Ashgate Economic Geography Series. Farnham, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. xvii, 148 pp. (Figures, tables.) US$109.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4724-1919-4.
This volume presents primary research data on how households and communities respond to economic and environmental shocks. It challenges the prevailing macroeconomic notion that urban households with access to cash will be more resilient to shocks than their rural counterparts. The authors analyze the various components of an expansive research survey of households in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Data were gathered during fieldwork that took place in 2010–2011 involving over 1,000 household surveys, over 50 focus groups, and several interviews with key informants. Six locations in both countries were selected to represent a diversity of urban and rural areas.
Like many Pacific Island countries, both Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are experiencing rapid urban growth as people move from rural areas to cities in hopes of accessing the cash increasingly required to pay for school-related fees, imported foods, transportation costs, clothing, and other goods and services. The authors carefully examine the differences between urban and rural populations and the divergent strategies for maintaining well-being and resisting economic shocks. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the research problem, methods, and rationale for the selection of research locations. Chapter 2 explains the concepts of vulnerability and resilience and their influence on livelihoods and well-being, situating these concepts in a broader literature, and explaining that both qualitative and quantitative data are required to garner a comprehensive picture of the monetary and non-monetary resources families utilize in times of stress.
From the research design through the data analysis the authors consider how gender impacts measures of vulnerability and resiliency, and report that in times of shock, women typically bear the brunt of increased labour. Chapter 3 specifically presents data describing how women “absorb the household’s hardship” (62). The authors call for gender-inclusive policies that promote social protection by encouraging the enrollment of girls in school, and the protection of women who report increases in domestic violence and reduced food consumption during times of stress. While the role of gender is examined throughout the text, the authors emphasize this theme again in chapter 7, arguing that “social protection policies should not reinforce traditional gender roles by only targeting women as mothers” (137). While their careful consideration of the role of gender is refreshing, unfortunately they do not offer concrete recommendations on how to create and structure new policies that help women beyond their role as mothers.
Chapter 4 discusses mobility. The authors describe the strong ties that remain between those who have relocated to urban centres and family members who remain in the rural areas. Drawing heavily on previous ethnographic research, the authors describe the role of kin networks as key support structures for families coping with shocks. In an effort to provide culturally significant data, the authors developed the Melanesian Multidimensional Poverty Index (MMPI), which is the focus of chapter 5. The MMPI adds the new components of access to garden land, services (including proximity to secondary schools, health care clinics, or markets), and social support networks to the existing indicators of poverty that include health, education level, and standard of living as measured by access to electricity, sanitation, water, food, and financial assets. Expanding upon the data presented in chapters 4 and 5, the authors analyze the role of the customary economy today in chapter 6. They describe the significance of the customary economy as both an important cultural ideal that can strengthen family resilience in times of shock, and an increasing burden to urban families who lack access to land and face “[n]ew social obligations that include giving donations and tithes to churches and looking after wantoks [extended relations] outside the immediate family” (113).
Chapter 7 presents the research conclusions together with a series of recommendations for policy makers. While the title implies research throughout Melanesia, only Vanuatu and Solomon Islands were actually researched. The authors do situate the text in a broader Melanesian literature; yet, they themselves argue that the nuance brought forth in their data analysis is not likely to be broadly applicable. However the model for calculating the MMPI could be applied using new data collected in other Pacific Island nations, and may be altered for use in other countries based on the development of similar culturally appropriate measures for well-being. Their efforts to include cultural variables, particularly access to garden land, in the MMPI is one of the more significant contributions of this research.
This book is particularly timely due to the very recent data concerning Vanuatu in the wake of Cyclone Pam, a category 5 cyclone that passed directly through the southern half of Vanuatu on March 13, 2015. While the primary focus of the text is on expected resiliency to significant economic shocks, the authors discuss the entanglement of economic and environmental shocks in less developed Pacific Island countries. Vulnerability to abrupt natural disasters and the related long-term effects of climate change are presented as critical to understanding household resiliency and well-being. The first applications of the theories and MMPI data outlined in the text will likely come from post-Cyclone Pam research examining how households have coped in the wake of this disaster.
Ultimately, this text provides valuable primary source data about coping mechanisms for economic and environmental changes. The text could benefit from more detailed qualitative data, particularly focus group and key informant interview quotes, which were part of the data collection but are largely absent from the text. While the chapters are expertly linked, each chapter is written with enough background at the beginning to stand alone. The volume will be most valuable to researchers who can reference it as baseline data, use this quantitative data to inform further qualitative research, and for policy makers, NGOs, and aid organizations seeking to design interventions informed by cultural variables.
Chelsea Wentworth
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
pp. 505-507