Abstract
The focus in this chapter is on urban populations so frequently underserved, but also underestimated, in their ability to respond to major disasters. As the Pacific becomes increasingly, and often more informally, urbanized, urban dwellers can be overlooked in disaster planning, resulting in large loss of human life and property. But so too do urban dwellers have strong social networks and they find ways of coping with community and institutional cooperation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The World Bank (2016).
- 2.
Bryant-Tokalau (2012).
- 3.
Connell and Lea (2002).
- 4.
See for example, Mano Mohanty (2006). Online www.hss.adelaide.edu.au/socialsciences/igu/documents/manoranjan_mohanty.
- 5.
The issue of indigenous urbanization and what it means to the Pacific is being further explored elsewhere by Bryant-Tokalau), but it is certainly time to question what is meant by ‘urbanization’ in the Pacific context. The time to cast off the colonial city mantra may well be upon us with closer examination of the indigenization of the Pacific city long overdue.
- 6.
Approximately 13,000 sugar cane leases will expire between 1999 and 2028 (Donovan Storey 2005: 15), possibly displacing as many as 75,000 people (Bryant-Tokalau 2010: 12).
- 7.
In Fiji for example, the numbers living in the areas alongside river courses and coasts is currently unclear.
- 8.
The urban population of Fiji is currently estimated to be 51 per cent or around 500,000 of the total population of just under 1 million people.
- 9.
Nolet (2016) ‘Are you prepared?’ Representations and management of floods in Lomanikoro, Rewa (Fiji)’. Disasters. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/disa.12175/full. Accessed 14 January 2016.
- 10.
Lingam, D. (2005). The squatter situation in Fiji, A Report by the Ministry of Local Government, Housing, Squatter Settlement and Environment, Suva, Fiji.
- 11.
Bryant-Tokalau, in progress. ‘Multi-ethnic Suva as a Melanesian City: memories and connections’.
- 12.
Why urban settlements in the Pacific have been more affected by floods than rural areas is a matter of great concern. The growing number of people living in difficult circumstances close to towns, rapid deforestation upstream and abandonment of sustainable farming practices like contour farming, have resulted in increased erosion and siltation of water bodies (Chandra and Dalton 2011: 8). In addition, complex and fragmented institutional land arrangements can impede flood risk reduction efforts. Often government agencies are working under several institutional regimes and the lack of harmonization can lead to confusion and lack of enforcement meaning an increase in watershed degradation and contributing to recent excessive flooding .
- 13.
Allen (2006).
- 14.
Allen notes the ways that root causes of vulnerability are addressed, for example poverty , and ‘development aggression’ (p. 82). She supports Heijmans contention that disaster response agencies increasingly used “ vulnerability ” to analyse processes that lead to disasters and to identify responses’, but at the same time, ‘agencies use the concept in the way that best fits their practice—… focusing on physical and economic vulnerability’ (Annalies Heijmans 2004: 115). She agrees that social and particularly political aspects of vulnerability need to be addressed in order to make a lasting impact on overall vulnerability to disaster but warns of the danger that community-based initiatives may place greater responsibility on the shoulders of local people without necessarily proportionately increasing their capacity to formulate initiatives according to community understandings and priorities (Allen 2006: 96).
- 15.
See Keen and McNeill (2016) which comments on the growing impacts of extreme climatic events on urban settlers.
- 16.
UN OCHA, Situation Report 8, 26 February 2016.
- 17.
Chandra and Dalton (2011).
- 18.
See, for example, Bryant-Tokalau and Campbell (2014).
- 19.
Bryant-Tokalau (2013).
- 20.
Bryant-Tokalau (2016). http://www.mei.edu/content/map/community-responses-floods-fiji-lessons-learned.
- 21.
See Bryant-Tokalau and Campbell (2014).
- 22.
Tauvu refers to indigenous Fijians where people have reciprocal and joking rights with one another in certain parts of Fiji.
- 23.
For example, see Bryant-Tokalau and Campbell, J. (2014).
- 24.
FRIEND , Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises & Development is a local community development NGO based in Lautoka.
- 25.
See, for example, the work of Granderson 2017, who, while writing of outer islands, recognized both the urban migration and the pressures placed on TEK .
- 26.
R. Thaman in 1995 wrote of urban food gardens across the Pacific, especially Tonga and Fiji, as demonstrating continuing food security despite the rapid urbanization of Pacific populations. Later work, especially by students of the University of the South Pacific Geography department, demonstrates that the trend continues.
- 27.
Kelman et al. (2011: 59).
- 28.
Government of Fiji (2012).
- 29.
The training is facilitated with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB ) and the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction.
- 30.
Yeo and Blong.
- 31.
See, for example, Connell and Lea (2002).
- 32.
For example, Bryant (1993).
- 33.
Bryant-Tokalau and Campbell (2014).
- 34.
Yeo and Blong (2010).
References
Allen, K. M. (2006, March). Community-Based Disaster Preparedness and Climate Adaptation: Local Capacity-Building in the Philippines. Disasters: Special Issue: Climate Change and Disasters, 30(1), 81–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2006.00308.x.
Bryant-Tokalau, J. (2012). Twenty Years On: Poverty and Hardship in Urban Fiji. Bijdragen tot de Taal, Land en-Volkenkunde, 168(2/3), 195–218.
Bryant-Tokalau, J. (2013). The Changing Face of the Urban Pacific. In D. Dussy & E. Wittersheim (Eds.), Villes Invisibles: Anthropologie Urbaine dans le Pacifique L’Harmattan (pp. 45–74). Paris: Collection “Cahiers du Pacifique Sud Contemporain”.
Bryant-Tokalau, J., & Campbell, J. (2014). Coping with Floods in Urban Fiji: Responses and Resilience of the Poor. In E. Jurriens (Ed.), Disaster Relief in the Asia Pacific Region: Capacity Building and Community Resilience (pp. 132–146). Oxford: Routledge.
Chandra, A., & Dalton, J. A. (2011, May 12). Managing Watersheds for Urban Resilience. Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR). Policy Brief Presented at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, Roundtable on “Managing Watersheds for Urban Resilience”, Geneva, Switzerland.
Connell, J., & Lea, J. (2002). Urbanisation in the Island Pacific: Towards Sustainable Development. London: Routledge.
Government of Fiji. (2012). Republic of Fiji. ‘The National Housing Policy: Affordable and Decent Housing for All’, Suva.
Granderson, A. A. (2017). The Role of Traditional Knowledge in Building Adaptive Capacity for Climate Change: Perspectives from Vanuatu. Weather, Climate and Society. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-16-0094.1.
Keen, M., & McNeill, A. (2016). After the Floods: Urban Displacement, Lessons from Solomon Islands. SSGM Brief, ANU 2016/13.
Kelman, I., Lewis, J., Gaillard, J. C., & Mercer, J. (2011). Participatory Action Research for Dealing with Disasters on Islands. Island Studies Journal, 6(1), 59–86.
Mohanty, M. (2006). Squatters, Vulnerability and Adaptability of Urban Poor in a Small Island Developing State: The Context of Fiji Islands. Paper presented to IGU Commission on Population and Vulnerability and Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN), IGU 2006 Conference, Brisbane, 3–7 July. Online. Retrieved January 18, 2012, from www.hss.adelaide.edu.au/socialsciences/igu/documents/manoranjan_mohanty.pdf.
World Bank. (2016). Climate and Disaster Resilience, 69pp. http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/720371469614841726/PACIFIC-POSSIBLE-Climate.pdf.
Yeo, S., & Blong, R. J. (2010). Fiji’s Worst Natural Disaster: The 1931 Hurricane and Flood. Disaster, 34(3), 657–683.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bryant-Tokalau, J. (2018). Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Urbanization: Relocation, Planning and Modern Disasters. In: Indigenous Pacific Approaches to Climate Change. Palgrave Studies in Disaster Anthropology. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78399-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78399-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78398-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78399-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)