Moving and rootedness: The paradox of the brain drain among Samoan professionals

Abstract

For almost half a century, conceptions of Pacific islander movement have been influenced by the perspective of national economic development — one to which many planners and policy makers subscribe. In this view, movement is assumed to be unidirectional, from the islands to the metropolitan Pacific. This assumption creates and enhances images such as “permanent migration”, “emigration”, “exodus” and “brain drain” which are fundamentally associated with the core-periphery and growth-centre constructs of the Western-derived model of dual economy (White and others, 1989). Not only do they seriously misrepresent locally rooted meanings of mobility among indigenous islanders, but also these images imply development uncertainties that will face island populations in the future.