Contradictions and Complexities—Current Perspectives on Pacific Islander Mobilities

Abstract

From the first movements of people towards the Pacific Islands millennia ago to recent transnational migration in a globalised world, translocal mobility has been a central aspect of the social lives, cultures and histories of many Pacific Islanders. While Oceania has always been an area of migration as well as cultural and economic exchange, current transnational Pacific movements are deeply embedded in a twentieth- and twenty-first-century global phenomenon, which Castles and Miller [2009. The Age of Migration. International Population Movements in the Modern World. Houndsmill: MacMillan Press. (1993 1st edition)] have called the ‘age of migration’. This essay gives an overview of Pacific Islander migration and its patterns and motives as presented in previous studies. It shows how useful cultural categories can be for a deeper understanding of notions of moving and staying, two pluralistic and not contradictorily perceived concepts for Pacific Islanders that are crucial in transnational migration. With its focus on transnational migration and the challenges experienced by Fijians in the UK and Japan, and Micronesian Chuukese in Guam, Hawai'i, and the US mainland, this introduction concludes by analysing how the case studies presented in this special issue contribute to and complement current anthropological perspectives on Pacific Islanders’ multiple and complex forms of transnationalism.