

4 Discussion and Conclusion The three case studies demonstrate how three marginalised groups have dealt with unsettling events. Here we explore how the concepts of resilience and empowerment interact with each other to influence the inclusion or exclusion of marginalised groups during a major disruption. Rather than being marginalised groups who are unable to exercise their agency and improve their situation, these cases illustrate how people use tools and opportunities at their disposal to (re)claim power – sometimes despite disruptive events and, at other times, thanks to disruptions. Marginalised groups are disproportionally impacted by disturbances, especially when interventions and support are not tailored to their needs (Sultana 2021). However, these cases demonstrate that when certain preconditions are met, marginalised groups can use their adaptive capacity to leverage disturbances to empower themselves and potentially transform the institutions which have excluded them. The preconditions explored in the cases demonstrate the diversity within groups and the value of an intersectional approach when examining peoples’ adaptive capacity

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(Erwin et al. 2021), e.g. empowered youth in Tongatapu 5 were the ones who were responsive and adaptable when COVID-19 happened, but others were left behind. Just as society is diverse and heterogeneous, so are specific social groups. Peoples’ ability to cope, adapt and transform in the face of disturbances is related to their ability to exercise agency. Although various constraints limit these abilities, our cases reveal strategies and mechanisms that people use to adapt, increase their bargaining power and begin to transform the institutions around them. There is a tendency in some policies and practices to romanticise the role of traditional structures, customary governance and local livelihoods in people’s response to disruption, i.e. ‘local, customary ways of life are the solution’ (Cote and Nightingale 2011). Without suggesting otherwise, when grounded in hierarchical power structures, however, there can be a trade-off between the legitimacy and equity provided by the dichotomies between casual-official or modern-conventional mechanisms (Cote and Nightingale 2011). Our cases reveal that people draw on traditional and non-traditional tools in a way that best serves them and increases their bargaining position on various scales (household, community, state). Mobilising these according to interests increases peoples’ empowerment, in addition to their adaptive and transformative capacity. The Vanuatu case highlights two dimensions of the way the agency of local actors materialises through the mobilisation of various ‘instruments’. Mat evacuees, for example, used both expatriate (colonial) plantation networks and kastom connections to secure their well-being, as a means first to leave the island and later to access land and resources on Efate, thus establishing Melemat. Similarly, during Vanuatu’s independence, Mele people used both the customary nasaotonga ceremony that had been carried out prior to independence and the political opportunity from land title reform under the new constitution. In doing so, they secured their claim to land over Melemat as they all transitioned from being citizens to a sovereign nation in a new political environment. Legal pluralism (Benda-­ Beckmann 2001), where kastom law functions legitimately in parallel to state law, maps a complex political landscape in countries like Vanuatu. This provides opportunities that can empower those who harness them but also impedes pathways out of marginalisation for those who do not. Collective actions increase peoples’ bargaining position and their ability to cope and adapt. People identified needs and transformed them into opportunities to ‘step up’ or collaborate. Although there is a risk that this increased participation could remain at an activity-specific level rather than progressing to interactive participation (Agarwal 2001), it is clear that the participants in each case intend to develop this into more meaningful change going forward through, for example, increased representation, reduced conflict or economic empowerment. In this way, collective action and establishing formal groups can enable access to resources, (re)negotiate power, navigate potential conflicts and create opportunities which could improve their adaptive and transformative capacity going forward. For example, the formal structure of MHOI TATA allowed women to access government support and develop independent incomes, which is an integral part of their economic empowerment. Crises can compound the injustice and marginalisation against some groups (Sultana 2021). Our case studies prompt the question: why and how did some

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people or groups transform disturbances into opportunities to thrive rather than struggling to survive? The impacts of COVID-19 caused considerable shifts in priorities as it directed attention away from pre-existing conflict within or between groups to solve the ongoing disruptions collaboratively. Despite the impacts of COVID-19, lessons can be learned from the nature of these collaborations and the social capital foundations that underlie them. These can positively influence the outcomes of future bargaining between minority and majority groups (Sen 1987). As new and unforeseen societal changes occur with COVID-19, we continue to see people learn to adapt to each new shock. Our cases reveal significant local adaptive capacity and agency to transform institutions, social norms and power relations. It remains to be seen whether these accomplishments will travel beyond COVID-19 or what the lasting impact of the pandemic may be for resilience and well-being overall. People’s ability to cope, adapt and transform in the face of disturbances is not equal. Considering how different groups have different access to resources, levels of agency and ability to produce outcomes reveals how social relations and power dynamics can continue to entrench inequality or can even be dismantled in the face of disturbances. The power dynamics and social relations which shape society also influence peoples’ resilience, so marginalised groups may be worse affected by shocks. From this position, we acknowledge that many marginalised groups, despite being resourceful and adaptable, may not be given the opportunities and space to ameliorate their situation. However, the tendency to view marginalised groups as homogenous, vulnerable and oppressed obscures the reality of how people exercise their agency and power in many different ways and on various scales, e.g. family, community or the state. Island communities and marginalised groups are not passively experiencing disturbances. Instead, they use complex and dynamic mechanisms to improve their position, cope, adapt and transform. Societies can become more inclusive and collectively resilient by recognising the capacities, adaptive skills and resourcefulness of marginalised groups and individuals.

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Sen A (1987) Gender and cooperative conflicts. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/295507/ files/WP18.pdf Steenbergen DJ, Eriksson H, Hunnam K, Mills DJ, Stacey N (2019) Following the fish inland: understanding fish distribution networks for rural development and nutrition security. Food Secur 11(6):1417–1432. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-­019-­00982-­3 Stone MT, Nyaupane G (2013) Rethinking community in community-based natural resource management. Community Dev 45(1):17–31 Sultana F (2021) Climate change, COVID-19, and the co-production of injustices: a feminist reading of overlapping crises. Soc Cult Geogr 22(4):447–460. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14649365.2021.1910994 World Bank Group (2016) Poverty in Timor-Leste 2014. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25269 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO Zuo M, Zhou T, Man W, Chen X, Liu J, Liu F, Gao C (2022) Volcanoes and climate: sizing up the impact of the recent Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption from a historical perspective Roxane de Waegh is a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Prior to embarking on this academic journey, she worked for nearly a decade as a marine conservation practitioner with various NGOs in Myanmar, Solomon Islands, Bahamas, Belize and TimorLeste. Roxane applies her experiential knowledge in her current academic pursuit to reflect and critique extant ideas, assumptions and processes around development and conservation as she seeks alternative strategies that prioritise long-term social-ecological well-being over economic growth.  

Jenny House is a PhD candidate in the Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University. She conducts transdisciplinary research on themes such as governance and management of natural resources, fisheries, participatory monitoring, gender and equity. Jenny has worked across the Indo-Pacific, with a particular interest in Timor-Leste, Indonesia and Australia. She explores how social relations and power dynamics shape how people and institutions interact with each other, their resources and the environment. Her personal website is www. jennyhouse.co.uk.  

Agustinha Duarte is a Research Analyst at WorldFish Timor-Leste, where she has worked for over 6 years. She works closely with coastal communities on livelihoods, nutrition and gender. With a background in agriculture and fisheries, Agustinha is passionate about women’s empowerment and supporting coastal communities to use aquatic foods for livelihoods and health.  

Mele Fonua is the Program Manager for Talitha Project’s My Body! My Right! programme in Tonga. It is an awareness and civic education programme for a­ dolescent girls in Tonga teaching young girls important life skills to assist in making important decisions about their bodies, relationships and future. Mele is passionate about educating and encouraging young girls and women in Tonga to break barriers in different aspects of society but particularly in leadership and politics. She has previously worked as a policy analyst and an awareness and education officer in the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development.  

Dedy Martins has worked at Blue Ventures Timor-Leste since 2018, where he is now the Conservation Coordinator. Dedy works with various community groups to monitor and manage their marine resources, including fisheries, coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass. He works with several women’s fisheries monitoring groups and is passionate about creating inclusive, sustainable and equitable marine management processes for coastal communities in Timor-Leste.  

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Jacob Raubani is a Fisheries and Aquaculture Management and Policy Advisor. He works as a Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) Policy Advisor with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA). His research interests are around fisheries MCS policy and fisheries management, ranging from wild capture fisheries to aquaculture.  

Lopeti Tufui is the chairperson for the Tongatapu 5 Youth Council, a youth-­led non-profit organisation that aims to empower youth through community engagement and capacity development programmes on the main island of Tonga. As a youth himself, Lopeti is passionate about working with other youth in his community to collectively explore their potential and build networks that can support youth development.  

Dirk J.  Steenbergen is a social scientist and senior research fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, Australia. His research is embedded in the field of (sub)tropical small-scale fisheries, with particular interest in aspects of participatory rural development, collective action and co-management. Dirk draws from more than 15 years of grounded work in Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific.  

Well-being and Resilience Regina Scheyvens, Anne Hardy, Roxane de Waegh, and Cristina Alexandra Trifan

Abstract  This chapter focuses on people living on islands, specifically, the links between their well-being and resilience to external shocks and threats. Contrary to popular myths of islands as idyllic havens, and the images of ‘smiling faces’ of island dwellers used in tourism promotions, there are constant challenges to the health and happiness of those living on islands worldwide. We start by examining well-being and what dimensions of well-being are relevant to understanding the realities of life for people living on islands, particularly Indigenous peoples. In the case studies to follow, examples from Fiji, Cook Islands and Tasmania show how people have adapted in the face of the pandemic, some of which involve ‘looking back to look forward’ (learning from the past). While some communities have been highly stressed by the challenges of COVID-19, others have adapted effectively and feel there have been significant improvements in community well-being as a result. The physical boundedness of islands and their isolation from mainland areas with greater infrastructure can mean that when disasters or other threats hit, they rely heavily on their own social, physical and economic resources. Keywords  Island states · Well-being · Resilience · Pacific · Adaptation · Pandemic

R. Scheyvens (*) Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] A. Hardy University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia R. de Waegh Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand C. A. Trifan School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-S. Ooi et al. (eds.), Islands and Resilience, SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2_3

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Relationships between the well-being of island peoples and their resilience to external shocks are the focus of this chapter. Contrary to the popular perception of islands as tourism destinations represented by images of sunny weather, isolation and idyllic lifestyles, island peoples around the globe experience a more complex reality  (Movono and Scheyvens 2022). While islands are routinely voted among the happiest places on earth, the reality for their residents is that these locations often rank lowly in terms of their social, educational and economic health. Vanuatu is one such example. Since 2006, it has thrice been ranked in the top 3 countries on the Happy Planet Index (Wellbeing Economy Alliance 2021), yet it is positioned 140th out of 189 countries and territories on the United Nations’ Human Development Index  – a composite measure of health, education and economic development. Moreover, it is judged as being highly vulnerable to natural disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. External measures of development on islands thus often give a very different impression than asking island residents to reflect on their subjective well-being. While the latter internal judgements must not be ignored, it is also true that scratching the surface reveals that through a thin veneer of happy, contented societies, island peoples often struggle to meet their needs and live well. One response to the increasing challenges faced by societies in a rapidly changing world, as indicated in chapter “Situating Island Resilience”, is the concept of resilience thinking (Folke et al. 2016). Resilience draws attention to the importance of change (gradual, rapid or unexpected), the role of feedback and multiple systems states and the importance of diversity and redundancy in buffering disturbances (Holling and Gunderson 2002). However, despite the considerable theoretical advances in resilience thinking, the utility of the concept has remained largely underdeveloped (Stone-Jovicich et  al. 2018). Critics of resilience thinking argue that it is conceptually complex and is becoming increasingly rhetorical as it gains popularity (Grove and Chandler 2017; McMurry 2010). Furthermore, resilience has not sufficiently been studied from the perspective of those living in particular places (Stone-Jovicich et al. 2018; Marschke and Berkes 2006). People living on islands face challenges associated with the physical boundedness of their land and their isolation from mainland areas or neighbouring countries with greater infrastructure. This can mean that when disasters or other threats hit, islanders are required to look inwards and rely heavily on their own social, physical and economic resources. While this can produce enormous strain, these shocks can also result in positive outcomes for islanders who adapt effectively, demonstrating their resilience. Thus, as this chapter will show, despite the hardships, there are also cases in which island peoples are able to successfully negotiate substantial shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, in a way that promotes greater well-being. This chapter begins by examining the meaning of well-being and how its multiple dimensions may be applied to people living on islands. Through the use of case studies, we then explore well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic on islanders in Oceania, including Fiji, the Cook Islands and Tasmania. These examples explore people’s responses to the crisis and the dimensions of well-being that

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emerged from these actions. In doing so, they highlight the role of agency in providing a bridge that connects notions of well-being and resilience in the face of major disruptions.

1 Conceptualising Well-being The concept of well-being is used by people in many parts of the world across diverse socio-economic and cultural contexts (Sterling et al. 2017; Adger 2000) and is strongly related to having social capital (Yamaguchi 2013). However, notions of well-being differ widely between and among cultures, researchers and health practitioners. To some, well-being is a concept that can be assessed through quantitative measures. To others, it is a qualitative construct that is bound by context and culture. Well-being has also been associated with adaptation, particularly in the context of the interplay between human agency and structure (Brown and Westaway 2011) and in determining how people might undertake adaptions through the power of self-­ determination in deciding their collective future. In addition to this, well-being has been linked with resilience, where some authors have referred to it as a culturally appropriate surrogate for resilience when defined by those living in particular locations (Berkes 2017). Well-being is now present in almost all discussions related to human daily life and activities (Smith and Diekmann 2017). In an early examination of the meaning of well-being, Ryff and Keyes (1995) suggest it is the degree to which one has an excess of positive over negative affect. Many other definitions have since emerged, with some arguing it relates to life satisfaction (Kim-Prieto et al. 2005) and others proposing it comprises a range of elements that contribute to a happy life (Rath and Harter 2010). Some state that its presence relates to more than the individual; for example, Marks and Shah (2004, p.  2) suggest that ‘Wellbeing is more than just happiness. As well as feeling satisfied and happy, wellbeing means developing as a person, feeling fulfilled, and making a contribution to the community’. Other scholars have defined well-being as being multidimensional, with links to physical, mental, social, cultural and environmental aspects of living (Pinto et al. 2016). Additional definitions have emerged from psychology and economics (Smith and Diekmann 2017). However, despite there being no unanimously accepted definition, a predominant theme that emerges from these many definitions is the association of well-­ being with life satisfaction (Hardy et al. 2022). Methodological approaches to the exploration of well-being are as varied as its definition. Vada et al. (2020) determine that an equal amount of quantitative (predominately surveys) and qualitative (mostly interviews) studies existed, but there are few examples of mixed method approaches (only 9 out of 82 studies). Many quantitative studies exist within health research, from which a variety of well-being measures have been developed. These include scales that assess an individual’s satisfaction with life and mood (e.g. the Satisfaction with Life Scale developed by Diener et al. 1985), those that assess anxiety and depression (e.g. the K10 scales

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developed by Kessler et al. 2002) and those that assess individuals’ ability to deal with difficult situations, hope, optimism, reliance and efficacy (e.g. Luthans et al. 2007). Social scientists have also created models that conceptualise well-being through a set of dimensions. They exist under the premise that well-being is dynamic and subjective, so individuals will each be sensitive to different areas of well-being (Kaine and Stronge 2021). Early models centred around physical, social and psychological dimensions (Mead et al. 2021), as these were seen as the pillars of subjective well-being. However, in recent models, well-being has been conceptualised as a more complex phenomenon with additional contributing dimensions. This has led to critiques of well-being based only on experiences of individuals living in Western, industrialised societies, neglecting the cultural embeddedness of the concept as well as the environmental context (Schulz et al. 2018). It has been argued that Indigenous cultures tend to conceptualise well-being in a more holistic way (Durie 1985). For example, Pacific well-being models are communalistic, aiming to improve well-being in all aspects of their communities rather than focusing so much on individual well-being (Tu’itupou et al. 2020). Spirituality is positioned as a core component of many Indigenous well-being models, such as the Māori model Te Whare Tapa Whā (Durie 1985), the Samoan Fonofale model (Pulotu-Endemann 2001) and He Ara Waiora (McMeeking et  al. 2019). In these models, spirituality sits alongside more traditionally accepted dimensions such as social, psychological/mental and physical well-being. In the Cook Islands, the concept of pito’enua encompasses five dimensions of well-being: Kopapa, physical well-being; Tu manako, mental and emotional well-being; Vaerua, spiritual well-­ being; Kopu tangata, social well-being; and Aorangi, total environment, that is, how society influences you and the way individuals are shaped by their environment (Cook Island Ministry of Education 2006; Futter 2009; Whitman and Aldinger 2009). Recent work by Scheyvens et al. (2022, forthcoming)) resulted in a well-­ being framework also consisting of these five elements (mental, physical, environmental, social and spiritual) alongside financial well-being. This work put Indigenous models into practice and suggested that, while financial well-being had declined for many people in the Pacific, for some residents, COVID-19’s enforced lull had brought improvements in social, mental, spiritual, environmental and physical well-being. Environmental context plays a prominent role in some Indigenous models of well-being. For example, the Fonofale model is based around a traditional Samoan fale (house), with prominent aspects of well-being designated through the supports and base of the house. The fale is not seen alone; it sits with its own environment, time and context that encircle the framework (Pulotu-Endemann 2001). In this way, the Fonofale model demonstrates the importance of outside, environmental factors in contributing to overall well-being. Equally, Te Vaka Atafagā (Kupa 2009) uses the metaphor of a boat which is positioned on the ocean. If the sea is rough or the wind is too strong, these things will affect the boat itself – highlighting the significance of someone’s wider environmental context for well-being. This environmental context

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is then very relevant to our interest in the well-being of people on islands and how their resilience is developed over time in relation to shocks and stressors. Community involvement is a further factor that is considered by some cultures when determining well-being. Dissatisfied with conventional measures of development, the Pacific island state of Vanuatu chose to devise its own alternative indicators of well-being (Tanguay 2015). They included measures such as the proportion of individuals regularly attending community meetings, the proportion of individuals with a favourable evaluation of traditional leaders, the proportion of individuals who perceive there is equality in their community and the proportion of individuals that have someone that can support them in times of need. Their indicators also included traditional knowledge and production skills and access to land and natural resources (an important basis for resilient livelihoods in much of the Pacific). Such indicators can provide important insights into how well-being and resilience might be understood in island contexts. The slowing economy, sudden lockdown measures and border closures caused by COVID-19 have created significant social and economic downsides for island communities and have brought the issue of well-being to the fore. Unlike literature on crisis management and disruptions, which focuses on a single stressor acting in a single case study (Ritchie and Jiang 2019), the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a series of cascading and interacting stressors on a global scale. This catastrophic situation offered a twofold opportunity to understand island resilience by (1) exploring how communities respond, cope and adapt in order to maintain their well-being during a crisis and (2) recognising how island people perceive their role and capacity to support the well-being of their community during a major disruptive event. Our case studies are diverse  – culturally, geographically, economically and socially. In the following sections, we present one Melanesian island state (Fiji), one Polynesian island state (the Cook Islands) and one Australasian island (Tasmania). However, what all three island groups have in common is a high dependence on tourism, and the subsequent return to tourism that has been met with both positive sentiment and anxiety from their residents. Our case studies explore the resilience of island people via the adaptations they made when faced with border closures and other restrictions, and the resultant dimensions of well-being that were impacted by these actions.

2 Cook Islands: Resilience, Well-being, and Reciprocity Kūki ‘Āirani (Cook Islands) is an island nation made up of 15 vastly scattered islands and atolls in the South Pacific Ocean (Holdsworth 1990). Over the last 25 years, the tourism industry has grown exponentially in the Cook Islands and is now the dominant sector providing an estimated 66% of its gross domestic product (GDP) and around 34% of the country’s total workforce (Tateno and Bolesta 2020). In 2019, over 170,000 people visited the Cook Islands, which has a permanent population of just 17,000 (SPTO 2019). Over 98% of all air arrivals spend at least one

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Fig. 1  Rarotonga, Cook Islands. (Photo: Athina Karika)

night on Rarotonga, resulting in almost 14 times as many visitor arrivals than local residents (Scheyvens and Movono 2018). This case study is situated in Rarotonga (Fig. 1), which is the largest island in the Cook Islands and home to volcanic mountains, rainforests, coastal lagoon, reefs and nearly 75% of the country’s population (CISO 2018). By developing a local understanding of well-being and listening to participants’ lived experiences as they responded and adapted to unforeseen shocks of COVID-19, the insights of this study reveal the inherent link between well-being, collective action and resilience. Participants of this study are from families whose traditional livelihoods were predominantly based on small-scale fisheries and agriculture, but which have, over time, transitioned to tourism. In 2020–2021, they faced the shock of the sudden withdrawal of global export markets, international labour mobility and the crash of tourism. Travel restrictions and border closures reduced access to seasonal work programmes in New Zealand and Australia, further exacerbating unemployment and economic insecurity (Connell 2021). The astonishing losses in jobs and livelihoods have intensified concerns about the significant role of global process, especially regarding international tourism in the economic growth and development of the Cook Islands. Yet, parallel to the negative socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, the study participants also experienced a sense of social reawakening. The concept of well-being, as defined by participants of this case study, is centred around community life, social connections, relationships of trust, collaboration and actions of reciprocity. As participants responded to the shocks of COVID-19,

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this community-centric vision of well-being resurfaced. Priorities shifted away from tourism and economic opportunities and focused on strengthening relationships within the community and extended families. People spent more time with their families, planting home gardens, exercising, supporting the elders and engaging in other activities that contribute to the strengthening of social networks. As also noted by Scheyvens et al. (2021), the church pews filled up as people felt drawn to rekindle their spiritual side – and had more time to do so – the old taught the young about traditional crafts and skills like weaving and fishing, and the beaches were dotted with local families having picnics rather than being filled with tourists. The following quote from a native Rarotongan illustrates this social reawakening: It was like this community spirit was being activated again after being dormant for so long because everyone was working for the tourism industry, which is a 24-hour industry. And so we didn’t have time for the community. But during COVID, people had more time to be with family, so there were a lot of social benefits due to the impacts of COVID – people started working together, setting up groups in the villages to help the elderly and the disabled, helping to clean their yards, fix their roofs – the community has returned.

While we illustrate positive reflections from participants, we must not overlook the hardships and extreme socio-economic pressures endured by many people. As the pandemic drew on, some people became more stressed about their future, had to renegotiate loans they had with the bank and consider whether to send family members offshore to make a living (Scheyvens et al. 2022). It is important to note, however, that amid a catastrophic global event, people relied on their social networks, cultural cohesiveness and community to build resilience and adapt to change: The community spirit, the ability to activate our cohesiveness, relatively quickly actually…It’s kind of built in us as Cook Islanders. When the time came to do that, everyone came together. It was like a natural process for us.

The rapid growth of tourism in Rarotonga led to the monetisation of livelihoods by equating the wants and needs of people with economic substitutes, which emphasises the value of economic prosperity for well-being while obscuring the importance of social responsibilities. However, as demonstrated by the results of this case study, various dimensions of well-being resurfaced in the responses and adaptation mechanisms of island people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of particular importance to the overall theme of this book is how these notions of well-being, including relations of trust, actions of reciprocity and collaboration, relate to the resilience of small island societies. As such, the link between social well-being and resilience is the key finding of the study.

3 Barter for Better Fiji: Well-being and Resilience The Republic of Fiji is a small island developing state in the South Pacific Ocean. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism contributed 34% to the Fijian GDP, with more than one-third of Fijians working in the tourism and hospitality sector

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Fig. 2  Barter for Better Fiji Facebook Page. (Photo: Facebook)

(Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism 2019). Significantly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent border closures and travel restrictions, approximately 33% of the total Fijian workforce was unemployed or working reduced hours in 2020 (Ministry of Economy 2020). The insights of this case study, which explores Barter for Better Fiji (BFBF) (Fig. 2), demonstrate how the renewal of old practices (i.e. bartering) with the integration of new tools (i.e. social media) provided an adaptive strategy to support the well-being of Fijian people during times of crisis. Evolving from the COVID-19 crisis, BFBF was established as an online platform that aided Fijian people and businesses in bartering goods and services and finding new suppliers to trade products during the pandemic, creating ‘a community of kindness’ (Darmadi 2020; Fogarty 2020; Tora 2020). During the first months of the lockdown, the platform reached 200,000 people, an impressive number for a country with a population of over 900,000 people (Pacific Community 2021). Among many other examples, Fijian people traded livestock for construction materials, seafood for haircuts, groceries for yard cleaning services and baked goods for business equipment. Doctors offered their services to those unemployed and unable to afford treatment. With schools closed during the lockdown period and parents unable to afford tuition fees for their children, teachers bartered tutoring lessons on a ‘give-what-you-can-afford-basis’ (Darmadi 2020). Initially set up in Fiji, the online bartering system further spread across other Pacific countries, with ‘Barter for Nambawan Life Vanuatu’ founded in Vanuatu, ‘Barter for Better Samoa’ in Samoa and ‘Barter for Change’ in Tonga (Tora 2020). For some people who lost their jobs in the tourism sector at the start of the pandemic and relied entirely on the environment (the sea and/or the farm), the barter system represented a ‘lifesaver’, allowing them to sustain their families and cover daily living costs (Sauvakacolo 2021). For others, the income generated through the

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barter system contributed to setting up other income-generating ventures, like food stalls (UNAIDS 2020). Not only did the online platform help Pacific people barter during times of crisis, it also created a sense of community. Particularly in Fiji, the barter system led to reconnections between childhood friends and acquaintances, family relatives and forgotten neighbours who realised their traditional ties following bartering (UNAIDS 2020). Despite not focusing directly on vulnerable and stigmatised community members, BFBF helped people living with HIV and LGBTQI+ people barter during the pandemic, creating a safe environment for marginalised groups to develop connections and positively impact their mental health. Even though BFBF was introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the success of the modern adaptation of Fijian bartering is rooted in a traditional practice that dates back to ancient trading systems (Boodoosingh 2020). While Pacific people developed multiple exchange systems during ancient times, Jiko (1993) noted that the barter system started to be observed in ancient Fiji when bark cloth was bartered for sandalwood with people from Tonga. Moreover, Finau and Scobie (2021) argue that the modern barter system is rooted in traditional Fijian practices of veisa and veitauvu, still observed in Fiji today. A concept born out of the value of reciprocity, veisa refers to a transactional act practised by iTaukei (Indigenous Fijians) in different sociopolitical and economic settings to strengthen connections, social unity and safety with the spiritual world, acquaintances and the environment (Finau and Scobie 2021). Veitauvu defines a customary relationship between iTaukei from particular provinces (Toren 1999), originating from the same ancestral spirit (vu) (Gatty 2009). Therefore, through the practice of bartering, Fijians reconnected between traditional values, kinship and modern practices. Such bartering has contributed to different dimensions of well-being: financial (income generation and ability to fulfill community responsibilities), mental (positive encounters for vulnerable groups) and social (social cohesion and kinship). However, at the time of writing, the barter system is slowly fading out as Fiji opened its borders to international tourism, and most Fijians have returned to paid employment. Nonetheless, although the bartering is not as extensive as it used to be during the pandemic, there are opinions that it might remain a viable option in times of crisis or hardship, as further explained by a research participant below: This [bartering platform] is still ongoing at the moment. But not to the extent that was happening during the lockdown since there are more people going back to work… but I think since the cost of living is increasing now in Fiji, so, there are still practices of this barter system.

Using an ancient practice reintroduced in times of crisis, the Fijian people managed to reactivate traditional activities to support their kin and sustain financial, mental and social well-being levels during the COVID-19 pandemic by enhancing connectedness and a sense of community (Scheyvens et al. 2021). Importantly, this also fostered a greater sense of their own agency and helped to develop resilience that was aligned with Indigenous cultural values and beliefs.

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4 Tasmanians ‘Making Themselves at Home’ Tasmania is located approximately 300 kilometres from the south-eastern tip of mainland Australia. The island is 68,402 km2, has a population of around 540,000 residents (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021) and is renowned for its large tracts of wilderness, temperate rainforest and coastal scenery (Ooi and Hardy 2020). Prior to COVID-19, tourism was the state’s largest employer: 1  in 12 workers was employed in the industry, and tourism was responsible for 9% of the local gross state product, a relatively high amount for a diversified economy in Australia (Tourism Tasmania 2021). The sudden lockdown of March 2020 caused an enormous shock to the island state. The reaction of the then-Premier, Peter Gutwein, was swift and firm. In March 2020, he announced that ‘we have a moat and we are not afraid to use it’ (Reuters Staff 2020). This closure continued until December 2020 and was reinstated when the Delta variant struck, from February 2021 to December 2021. For tourism operators, employees and those dependent on the tourism industry, this closure was potentially devastating. In order to prevent catastrophic damage, the federal and state governments announced a raft of emergency relief measures. A ‘job keeper’ grant was offered by the federal government to employees who had been furloughed by the pandemic, and crisis funds were made available to members of the tourism industry by the Tasmanian government along with a campaign to ‘Buy Something Tasmanian’ that promoted Tasmanian-made produce and local business. Then, in September 2020, an AU$7.5 million (US$4.85 million) Tasmanian Travel Voucher Scheme was launched by the Tasmanian government, allowing Tasmanians to claim backup to AU$300 (US$194) on accommodation and experiences. Approximately 21,500 vouchers were offered in the first scheme and sold out in 40 min. This was quickly followed by a second tranche, and together they reportedly injected over AU$20 million (US$12.94 million) into the tourism industry. The voucher schemes had unexpected consequences. For many operators, it was the catalyst to open their business after a prolonged closure, and for a large number, it also prompted a shift in their focus from the international to the domestic Australian and Tasmanian markets. It also prompted changes in their pricing; many businesses introduced ‘Tasmanian’ prices, allowing many residents to be able to afford to stay with them. For some tourism operators, the opening provided income and gave them a purpose, and for some, the opportunity to make changes to their business structure. However, this was not the case for all tourism operators. Those who had products that focused solely on international markets, such as farm stays and agritourism, struggled to attract domestic customers, while the Tasmanian and international borders were closed. These financial struggles caused enormous amounts of stress, but at the same time, their diversity in products allowed them to return to their agricultural practices as their primary means of income, making them more resilient. The constantly changing circumstances and uneven patterns of business survival impacted the tourism industry’s collective sense of well-being: while some operators were flourishing, others were facing seemingly insurmountable struggles:

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So when the pandemic hit, the first few weeks of that were a lot of scenario planning and really late nights and trying to figure out how we could keep the business running with the restrictions, and to be honest, it was super stressful.

A second initiative in Tasmania had equally significant well-being outcomes. In July 2020, in the midst of the first lockdown, a Graduate Certificate in Tourism, Environment and Cultural Heritage was offered to employees in tourism affected by the COVID-19 pause, and it attracted over 300 enrolments. The course had unexpected benefits that extended beyond skills development. Based on a survey of participants in the course, the findings indicated that the course played a highly significant role by ‘distracting’ those greatly affected by the pandemic, thus contributing to their mental well-being: I wasn’t having a good time mentally, as soon as everything happened…. But I think the main thing was, it kept me focused on something.

Moreover, the course facilitated a sense that they were a community, contributing to their social well-being: We were all in this together … we’re all in businesses or running organisations … that was actually quite reassuring.

The Tasmanian experience demonstrated that during a prolonged crisis event when islands are physically isolated, several dimensions of well-being contributed towards the resilience of its people. The first is a financial dimension; the voucher scheme supported the industry and allowed Tasmanians to travel while acting as a catalyst for many businesses to reopen, providing them with new sources of domestic tourism income and a purpose. A further dimension of well-being was mental distraction, demonstrated through the education offering that distracted business owners from the pandemic. The nature of Tasmania being an island means that social well-­being also occurred as a result of those in the industry studying together and supporting each other. Finally, a sense of pride of place and identity emerged among Tasmanians as a result of their physical isolation, contributing to their mental and social well-being. Many Tasmanians who took up the opportunity of the travel vouchers were reported to have travelled around Tasmania for the first time and to locations in Tasmania that they had never visited before. This, coupled with their isolation for nearly 2 years, resulted in scores of reports of an enhanced sense of what it meant to be ‘Tasmanian’.

5 Discussion and Conclusion Well-being is a complex phenomenon whose definition is shaped by context. As the Pacific models of well-being discussed earlier in the chapter explained, context can include elements like time, place and environment (Kupa 2009; Pulotu-Endemann 2001). This context plays a key role in influencing people’s well-being. In Te Vaka Atafagā (Kupa 2009), well-being is depicted as a vaka (boat), and that environment

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could be rough seas or ferocious winds, which would clearly impact the well-being of those on board the vaka. Contextual elements at play in all three of the case studies we examined were, primarily, the fact that they are islands, and secondly, the global coronavirus pandemic was in full swing at the time of our research. This environmental context influenced the well-being of people in our case studies and is linked to their resilience to shocks and stressors that impact them from time to time. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a prolonged, sudden and unprecedented change. This chapter recognises that for many islanders in tourism-dependent locations (and indeed beyond), this change has been catastrophic. Lives have been lost, finances ruined, and the psychological toll is yet to be fully recognised. However, in the face of this disaster, there are also positive experiences. In Fiji, as our case study illustrated, several dimensions of well-being have become apparent. The bartering system that was reawakened served as a financial survival mechanism that contributed to Fijians’ sense of financial well-being while also contributing to their mental and social well-being through the connection and kinship that was encouraged. In Tasmania, the voucher and free education schemes contributed to financial well-­ being, acted as a distraction from life’s difficulties which helped people’s mental well-being and promoted a sense of community and pride. This is linked to both social and mental well-being. This case study also demonstrated that those whose business was diversified across multiple sectors, such as agritourism, were more economically resilient than those who relied on single markets. And in the Cook Islands, social well-being was significantly enhanced by people having more time to gather with their families and communities and their communal efforts to look out for one another while facing the challenges of the pandemic period. For all three of these case study regions, there are two main common themes that have arisen. The first is this revival in identity, as seen in (1) the enhanced pride of place by locals visiting their home island in Tasmania, (2) the resurgence of community spirit by strengthening relationships and engaging in social responsibilities in the Cook Islands, and (3) the revival of traditional practices of bartering in Fiji which strengthened social connectedness. The second commonality seen across case studies is effective adaptation and innovation, some of which involved ‘looking back to look forward’ – that is, learning from past practices. Buying locally, caring for kin and community members, bartering and learning traditional skills like fishing techniques from older relatives are examples of these practices. While the practices emerged as a survival technique, their short-term impact was to enhance well-being, and in the medium term, they have contributed to the resilience of these islanders. However, importantly, a return to past tourism practices may not always have positive outcomes (Lew et al. 2020; Benjamin et al. 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles 2021). There is a risk that if islands return to the pre-COVID status quo, or even further back, negative outcomes could occur. Precarious work, long hours, compromised employee rights and overcrowding are some undesirable elements of tourism that do not promote well-being (Koh 2020; Peterson and DiPietro 2021).

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Global pandemics might be once in a lifetime, but unpredictable market shocks, such as recessions, political instability, trade wars and natural disasters, will remain a common and imminent threat (Knight et al. 2020). One of the main realisations from this global disruption is that there is a pressing need for global-level solutions such as market and livelihood diversification to protect against global market volatility and over-dependence on a single industry (Knight et al. 2020). The learnings from this chapter, particularly, attending to multiple dimensions of well-being rather than just focusing on economic survival, are highly relevant to how other tourism-­ dependent islands might adapt in the face of future shocks. Ultimately, we hope to contribute to an understanding of how island people’s resilience can be supported in ways that enhance their well-being in the longer term.

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Tora T (2020) Two piglets for a kayak: Fiji returns to barter system as COVID-19 hits economy. The Guardian, 8 May. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/ two-­piglets-­for-­a-­kayak-­fiji-­returns-­to-­barter-­system-­as-­covid-­19-­hits-­economy. Accessed 12 May 2022 Toren C (1999) Compassion for one another: constituting kinship as intentionality in Fiji. J R Anthropol Inst 5(2):265–280 Tourism Tasmania (2021) https://tourismtasmania.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/106296/ 2021-­Q2-­Fast-­Facts-­compiled-­September-­2021.PDF Tu’itupou G, O’Donnell K, Robertson J, New Zealand Health Education Association (2020) Making connections with Pacific ideas in health education: a resource to support teaching and learning in the New Zealand Curriculum. https://healtheducation.org.nz/wp-­content/ uploads/2020/06/Making-­connections-­with-­Pacific-­ideas-­in-­HEd_NZHEA_June_2020.pdf UNAIDS (2020) Fostering an economy of kindness through traditional bartering in Fiji. United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 20 July. Available from https://www.unaids.org/ en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2020/july/20200717_bartering_fiji. Accessed 12 May 2022 Vada S, Scott N, Prentice C, Hsiao A (2020) Positive psychology and tourist well-being: a systematic literature review. Tour Manag Perspect 33:1–14 Wellbeing Economy Alliance (2021) How happy is the planet? Happy Planet Index. https://happyplanetindex.org/wp-­content/themes/hpi/public/downloads/happy-­planet-­index-­briefing-­ paper.pdf Whitman CV, Aldinger C (eds) (2009) Case studies in global school health promotion: from research to practice. Springer, New York Yamaguchi A (2013) Influences of social capital on health and well-being from qualitative approach. Global J Health Sci 5(5):153 Prof. Regina Scheyvens is Professor of Development Studies at Massey University, where she combines a passion for teaching about international development with research on tourism, community empowerment and sustainable development, especially focusing on the South Pacific. Along with books on Tourism for Development: Empowering Communities, Tourism and Poverty and Inclusive Tourism Development, she has published a wide range of articles. Recent work has examined the Sustainable Development Goals and the need to move beyond ‘business-as-usual’, indigenous approaches to tourism, and the well-being and resilience of tourism-dependent communities in the face of the coronavirus pandemic (see www.reimaginingsouthpacifictourism.com).  

Associate Prof. Anne Hardy is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania. Her research is based upon a keen interest in tourist behaviour and sustainable tourism. She is the author of three books, the most recent of which is titled Tourist Tracking and Mobility. Anne’s most well-­known project is the multiple award-winning Tourism Tracer, which has resulted in changes in the way that destinations such as Tasmania collect visitor information. Anne’s reputation for innovative, engaged and impact-driven tourism research has led to a variety of national and international academic invitations. She is on the Advisory Board for the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, was a contributor to the Kasani Call to Action on Sustainable Tourism and is a regular speaker and project partner for the UNWTO’s Sustainable Tourism division, One Planet.  

Roxane de Waegh is a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Prior to embarking on this academic journey, she worked for nearly a decade as a marine conservation practitioner with various NGOs in Myanmar, Solomon Islands, Bahamas, Belize and TimorLeste. Roxane combines her experiential knowledge in her current academic pursuit to reflect and critique extant ideas, assumptions, and processes around development and conservation as she seeks alternative strategies that prioritise long-term social-ecological wellbeing over economic growth.  

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Cristina Alexandra Trifan is a Doctoral Candidate and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster, United Kingdom. Alexandra is undertaking a research project on the role and meaning of happiness in volunteer tourism in Fiji. Drawing on decolonising research and using culturally embedded indigenous methodology, Fijian Vanua Research Framework, her study uses a participatory, collaborative approach in which research assistants actively participate in the research. Her interests intersect with tourism, cultural anthropology, development studies, happiness studies and Small Island Developing States.  

Resilience and Resistance Gemma Sou, Can-Seng Ooi, and Yunzi Zhang

Abstract  Studies on the resilience of islanders often strip them of their political agency and reduce their resilient actions to no more than adapting, mitigating and recovering from an exogenous hazard. In this chapter, we challenge this apolitical understanding of island populations by contextualising their acts of resilience within the ongoing and historical colonial processes that characterise many islands across the world. We demonstrate that island people’s acts of grassroots resilience signify implicit acts of political resistance to pursue self-determination and relinquish their dependency on external powers. We draw on the case of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 in particular to show how people pursue greater control and sovereignty over their food supply in ways that implicitly challenge US domination over their everyday lives. We also argue that exploring resilience ‘from below’, exposes how state-centric conceptualisations of resilience do not fit neatly with how disaster-affected island people define and intuitively enact resilience. Keywords  Resistance · Food sovereignty · Puerto Rico · Colonialism · Grassroot movement This chapter argues against two common notions in the resilience literature. The first notion claims that most problems or threats to islands, such as earthquakes, armed conflicts, pandemics or financial crises, are exogenous to islands. This framing of hazards implicitly suggests that the adverse impacts are solely attributable to

G. Sou (*) University of Manchester, Manchester, UK RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C.-S. Ooi School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia Y. Zhang Northern Marianas College, Saipan, MP, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-S. Ooi et al. (eds.), Islands and Resilience, SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2_4

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the severity, intensity or frequency of such hazards, rather than the endogenous vulnerabilities of islands. The framing of hazards as external to islands and the ultimate cause of disaster impacts is based on assumptions about the natural causes of disasters and metaphors imported from ‘hard’ sciences. The second notion is that grassroots acts of resilience are non-political strategies that merely prepare, mitigate, respond or recover from hazard impacts (Reid 2012). In other words, when people engage in resilience-based strategies, they are neither acting with political intent to transform the status quo nor are they transforming the status quo. These two notions are underpinned by apolitical and ahistorical conceptualisations about how hazards and threats are produced within island contexts. These understandings of hazards lack complete comprehension of the sociopolitical and economic processes that have shaped disasters over time (Pelling 2011), which often leads to resolutions that are founded on market principles and technocratic solutions, thereby perpetuating the imaginary of islands as vulnerable and passive in the face of disruptions (Kelman et al. 2016). All disasters and their responses are political. Other critical aspects of disaster management are neglected by solely concentrating on market mechanisms and technological solutions, which may lead to social-political inequalities, injustice and discrimination. This results in island peoples being represented as vulnerable subjects (Evans and Reid 2013). Also in this chapter, we argue that the representation of island people as passive in the face of disasters and the depoliticisation of islanders’ resilience conveniently obscures the role of colonialism in shaping the perceived vulnerabilities of small island states. Bourbeau (2013) suggests that contextualising and politicising the notion of adversity in historical terms are central to resilience thinking. Wandji (2019: 299) supports the importance of analysing resilience through a temporal and historical lens by arguing that colonialism should be reconceptualised as a ‘silent and slow’ hazard shaping risk over time. Adding to this multidimensional perception of resilience, Bonilla (2017) argues that vulnerability situates in sociopolitical contexts and colonial history and should not be interpreted simply as something that takes place passively due to external factors. Building on the former interpretations of resilience, this chapter explores islanders’ grassroots acts of resilience within a historical context that recognises the impacts of colonial interventions and ongoing neo-colonialism. This approach allows us to expose how islanders’ acts of resilience are by no means apolitical or ahistorical. Instead, they represent specific political attempts that seek to decolonise their everyday lives, perceiving disasters as opportunities to reclaim their sociocultural identity. By discussing how islanders respond to disasters through the lens of decolonisation theory, we echo Kothari and Arnall’s (2019) call to focus on the daily practices that contribute to new understandings of how human/non-human entanglements shape resilience. Therefore, instead of privileging resilience as something defined and imposed by the state, we explore resilience ‘from below’, which also exposes how state conceptualisations of resilience do not sit neatly with how ‘ordinary’ islanders intuitively enact resilience during their daily lives.

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1 Colonialism and Island Vulnerabilities Islands are commonly cited as some of the most vulnerable places on Earth. However, understanding of islands’ vulnerabilities often obscures colonial histories which are common across many islands (Bonilla and LeBron 2019). Many islands were impacted by colonial interventions that have generated structural vulnerability and forced dependency. The impacts that occurred during the colonial era still contribute significantly to widespread poverty, unemployment, poor health and decrepit infrastructure, which enable hazards to have such devastating impacts (Bonilla 2020). This chapter demonstrates the influence of colonial legacies by focusing on the colonial processes that enabled and encouraged islanders to increasingly depend on food imports and international tourism to support their livelihoods. We further explore how these dependencies ultimately exacerbate the vulnerability of island populations to disruptions, including natural disasters, socio-economic crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. Dietary colonialism is a process whereby colonial and neo-colonial powers have destabilised local food and agricultural production, marginalised traditional food cultures and created food import dependency (Caldwell 2014). The formal colonisation of many island communities, beginning during the 1500s and extending into the 1900s, radically reconfigured local food systems. Colonising powers often reoriented local agriculture from traditional, small-scale production to intensive plantation economies. For example, in the Caribbean, early Spanish colonisers introduced plantations for cash crops such as coffee, sugarcane and tobacco for transatlantic export markets. Large-scale sugarcane and coconut industries replaced the small-­ scale cultivation of root crops, fruits and fishing in the Pacific. As a result, the availability and consumption of traditional foods such as roots, tubers and maize have reduced dramatically on the islands (Marrero and Mattei 2022). Earlier colonial powers also introduced large-scale animal husbandries such as poultry farms, cattle grazing and industrial land-based agriculture. This produced extensive environmental consequences, including diminished freshwater resources, harmful agricultural chemicals, increased pollution, ample forest clearance, soil erosion and threats to the extinction of local species (Marrero and Mattei 2022). Colonial powers also restructured many island economies and disrupted their marine ecosystems by introducing the industrial export market of seafood products which marginalised subsistence fisheries and overexploited local fish stocks (Thaman and Biogeography 2002). The replacement of traditional food farming with non-nutritive cash crops—many of which are still cultivated today—has driven nutritional deficiencies and necessitated the import of inexpensive, energy-dense foods high in sodium and with limited nutritional value. In some islands, processed food consumption has also been reinforced via foreign governmental aid, including the US supplemental nutrition assistance programme. Urbanisation and industrialisation pressure islanders to abandon labour-intensive agriculture, further exacerbating poor diet quality, sedentary behaviour, weight gain and non-communicable diseases (Hawley and McGarvey 2015).

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The vulnerability of islands is also a result of neo-colonial economic restructuring towards the expansion of extractive and unsustainable modes of tourism. By the 1960s, multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Development Agency promoted tourism as a viable socio-economic development tool for ‘third world’ countries. Access to IMF structural adjustment funding was conditional on implementing pro-market policies with reduced state intervention in economic affairs (Edmonds 2015). This prompted a policy shift from local agriculture to service-oriented industries, primarily tourism. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of tourism in solving economic problems in many islands remains questionable. For instance, Fiji, a major Melanesian tourist destination, experienced little poverty reduction and unsatisfactory economic performance of 0.5% GDP growth in 2019 (Gounder 2020). In the case of Samoa, with a 15% increase in inbound arrivals from 2014 to 2019 (Samoa Tourism Board 2019), food poverty persisted in many parts of the nation, and basic-needs poverty was prevalent in urbanised areas (Moustafa 2016). The emergence of mass tourism and all-inclusive packages can be attributed to the growing monopoly of transnational corporations, which own most of the hospitality and tourism enterprises on many small island states. This results in the economic marginalisation and exclusion of local populations who today still do not reap the economic benefits of mass tourism. While tourism may have contributed to the declining unemployment rates, it must be noted that most jobs offered within the tourism sector are low-skilled professions that receive minimum wages (Aynalem et al. 2016). Islands’ reliance on external markets for food security and livelihood security increases their vulnerability to the impacts of disasters. Access to consumables that contribute to people’s daily diets can also deplete rapidly during the initial weeks after a disaster. This can be attributed to two reasons. The first reason is that import activities typically shift to humanitarian relief aid, and reconstruction materials are prioritised at the expense of everyday consumables (Kim and Bui 2019). The second reason is that small islands lack sufficient food reserves because their agricultural sector has become specialised for cash crop production and export markets, leading to a dependency on imported food products (Iglesias 2018). During the global COVID-19 pandemic, food imports remained far below the expected levels in the first 12 months of the crisis (Rashid et al. 2020). Given the shortage of food products, local food retailers responded by increasing prices to mitigate their losses. For example, daily food items rose by 35% during the first 5 months after the 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. In these situations, higher-income households are generally able to afford inflated prices. In contrast, lower-income households will be forced to rely on salty and unhealthy humanitarian relief aid when available (Sou et al. 2021). Regarding islands’ reliance on international tourism, disasters can often result in the partial or total collapse of global tourism, leaving large portions of island populations without employment. This is significant for less developed countries (LDCs) as 42 out of 47 LDCs have tourism as a critical sector for development, and 1 out of 10 jobs in the world are directly linked to the tourism sector (Baum et al. 2020).

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During the global pandemic, island governments quickly closed their borders and stopped air travel and cruise ship arrivals. International tourism to islands dropped by 70%, and imports shrunk by an estimated 28%, given the closure of international borders. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimated an average decrease in GDP of 9% across all small island states, compared with a 3.3% decline in other ‘developing’ countries. Millions were left without employment (UNCTAD 2021). Other examples include the 2020 Tropical Cyclone Harold, which dismantled the tourism industry of Vanuatu, reducing its tourism arrivals by 68%. Additionally, in early 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Palau had only 3% of its average tourism arrivals, and the Northern Marianas Islands experienced a similar 85% decline from March to December 2022 (Marianas Visitors Authority 2022). Despite the diverse ways that islands are adversely impacted by hazards, research across island contexts has revealed the intuitive, spontaneous grassroots ways that islanders have adapted to different hazards. This has also been shown in earlier chapters. However, in this chapter, we show how grassroots acts of resilience can represent implicit acts of anti-colonial resistance.

2 Reframing Island Resilience as Resistance During Disasters Many islanders spontaneously cultivated their produce to mitigate the impacts of reduced food imports after natural hazards and during the COVID-19 pandemic. They raised backyard chickens, which led to state-sponsored initiatives. They cope and adapt. For example, in Fiji, the government implemented the ‘Farm Support Package’ and ‘Home Gardening Program’ to encourage new and continued efforts of Fijians in cultivating their food crops (Randin 2020). Similarly, to motivate local food production, the Solomon Islands distributed seeds to urban and rural communities, and Samoa utilised its aid grants to purchase seeds and planting materials for its residents (Iese et al. 2021). In Puerto Rico, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, many households responded to the lack of fresh foods by collectivising and growing produce in their gardens or gardens of abandoned houses, and/or raising chickens (Figs. 1 and 2) (McIlvaine-Newsad et al. 2020). The vegetables and eggs produced were not enough to replace Puerto Ricans’ reliance on retailed produce; however, they supplemented people’s diets with renewable and nutritious ingredients and fresh produce, which they valued after relying heavily on relief aid in the initial months. After hurricane Maria in 2017, many ‘community kitchens’ developed. These kitchens supported small-scale farming and decentralised local food projects, often providing free food to low-income people. They support food sovereignty through shared resources, exchange of labour and knowledge. These grassroots initiatives often have a clear political mandate, aligning themselves with the ‘independentista’ (pro-independence) and anticolonial movements (Roberto 2019).

58 Fig. 1  Chickens that women began raising after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Gemma Sou)

Fig. 2  Vegetables that women began growing after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Gemma Sou)

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In establishing communal gardens, Puerto Ricans tacitly became part of the island’s larger movement for food sovereignty. In response to economic downturns in international tourism during disasters, many islanders also drew on place-based knowledge and novel practices to adapt. In addition to subsistence gardening and fishing discussed above, there is also a revival of exchange and bartering. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, many people in various Pacific Island countries set up roadside stalls to sell and exchange agricultural and aquaculture surpluses (Scheyvens et  al. 2023). Migration from overcrowded capital islands to outer islands eased pressure on the former, strengthening kinship ties and bringing back much-needed labour and skills to depopulated islands (Farbotko and Kitara 2021). Also, social and mental well-being improved as islanders spent more time with family, extended family and religious networks and enjoyed leisure spaces, such as sandy beaches and restaurants ordinarily dominated by international tourists (Campbell and Connell 2021). Increased customary practices such as community gardens, bartering, and subsistence fishing secured many islanders’ access to nutritious and affordable food. It helped maintain people’s health and nutrition, enabling them to engage in other recovery activities, such as reconstructing housing, by allowing households to offset their expenditures (Steenbergen et  al. 2020). These practices indeed represent creative strategies to adapt to, mitigate and recover from disasters within resilience vernacular and analytical frameworks. People’s subsistence farming and fishing and bartering demonstrate that people certainly value maintaining nutritious diets and offsetting their income during shocks. As such, these strategies fit neatly with resilience vernacular and analytical frameworks. However, if we only interpret these grassroots behaviours as acts of resilience, we completely overlook the ways that colonialism has shaped vulnerability and made it necessary for people to be resilient in the first place. Second, we obscure the political significance of these actions. We argue that people’s actions represent implicit political resistance to the historical and ongoing colonial policies that undermine islanders’ access to nutritious and affordable food. In other words, subsistence gardening and fishing and bartering represent people’s attempts to reclaim land and regain some control over their food supply, diet, tastescapes, culinary experiences and income in general. We suggest that these acts of resilience resonate strongly with notions of food sovereignty in particular – ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems’ (Declaration of Nyéléni 2007, p1). The gardens, subsistence fishing and bartering have an implicit resistance mandate that aims to decolonise islanders’ food supply and to take greater control over their access to and experiences of food. These strategies symbolise spontaneous grassroots forms of resistance rather than a mere means to cope with disasters. In this way, islanders sought self-determination to make decisions independent of the systems, laws and policies imposed by outside forces dictating their food supplies (Penehira et al. 2014). The emphasis on establishing locally owned and renewable food supplies also closely ties with environmental justice struggles, which centre on

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notions of autonomy, direct democracy and sustainability (Atiles-Osoria 2014). Reclaiming local foods provides an adaptive alternative to dependence on processed and energy-dense food imports. In this way, revitalising small-scale agriculture and subsistence fisheries offers a systemic approach to improving diet quality and potentially boosting peoples’ health across islands (Davila et al. 2021). In this way, we suggest that anti-colonial and normative forms of societal and economic organisation may rupture from disasters at the grassroots level. And that this can open conversation for how societies might be transformed in ways that challenge historical and ongoing colonial processes that produce vulnerabilities. Resilience is often critiqued as a process and state that maintains the status quo. That is, resilience is often criticised for (re)producing and reifying the structural processes and injustices that produce societal vulnerabilities in the first place (Ooi 2022). However, grassroots acts of ‘resilient resistance’ show us how resilience can be potentially transformative and that it is not always about maintaining the status quo. Nevertheless, we recognise how celebrating people’s acts of ‘resilient resistance’ can place the burden of responsibility to transform societies and solve collective problems onto island populations (Chandler 2019; Humbert and Joseph 2019; see chapters “Situating Island Resilience” and “Wayfinding Resilience”). And we recognise that grassroots acts of resilient resistance are insufficient to generate broad social transformation and structural changes. This would require coalitions that unite entities with similar views on island sovereignty, including political parties, local enterprises, scholarships, the diaspora and international organisations. Yet, by politicising the resilient actions of islanders, we acknowledge that islanders need to adapt and be resilient because of their placation, exploitation and experiences of colonisation. Resistance is appropriate as it embodies the sophistication of island social systems and values exemplified by islands. It uncovers how islanders continually engage in power struggles with historical and ongoing processes directly impacting their everyday lives and vulnerability to hazards. Therefore, we argue that resilience is an inadequate concept to understand islanders’ responses during disasters. Resilience frameworks are ill-equipped to recognise the political significance of subsistence gardening, fishing and bartering on islands during disasters. More specifically, resilience erases the role of colonialism in shaping people’s vulnerability. Thus, we consider it analytically unequipped to recognise the political agency and transformative potential of so-called non-political resilient acts that occur during disasters and within ongoing colonialism. We must situate islanders’ responses to disasters within broader colonial processes, as this can allow us to recognise the inherently political nature of such acts. Research also shows that women predominantly perform the spontaneous establishment of community gardens in response to disasters because they are typically responsible for food preparation and cooking, which makes them more aware of and directly affected by the decline in food quality than men. That more women were involved in the spontaneous gardens in response to hazards is also because women often have greater expertise in local vegetation, reflecting the gendered distribution of traditional ecological knowledge (Turner et  al. 2020). We argue that women’s community-based food production during disasters reveals the feminisation of

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resistance, whereby the nature, meaning and subjects of political resistance, a dominantly masculine conceptualisation (Motta 2013; Sargisson 2002), are reconfigured and reimagined. Recognition of women’s role in resistance is crucial to avoid reproducing and reifying the historical masking and delegitimisation of women’s position at the heart of revolutionary and popular struggle (Dalla Costa and James 1972: 13). This is significant across islands, where anti-colonialism has often been framed through a patriarchal perspective in which women’s role has typically been limited to the role as guardians of culture as they bring citizens into the world (Briggs 2003).

3 Conclusion Islanders’ lifestyles shift to subsistence farming, fishing, bartering and selling local produce surplus are examples of how island communities attempt to rebuild their traditional livelihoods. Some even suspect there can be no ‘back to normal’ (Gössling et  al. 2020). Many believe revitalisation can promote sustainable food systems, regenerate economies and preserve biodiversity (Norum et  al. 2020). In other words, maintaining these COVID-19 adaptive strategies could reduce tourism dependency and general vulnerability (Davila et al. 2021; Reksa et al. 2021; Lew et al. 2020; Sheller 2021). However, it is dangerous to be celebratory and perceive disasters as an ‘opportunity’ to transform island livelihoods. It is vital to take a cautionary approach and recognise that the alternate social system islanders enter after a disaster may not be desirable. Instead, it highlights their plight of being controlled by historical and ongoing colonial processes. This chapter offers a glimpse into an alternative way of analysing grassroots resilience, which reveals how grassroots acts of resilience can challenge the status quo. The responses of populations across islands during disasters show how resilience and resistance are neither competitive nor mutually exclusive. Across islands, the resurgence of customary practices indicates an urge among islanders to seek ‘sovereignty’ over their everyday lives and a desire to undermine historical and ongoing colonial processes that (re)produce their vulnerabilities to different hazards. Islanders may engage in political acts of resistance without being politically conscious because resistance does not belong to the politically educated. It is how islanders act, rather than their intention, that matters. Overlooking acts of resistance without legitimate or ‘appropriate’ intentions will discourage conversations about the transformational potential of islanders’ decolonisation strategies (de Certeau 1984). In sum, we suggest that situating island populations’ acts of resilience within colonialism presents opportunities to reinterpret and reimagine the causes of disasters and responses to disasters in islands. It offers a solid historicisation of contexts and how the need to adapt and be resilient among marginalised people across islands has its origins in their placation, exploitation and colonisation. Future research would benefit greatly from engaging with historical and ongoing colonial processes as it opens space to unearth the grassroots and subtle ways that disaster-affected

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people aim to forge different forms of societal and economic organisation. Moreover, adopting such a methodology in disaster contexts is not merely about understanding how a society recovers, it is also about thinking critically and imaginatively about alternative futures that seek to address the structures that (re)produce the vulnerabilities which predicate disasters in society. Thus, it can provide island researchers with the conceptual framing to normatively reimagine what recovery and society could look like.

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Hawley NL, McGarvey ST (2015) Obesity and diabetes in Pacific Islanders: the current burden and the need for urgent action. Curr Diab Rep 15(5):1–10 Humbert C, Joseph J (2019) Introduction: the politics of resilience: problematising current approaches. Resilience 7(3):215–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2019.1613738 Iese V et al (2021) Impacts of COVID-19 on agriculture and food systems in Pacific Island countries (PICs): evidence from communities in Fiji and Solomon Islands. Agric Syst 190. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103099 Iglesias JA (2018) El origen del colono en Puerto Rico. Revista De Indias 78(273):533–560 Kelman I, Gaillard JC, Lewis J, Mercer J (2016) Learning from the history of disaster vulnerability and resilience research and practice for climate change. Nat Hazards 82:129–143 Kim K, Bui L (2019) Learning from Hurricane Maria. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 39:101244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101244 Kothari U, Arnall A (2019) Everyday life and environmental change. Geogr J 185(2):130–141. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12296 Lew AA, Cheer JM, Haywood M, Brouder P, Salazar NB (2020) Visions of travel and tourism after the global COVID-19 transformation of 2020. Tour Geogr 22(3):455–466 Marianas Visitors Authority (2022) Visitor arrival statistics. https://www.mymarianas.com/ press-­release-­reports/ Marrero A, Mattei J (2022) Reclaiming traditional, plant-based, climate-resilient food systems in islands. Lancet Planet Health 6(2):e171–e179 McIlvaine-Newsad H, Porter R, Delany-Barmann G (2020) Change the game, not the rules: the role of community gardens in disaster resilience. J Park Recreat Adm 38(3):2–22 Motta SC (2013) The feminization of resistance in Venezuela. Lat Am Perspect 40(4):35–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X13485706 Moustafa A (2016) Samoa hardship and poverty report. Samoa National Statistics Office and UNDP Pacific Centre Norum R, Mostafanezhad M, Córdoba MA, Azcárate. (2020) COVID-19 and the geopolitical end of tourism. In: Tourism geopolitics: assemblages of infrastructure, affect, and imagination Ooi C-S (2022) Sustainable tourism and the moral limits of the market: can Asia offer better alternatives? In: Balasingam AS, May Y (eds) Asian tourism sustainability. Springer, pp 177–197 Pelling M (2011) The vulnerability of cities to disasters and climate change: a conceptual framework. In: Coping with global environmental change, disasters and security: threats, challenges, vulnerabilities and risks. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 549–558 Penehira M, Green A, Smith LT, Aspin C (2014) Māori and indigenous views on resistance and resilience. Mai. 3(2). https://hdl.handle.net/10289/10016 Randin G (2020) COVID-19 and food security in Fiji: the reinforcement of subsistence farming practices in rural and urban areas. Oceania. https://doi.org/10.1002/ocea.5271 Rashid H, Ng PL, Cheng HWJ, Grozdanic A (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic puts island developing economies in dire straits Reid J (2012) The disastrous and politically debased subject of resilience. Dev Dialogue 58(1):67–79 Reksa AFA, Lissandhi AN, Syahid CN (2021) Reimagining Future Island: the COVID-19 impacts on tourism sector in small Island developing states (SIDS) and strategies to moving forward. J Indonesian Soc Sci Humanit 11(1):31–42 Roberto G (2019) Community kitchens. In: Bonilla Y, LeBrón M (eds) Aftershocks of disaster. Haymarket Books, pp 309–318 Samoa Tourism Board (2019) Total visitor arrivals by country/year. https://www.samoatourism. org/articles/254/total-­visitor-­arrivals-­by-­countryyear. Accessed 30 May 2020 Sargisson L (2002) Utopian bodies and the politics of transgression. Routledge, London Scheyvens RA, Movono A, Auckram S (2023) Pacific peoples and the pandemic: exploring multiple wellbeings of people in tourism-dependent communities. J Sustain Tour 31(1):111–130 Sheller M (2021) Reconstructing tourism in the Caribbean: connecting pandemic recovery, climate resilience and sustainable tourism through mobility justice. J Sustain Tour 29(9):1436–1449

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Sou G, Shaw D, Aponte-Gonzalez F (2021) A multidimensional framework for disaster recovery. World Dev 144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105489 Steenbergen DJ, Neihapi PT, Koran D, Sami A, Malverus V, Ephraim R, Andrew N (2020) COVID-19 restrictions amidst cyclones and volcanoes. Mar Policy 121:104199. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104199 Thaman R, Biogeography PI (2002) Threats to Pacific Island biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in the Pacific Islands. Dev Bull 58:23–27 Turner KL, Idrobo CJ, Desmarais AA, Peredo AM (2020) Food sovereignty, gender and everyday practice. J Peasant Stud 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1786812 UNCTAD (2021) Small island developing states face uphill battle in COVID-19 recovery. https://unctad.org/news/small-­island-­developing-­states-­face-­uphill-­battle-­covid-­19-­recovery. Accessed 23 July 2022 Wandji D (2019) Rethinking the time and space of resilience beyond the West. Resilience 7(3):288–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2019.1601861 Dr. Gemma Sou is a Lecturer at the University of Manchester and a development geographer interested in human-environment relations. Gemma draws on postcolonial discourse to examine the everyday geographies and politics of climate change  and disasters. Her personal website is www.gemmasou.com.  

Prof. Can-Seng Ooi is a sociologist and is Professor of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of Tasmania. His research career spans over three decades, during which he conducted research across many countries, including Australia, Denmark, Singapore, China and Malaysia. Some issues Can-Seng investigates are the local turn in tourism, tourism-community relations, place branding, cross-­cultural management and the political economy of tourism. His personal website is www.cansengooi.com.  

Associate Prof. Yunzi Zhang is a social scientist and Associate Professor of Hospitality Management at the Northern Marianas College. Her research focuses on the intersections between tourism, politics and history, especially on cases situated in marginalised communities. Her recent publications have addressed the sociopolitical conditions that influence tourist behaviours of the Chinese outbound market. Her current fieldworks in Micronesia examine indigenous identities, rural well-­being and development through the lens of tourism.  

Wayfinding Resilience Apisalome Movono, Can-Seng Ooi, Anne Hardy, Marta Muslin, and Stroma Cole

Abstract  Using case studies from Indonesia, Australia and Fiji, this chapter presents an alternative model for operationalising resilience. It takes a holistic approach and argues that islands and the communities that live on them are interconnected; thus, they are subject to both internal and external influences. The chapter argues that the forces that shape islands extend beyond local boundaries connecting islands socially, financially and ecologically to the global system. It also argues that resilience is non-linear and may exist in many different forms; this supports the agency that exists within communities and which can be resistant to monetary influence. Keywords  Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model · Reconceptualising resilience · Fiji · Komodo National Park · Tasmania In this chapter, we draw from previous chapters and build upon existing conceptualisations of island resilience. This book has demonstrated that the resilience of small islands is often discursively constructed with an emphasis on the inevitable destructions by hazards, island vulnerability and preconceived notions of islanders as passive recipients who are stranded in the middle of oceans, waiting to be saved by outsiders who can aid in their fledging progression towards modernity (DeLoughrey 2019). The contributors to this book have disrupted these imaginations and spurred consideration for their validity by drawing on empirical data about island resilience across multiple regions, thus challenging the long-held victimhood A. Movono (*) Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] C.-S. Ooi · A. Hardy University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia M. Muslin Indonesia Waste Platform, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia S. Cole University of Westminster, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 C.-S. Ooi et al. (eds.), Islands and Resilience, SpringerBriefs on Case Studies of Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9964-2_5

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narratives. In this sense, our book has spoken to Chandler and Pugh (2021), who identify how the framings of islands are increasingly seen more productively in ways that challenge the vulnerable, passive and dependent structures that have come to dominate academic, policy and media discourse. Regardless to recall, here is a summary of the earlier chapters. This book starts the discussion on island resilience by situating the concept in chapter “Situating Island Resilience”. Zhang and her co-authors interrogate contrasting romantic and denigrating imaginaries of small island states and their ability to cope, adapt and transform in times of crisis. They allude to different perspectives on island resilience, including streams from political ecology, global environmental change research and neoliberal governance. In challenging the imaginaries, vulnerabilities in small island states are not inevitable. The strengths of small island communities are highlighted throughout this book. Like in all communities, they have complex histories and intricate contemporary relations with the world. Island states are part of the global system; most have ugly colonial pasts and yet have adopted social, economic and political institutions from their former colonisers. They also function in the international economic system and depend on global economic and political powers. The chapters in this book show how island communities take responsibility and actions in times of crisis to make themselves stronger, less vulnerable and happier. Chapter “Social Inclusion and Resilience” highlights the complexity of communities, even on small islands. de Waegh and her team probe the dynamics of social inclusion in small island communities and how that influences peoples’ resilience to sociopolitical and environmental changes around them. In particular, they examine two imaginaries about island societies, namely, the romanticising of island customs, traditions and ways of life and the homogenous framing of small island communities. By taking an intersectional approach and applying political ecology perspectives, they unpack the social dimensions of resilience that enable us to ask, “resilience for whom and at what cost to which others?”. The process of strengthening resilience is understood to involve sociopolitical developments that are linked with power dynamics and social resilience. This view of resilience requires marginalised groups’ inclusion, participation and empowerment. With reference to disruptive events, three cases are presented: gendered aspects of livelihood dynamism in Timor-Leste, challenges for youth engagement in Tonga and indigenous and migrant relations in coastal communities in Vanuatu. Marginalised groups are often more gravely affected than others in times of crisis, especially when interventions and support are not catered to their needs. The case studies explore how differences in marginalised peoples’ access to resources and level of agency can determine their resilience during disturbances. Scheyvens and her fellow researchers examine various notions of well-being in small island communities. They focus on the links between their well-being and their resilience to external shocks and threats. The idea of well-being is ambiguous, but there are widely accepted notions, including health, a sense of life satisfaction and happiness. Tapping into experiences from the Cook Islands, Fiji and Tasmania,

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members of these places come together to adapt and find solutions to improve their well-being. The case studies presented illustrate how the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic brought out the community spirit, increased the practical use of traditional knowledge, strengthened social relations and developed a greater sense of pride in identity. The ability of individuals and communities to innovate effective solutions that allowed them to adapt to the lengthy disruption of COVID-19 also contributed to their well-being. In the chapter on resistance, Sou and her co-authors frame resilience as resistance. They explain how many small island communities are entangled in colonial legacies that make them more vulnerable to crises and remain dependent on their past colonial masters. Regardless, acts of resilience in small-island communities can be seen as resistance to neo-colonial structures, as communities cope, adapt and transform by mobilising their traditional knowledge, reactivating social-cultural and economic practices that are most suitable to their environment and reclaiming control over their future. In some instances, certain prescribed resilience strategies must be resisted as adaptation will retain colonial structures and perpetuate social injustices and inequality. There must be drastic changes to achieve transformation; thus, actions of resilience must go beyond just coping and adapting to disruptions. In summary, previous chapters have highlighted the challenges of bouncing back. These challenges must be overcome by examining how systems are managed, exploring which groups benefit from the established systems, and asking why other groups are excluded from receiving any benefits (Ooi 2023). In different guises and varying degrees, the chapters in this book have argued that islands and their people’s ability to cope, adapt and transform in the face of disturbances are not equal, empirically demonstrated in how different individuals and/or social groups have different access to resources, levels of agency and ability to produce outcomes. The book reveals how social relations and power dynamics can perpetuate inequality and how these inequalities can be dismantled in the face of disruptions. The social, political and economic factors that dictate power dynamics can also influence peoples’ resilience, resulting in marginalised groups disproportionally affected by the same shock. However, the tendency to view marginalised groups as homogenous, vulnerable and oppressed obscures the reality of how people exercise their agency and power in many different ways and on various scales. Island communities and marginalised groups are not passively experiencing disturbances. Instead, they use complex and dynamic mechanisms to improve their position to cope, adapt and transform – environmentally, socially, politically and economically. During a pandemic, indicators of resilience were observed in the revival of identity, enhanced pride of place by locals, resurgence of community spirit by strengthening relationships, practising traditional knowledge and in the learning of new skills. Resilience was also seen in effective adaptation and innovation, looking back to look forward  – that is, learning from past practices  – providing a pathway to understanding the elements of adaptivity and the resources and actions required to reorganise and pivot during a crisis. Island societies are complex adaptive systems that can withstand shocks and create positive experiences that influence people’s

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well-being. This, too, involves a complex process that calls into question the need for social structures and to challenge colonial constructs that often ignore pre- and post-colonial historical complexity and social heterogeneity of island societies. To reiterate, previous chapters highlight the challenge that resilience can also be an ongoing post-colonial project. Many island communities are vulnerable because their past and current development strategies made them dependent on global economic powers and multinational companies. This dependence ranges from aid to food security. Yet the responses and adaptations of island people to the major disruption of COVID-19 demonstrate a desire for self-reliance. The lived experiences of islanders discussed in this book demonstrate the double-edged sword of modernity and globalisation. While aspects of the past should be kept, there are also elements of progression and change that could benefit the well-being of island societies if they are appropriately integrated within the evolving and dynamic fabric of Indigenous cultural identities. However, making systemic and institutional changes is challenging when an island community is struggling to find its feet within the new normal (Scheyvens et  al. 2020). Due to habits, ingrained understanding of how things have always worked and established social structures and institutions, many resilience strategies tend to return to old ways. Unfortunately, established practices and worldviews tend to perpetuate the social injustices and inequalities of the status quo. Thus, social resistance mechanisms, accountability and transparency are needed in society. Finally, we would like to gently remind our readers that the lessons in this book are not restricted to island communities and that resilience is not more important on islands than elsewhere in the world. There are challenges and resilient responses in all societies. For instance, nations recovering from upheavals or are newly constituted would need to build their community, economy and political system; and if they choose to attract visitors, they have to rebrand and reinvent their destinations (Ooi et al. 2004). We should also remind ourselves that resilience is important during times of peace. For instance, camper van visitors find solutions to challenges as they travel (Gretzel and Hardy 2019), and tourism organisations tap into innovations to enhance visitor experiences (Hardy and Aryal 2020). The discussions here are relevant to non-island places and during less disruptive periods.

1 A Need to Reimagine Resilience? Society is constantly evolving and emerging, and disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters will inevitably lead to a transformation within elements of society. Efforts must be made to ensure that some things are kept while others are thrown away. Relying on past incompetent and corrupt officials and inadequate and non-accountable systems will merely create a new normal with the

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reincarnation of nepotism, cronyism and corruption (Ooi 2022). This applies to all societies, not just island states. It also implies that we must not throw away everything old and tested as island communities establish their future. Colonisation oppresses and should be stopped. Local structures and values can also be oppressive, similar to foreign powers establishing systems that benefit themselves. On the other hand, imported systems can also be adopted and revised for the benefit of the community. Liberal democratic values like accountability, transparency, the rule of law and respect for minorities are essential to keep cronyism and corruption at bay. While interrogating local norms and values, it is also necessary to reconsider relationships with the outside world, including with other communities, trading partners, regional powers and multinational companies. From an ecological perspective, resilience is founded on a closed organism or system that can sustain itself. This feeds into the imaginary of isolated and self-contained islands. However, products and services such as Wi-Fi (Australia), LEGO (Denmark), TikTok (China) and Apple products (the USA, made in China), values, ideas and organisational processes have travelled around the world. New knowledge and values emerge, such as greater understanding of climate change, and old technologies die off, such as the typewriter. Self-reliance may not always work, and some challenges need global cooperation. For instance, climate change affects the whole Earth, and thus it is essential to engage and pursue international solutions. Secondly, shared values across communities should be elevated, celebrated and enacted to bring about sustainable growth and development for all. Thirdly, there are many economic and social benefits from trade and globalisation. Small communities may not have the scale to produce all material products. While consumerism is not the goal, many goods and services improve the quality of life for many. For example, Tasmania, an island state of Australia, has weathered the pandemic by being part of Australia. Economic support from the federal government and supplies of food, goods and services were maintained within the Commonwealth even when state borders were closed. Tasmanian businesses continued to trade with other states. International borders for trade stayed open so that vaccines and medical equipment continued to arrive. Similarly, some island-states, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, have deliberately become global city-states. They make themselves relevant to the worldwide economy, and their survival depends on global connections for their economic development, basic supplies and emergence as international cities. Their ability to bounce back is not on self-reliance but on maintaining relationships with the world. There is, therefore, little doubt regarding the global economy’s far-reaching and interconnected influence. A conflict such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happening in one part of the world can create devastation and hunger in another. In the Pacific, even the smallest island nations such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu are connected and dependent on the global community in many ways, such as tourism, technology, remittances and goods.

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2 Reconceptualising Resilience: Wayfinding in Uncertain Times To reimagine resilience, one must explore an alternative narrative that looks beyond the ecological framings of closed systems (Holling 2001). One possible alternative involves a comprehensive appraisal of the interconnectedness of communities and islands with other systems, considering both internal and external shifts outlined in previous chapters and the multiple social, digital and political relationships and exchanges, which we will discuss in this section. Here, we consider that multifaceted relationships exist with other systems that extend beyond local boundaries connecting islands socially, financially and ecologically to the global system. In adopting this holistic approach, one can create pathways for investigating how these relationships can be strengthened for the mutual benefit of people and the planet and even extend knowledge beyond current thinking. A conduit to achieving this has been alluded to in previous chapters. Although vastly different, the case studies in this section share many similarities regarding their natural characteristics as islands and their unique sense of place. Each island has internal strengths, traditional knowledge and connections that do not limit exchanges with the broader global systems, especially during a crisis when people seek ways to sustain life. While the chapters in this book focus mainly on communities coming together to cope, adapt and transform their situation during COVID-19, external connections can contribute to resilience within specific sites. Notwithstanding, legacies of colonisation and the continuous domination of wealthy developed countries and multinational corporations have kept many island communities dependent and vulnerable to effectively managing shocks and hazards, as elaborated in chapter “Resilience and Resistance”. Previous chapters also highlight how social inclusion, resistance and well-being play into the complex processes engrained in the resilience-seeking process. While human beings have understood ecology as closed systems, little prior consideration has been given to how these systems connect, interact and affect adaptation on a global scale.

3 Fiji Case Study Research conducted by Movono and colleagues  established that communities in Fiji’s second-largest tourism region, the Coral Coast, were complex and adaptive in responding to tourism development. Movono (2017) argued that people had effectively adapted to tourism development over 40 years and that livelihood diversification was necessary to reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance resilience. These adaptive tendencies were further drawn out through Movono and Scheyvens’ (2022) research, which showed that people responded to the pandemic and were coping without tourism income by using their internal systems and resources, thereby showing signs of resilience. Further, they discovered that the well-being of Pacific

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peoples had improved because they could use their customary systems and resources as social safety nets. Moving beyond the inquiry of inner pivots and adaptations, they discover that coping at the community level requires relationships and connections beyond the community’s geographically and colonially defined boundaries to survive. Movono and Scheyvens (2022) found that resilience, especially in tourism-­ dependent settings, relied on people’s relationships and support networks, which often extend beyond the community, the country and the Pacific region (Fig. 1). In other instances, Movono  and Scheyvens’s (2021) work showed that people along the Coral Coast were sustaining and, in some cases, reinvigorating their interactions with the outside world through various mediums and platforms. The onset of the pandemic created much anxiety for tourism workers as borders were forced to close, despite having no active or reported cases in Fiji. This was a particularly stressful time for those whose livelihoods depend entirely on tourism. People had to seek financial, social and humanitarian support beyond their respective communities to sustain their livelihoods and meet their survival goals. Life without tourism-­ based livelihoods presented many challenges within tourist hubs and communities that had been left in disarray because of the pandemic. Instead of wallowing in their misfortunes, islanders used their phones, social media and complex kinship networks to forge on. As a result, villagers could earn money through online sales of traditional crafts and food, receive humanitarian and financial support and could get by through rekindling kinship ties with communities in other parts of Fiji and the

Fig. 1  Vatuolalai village and the Naviti Resort, Coral Coast, Fiji. (Photo: Apisalome Movono)

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world. An example is how former hotel workers from the Coral Coast were able to barter fish and mats with people from the highlands in exchange for root crops, bananas, other vegetables and kava (see also chapter “Well-­being and Resilience”). These crops were then distributed to fellow villagers and surplus sold on roadside stalls, the latter blossoming into permanent enterprises. Using social media, former hotel workers could support family members locked down in the urban centres, allowing two-way exchanges of groceries, vegetables, cash and traditional items. This trend of social engagement and exchange also extended internationally quite rapidly. Pacific peoples in Samoa and Fiji also engaged online with the global diaspora through the creation of Facebook pages and groups that were primarily focused on bringing people together to support loved ones in need. These Facebook groups provided much-needed remittances for those who could not earn an income in countries like Samoa. Another example is the emergence of Twitter and Facebook groups created and managed by former hotel guests, especially returnees from Australia, to support local families and tourism workers during the pandemic. This resulted in hotel staff receiving care packages and monetary assistance from their former hotel guests, contributing to people’s resilience to the shock imposed by the pandemic. Such tourist-host connections may be viewed by some as superficial but have undoubtedly shown how maintaining and strengthening connections with the outside world can create exchanges that contribute to sustenance. In addition to the aforementioned internal adaptations, there were also external, state-level factors that contributed to resilience. On the national front, Fiji and its economic survival depended largely on approximately NZD$500 billion (US$309 billion) of budgetary support from its closest neighbours, Australia and New Zealand. The latter was also the first country to give vaccines to Fiji. A crucial component of Fiji’s tourism economic response strategy to COVID-19 the speed at which it responded as a large part of the economy depends on tourism. Although always keen to resume tourism during the pandemic, Fiji relied on its vuvale or “family” relationship with Australia to facilitate the necessary agreements to restart travel. In December of 2021, Fiji reopened its borders after months of diplomatic negotiations and planning, primarily due to Australia’s policies and response to Fiji’s situation. A global catastrophe was transformed into opportunities that enabled people to survive and tourism to resume safely by utilising external connections and bilateral relationships coupled with internal communal adaptive capacities. For researchers, these external relationships and their contributions to resilience building have far-reaching implications. Essentially, they have created a route to understanding how to operationalise resilience beyond merely bouncing back. Using a holistic approach and recognising inter-system exchanges and engagement, we concede that resilience-building is a multi-level affair requiring partnerships and actions between communities, countries and global systems. By examining how Pacific Islanders behave during the pandemic, we can discern the various relations, connections and systems to which each community and people may attach themselves to. In Fiji, people who usually depend on tourism could operationalise

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resilience by engaging with their relatives and friends residing in other parts of the world. Similarly, in resuming tourism, the Fijian government and national tourism office looked to its multilateral relationships to sustain its treasury and reopen borders so that its golden goose can continue to lay eggs. Ultimately, by focussing on relationships beyond a defined geographical system, we realise that there are both internal and external factors that contribute towards resilience.

4 Tasmanians Case Study The Tasmanian case study in chapter “Well-­being and Resilience” highlighted internal factors such as government support for domestic travel within the state that contributed towards well-being. At the same time, borders were closed, and free education contributed towards a sense of well-being and, ultimately, resilience. However, as with the case of Fiji, external relationships from outside the state of Tasmania also contributed towards its resilience. Tourism has become a significant economic driver in Tasmania (Ooi and Hardy 2020). Soon after the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic, the Australian government announced a JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme that would run for 12 months. Employers impacted by COVID-19 who were forced to reduce hours or stand down employees after March 1, 2020, could claim support, allowing them to continue to pay their employees. The payments were made at two rates depending on the business size and the impact the pandemic had upon them (Fig. 2). The JobKeeper supported many but also raised several issues. Those who worked in the arts and creative industries on non-regular pay and as subcontractors were not eligible. Large businesses and those located offshore were not eligible, resulting in many employees being laid off from within the transport and tourism sectors. Some who worked for ineligible international companies were able to be redeployed. And while JobKeeper kept diversified and financially stable businesses prior to the pandemic afloat, not all survived. For example, those with the ability to pivot their business, such as farm stays, could focus on farming. Still, many small businesses whose primary source of income was the international market did not fare so well. JobKeeper was not the only form of external support that helped with financial resilience. In some instances, multinational companies, which are so often regarded as inherently problematic, given the drain of money outside of islands, supported their employees by placing them on retainer wages. The external financial assistance from both the federal government and non-Tasmanian business owners supported financial resilience, and the internal schemes articulated in chapter “Well-­being and Resilience” enhanced well-being. As such, they both contributed to the island’s resilience. More importantly, this resilience was not experienced by all; the collapse of businesses during the pandemic highlighted the inequities that play out in the pursuit of resilience; those in power and with privilege appeared to be likely to achieve resilience.

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Fig. 2  Wall of Jerusalem, Tasmania, Australia. (Photo: Peter Topliss)

In essence, Tasmania, like Fiji and other islands, demonstrated the capacity to adapt and pivot as an internal closed system and also as part of a wider national and international open system. In times of crisis, it is not only prudent but also necessary to identify and use diverse strategies in order to be resilient.

5 Komodo National Park Case Study This case study demonstrates how an individual, Ica aka Marta Muslin (a co-author of this chapter), can exercise agency to find solutions to improve the well-being of local women, the wider community and the environment. The case study describes the pivot from tourism to waste collection by sorting and recycling during the pandemic and how this provided economic resilience while addressing the challenges associated with marine pollution in the area. Beyond improving the economic well-­ being of impoverished families affected by COVID-19, this strategic pivot improved the local environment by contributing important health and well-being benefits for the wider community. Furthermore, it indirectly supports fishermen’s livelihood through a healthier coral reef and increased fish stocks.

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Ica lives in Labuan Bajo, the gateway town to Komodo National Park, where she earned her living renting out a boat to dive companies. She is also the coordinator of several local NGOs, including the Indonesia Waste Platform. When the pandemic hit, it surprised everyone, particularly tourism workers. Since most tourism workers do not read global news, they were mentally and financially shocked and unprepared to deal with the sudden disruption. However, as an alumnus of an international programme, Ica received information quite early. At the annual meeting of the professional diving association in February 2020, she recommended that members save their money and not invest until May while waiting to see what would happen. They laughed at her responding, “the pandemic couldn’t reach the equator”. In March, when the pandemic reached Indonesia, worry set in. They had followed their annual cycle: working to raise money from April to December, then reinvesting and/ or taking a vacation from January to February. Those in the tourism industry had not saved, and in April 2020, the tourists were not coming. In May 2020, families of tourism workers started to need food assistance due to the closure of tourism companies. Ica, using her international connections for assistance, developed a food bank programme. She also began to wonder what she would do to survive and how she could help the many families who had come to rely on tourism for their income. Not only had tourism halted, but the Indonesian Waste Platform school programme (Green Indonesia) was forced to stop. Furthermore, the general waste collection had been suspended, and households were burning their daily waste. Ica knew the Indonesian Government had a Circular Economics programme as part of its National Action Plan, which intends to increase recycling rates to 30% by 2025. The timing was fortunate as the government had been appointed as the host of the G20, and one of the events would take place in Labuan Bajo. Tourism development was booming in the town. To kick start her waste recycling social enterprise, Ica successfully sought Corporate Social Responsibility funding from an Indonesian water bottle company, pointing out that their water bottles are scattered along the beach, which presented an opportunity for her programme. She rented out her boat to transport garbage from the islands within the Komodo National Park to Labuan Bajo, where the recycling storage is located. She worked with the park authorities, the Komodo village government and a women’s group that cares about the environment called Wine Raso Kiling. The leader had been collecting waste, but no one had ever suggested she could make money from it. At the time, she struggled to pay her child’s tuition fees because the family’s main income from the food shop in Loh Liang, the tourist arrival point on Komodo island, was no longer operating. The women did not believe that they could make money from waste collection. Initially, their incomes were minimal, but with training, they could increase their earnings from US$10 to $125/month from the sale of waste. The determination of the Wine Raso Kiling women gave a new face to the Komodo Village and the Komodo National Park area. People no longer see waste as trash – they see it as a source of income. The success of Wine Raso Kiling in selling waste has inspired other villages in the area. The programme expanded to other villages (Fig. 3). In Papagaran village, the community can earn US $800 a month. Meanwhile,

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Fig. 3  Collecting and sorting out waste at Wine Raso Kiling. (Photo: Marta Muslin)

in Labuan Bajo, the project employed the wives of unemployed tourism workers and women who were displaced from laundry work or who previously made lunch boxes for tourists. They sort, compress, bale and weigh the waste before it is shipped to Surabaya and converted into new plastic products. Resilience is manifested in this case through the agency of one woman and her ability to capitalise on her social power and cultural capital. She used her connections with external systems and built new exchanges beyond her community. Her dynamism was used to engage international connections, national companies, national and local government agencies and a women’s group to pivot from tourism to solid waste management and create a successful social circular economy enterprise.

6 Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model In light of the learnings throughout this book, we propose the Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model to conceptually understand how resilience has been operationalised in islands during a crisis. The model presents islands as a connected, complex adaptive system that undergoes processes of change and transformation as a response to shocks (Holling 2001). It also assumes that islands are represented as having internal components that engage with the outside world. The islands’

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connections show the nature of engagements with external systems, which highlights reciprocal exchanges. Here we offer an alternative for understanding island resilience beyond a closed system to one connected and subject to outside exchanges rather than influence and interference. By doing this, we shift the framing and imaginaries of islands as isolated and vulnerable  – illustrated through the non-solid lines – to a framing of islands as not entirely separated from all external influences. The Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model demonstrates that external shocks such as the global financial crisis, spikes in oil prices and the global pandemic create internal reactions and adaptations within islands (Hardy 2001). It reveals that internal resilience and bouncing back depend on how people pivot and adapt internally and how a connected island system can meaningfully engage with external systems. This model differs from others as it assesses how resilience manifests during a pandemic. It further hints that resilience can be operationalised through engagement within a system and through exchanges beyond their communities to benefit people’s livelihoods and well-being during a crisis. The model further implies that resilience is non-linear. While one element, such as money, may be missing, people may still feel a sense of resilience through other factors, whether that is falling back on internal social safety nets, reaching out to local social networks or using overseas connections for support. In doing so, this supports the agency that exists within communities and is resistant to monetary influence. Survival does not always mean resilience; in Tasmania, there are examples where businesses have changed markedly, and on other islands, communities have pivoted and transformed in ways that contrast their pre-pandemic characteristics. Whether it is the formation of collectives, groups of former hotel workers to engage in business or a change in the way people eat, budget and arrange their finances – change is inevitable. From this position, the lived experiences of island people discussed in this book demonstrate the dynamism that exists within these highly embedded and interconnected island societies. During the pandemic, several ironies became apparent (see also chapter “Resilience and Resistance”). In some cases, multinational corporations are portrayed with negative connotations because they drain money out of local island economies but also prop up businesses on islands and keep them afloat. Another is that larger countries, often accused of neocolonialism or having a detrimental influence on their smaller island neighbours, were often the first to offer financial and humanitarian assistance during the pandemic, including budgetary support and COVID-19 vaccines for many Pacific Island states. In our model, solid arrows are double-ended to demonstrate the reciprocal flows of political influence, aid and trade, and noting particularly that a few small island states can also influence their larger counterparts. For example, Fiji continued to send peacekeepers to Syria, humanitarian aid to Tonga and special forces during riots in Honiara during the pandemic. More evident is the continuing geopolitical tussle in the Pacific Islands as China, the United States, New Zealand and Australia have pledged millions of dollars for climate adaptation programmes in those small island states. We also acknowledge the political influence of small island nations in terms of their political capital, which has been discussed in the previous case studies (Diagram 1).

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Diagram 1  Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model

7 Conclusion This chapter has drawn from previous contributions in this book. It builds upon existing conceptualisations of resilience by adopting a holistic approach to understanding what can happen when one system interacts with another. The chapter argues that there are many dimensions of resilience and that resilience can be

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manifested as a result of both endogenous and exogenous factors. The three case studies presented in this chapter complement previous chapters and provide glimpses of the significant role played by the interconnections between small island states and their global arena in operationalising resilience. The findings indicate that complex adaptive processes occur within specific island environments because of historical, political and colonial constructs, which are often reorganised and transformed during a crisis. We assert that islanders have agency and are not passive victims of change. Rather, they actively seek opportunities within their internal systems and beyond, transcending local, regional and international boundaries. Unfortunately, established practices and worldviews will perpetuate deep-rooted social injustices and habits ingrained in the understanding of how things have always worked and how established social structures and institutions continue. Inherent within the Islands Resilience Operationalisation Model is a need to build social resistance mechanisms, accountability, transparency and interconnectivity in society, during and regardless of a crisis. The islands’ resilience will be tested when a new normal is developed with old practices, values, structures and institutions. Placing islanders and island life at the core of governance is the key to resilient islands, now and in the future.

References Chandler D, Pugh J (2021) Anthropocene islands: there are only islands after the end of the world. Dialogues Hum Geogr. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820621997018 DeLoughrey EM (2019) Allegories of the anthropocene. Duke University Press. https://doi. org/10.2307/j.ctv125jk4v (Barnett 2017) Gretzel U, Hardy A (2019) #Vanlife: materiality, makeovers and mobility amongst digital nomads. E-review Tourism Res 16(2/3). https://eprints.utas.edu.au/29479/ Hardy A, Aryal J (2020) Using innovations to understand tourist mobility in national parks. J Sustain Tour 28(2):263–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1670186 Holling C (2001) Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems 4:390–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-­001-­0101-­5 Movono A, Scheyvens R (2021) Tourism in a world of disorder: a return to the vanua and kinship with nature in Fiji. In: Campbell Y, Connell J (eds) COVID in the islands: a comparative perspective on the caribbean and the pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­981-­16-­5285-­1_15 Movono A, Scheyvens R (2022) Adapting and reacting to Covid-19: tourism and resilience in the South Pacific. Pac Dyn J Interdisc Res 6(1):124–150 Movono A, Dahles H, Becken S (2017) Fijian culture and the environment: a focus on the social and ecological connectedness of Fijian culture. J Sustain Tour. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966958 2.2017.1359280 Ooi C-S (2022) Sustainable tourism and the moral limits of the market. In: Balasingam AS, Ma Y (eds) Asian tourism sustainability. Springer Nature, Singapore, pp  177–197. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­981-­16-­5264-­6_10 Ooi C-S (2023) The local turn in tourism: place-based realities, dangers and opportunities. In: Higgins-Desbiolles F, Bigby, Bobby C (eds) The local turn in tourism: empowering communities. Channel View Publications, Bristol, pp 113–127.

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Ooi C-S, Hardy A (eds) (2020) Tourism in Tasmania. Forty South, Hobart Ooi C-S, Kristensen TP, Lomanova Pedersen Z (2004) Re-imag(in)ing place: from Czechoslovakia to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Tourism 52(2):151–163 Scheyvens R et  al (2020) Development in a world of disorder : tourism, COVID-19 and the adaptivity of South Pacific people, IDS working paper. Massey University. http://hdl.handle. net/10179/15742 Dr. Apisalome Movono has a background in Marine Affairs and Tourism Studies and completed his Master of Arts Degree from The University of the South Pacific. He joined Massey University in 2020 as Senior Lecturer after having taught and researched at USP for a decade. His PhD, completed at Griffith University, Australia, sought to improve understanding of resilience, sustainable livelihoods and the complex and adaptive nature of the Pacific Island’s social and ecological landscape. He is a recipient of a Marsden Fast-Start Grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand and is a Lead Expert in the inaugural Tourism Panel on Climate Change, recently launched at COP27.  

Prof. Can-Seng Ooi is a sociologist and Professor of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of Tasmania. His research career spans over three decades, during which he conducted research across many countries, including Australia, Denmark, Singapore, China and Malaysia. Some issues Can-Seng investigates are the local-turn in tourism, tourism-community relations, place branding, cross-­cultural management and the political economy of tourism. His personal website is www.cansengooi.com.  

Associate Prof. Anne Hardy is a researcher with a keen interest in tourist behaviour and sustainable tourism and is based at the University of Tasmania in the School of Social Sciences. Her research has been cited over 2500 times, and she is the author of over 30 journal articles and 3 books. Anne’s international and national reputation for innovative, engaged and impact-driven tourism research has led to a variety of national and international academic invitations to deliver keynote speeches to both industry and academic audiences. Anne is the co-founder of the IsoCHATS tourism research seminar series.  

Marta Muslin is an environmentalist and gender activist based in Labuan Bajo, Flores Indonesia. Besides being a tourism practitioner and a bachelor of Law and doing her master’s degree in sustainability, she’s been initiating many different programmes related to women in her island.  

Dr Stroma Cole is a Reader in international tourism development at the University of Westminster, with research interests in gender, responsible tourism development, Human Rights and the links between tourism and the SDGs. She has over 30 publications and is an Associate Editor for Annals of Tourism Research and on the editorial board at the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and Tourism Geographies. She is a director of Equality in Tourism, an international charity seeking to increase gender equality in tourism.