D.Kraemer Thesis 2013
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The London School of Economics and Political Science Planting Roots, Making Place: An Ethnography of Young Men in Port Vila, Vanuatu Daniela Kraemer A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, July 2013. 2 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. All photographs were taken by the author. Use of the map of Vanuatu on page 19 has been granted by Mr. Mark Saville of AquaSanctum.com Use of the map of Port Vila’s residential communities on page 20 has been granted by Director Roy Obed of the Vanuatu Ministry of Education. The map of Port Vila on page 21 is an image attributed to Google Earth. It has been cited in accordance with Google’s attribution regulations. Photographs on page 176 of Digicel Advertisments have been removed as the copyright is owned by Digicel Group Limited. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 93,228 words. 3 Abstract This thesis is about an organised group or ‘squad’ of young men in Port Vila, the capital of the Pacific Islands nation-state of Vanuatu, and their practices of place making in the rapidly developing context of ‘town’. The young men studied are second-generation migrants and thus first-generation born and raised ‘urbanites'. Based on twenty months of fieldwork, this thesis examines how these young men are transforming Freswota Community - the residential area in which they live - from a place with no shared and relevant social meaning into a place imbued with greater collective significance. First, I demonstrate how these young men experience themselves as ‘unplaced’, a condition which entails two aspects. They are displaced from the social structure and kinship systems within which their parents previously ordered their lives and from which they have drawn their social identity. Additionally, the young men experience themselves as marginalised from the formal education and employment structures of town. Following this, I show that it is through practices of place making, which they refer to as ‘planting roots’, that these young men are emplacing themselves in the Freswota area. ‘Planting roots’ includes such processes as developing their own shared history, naming roads, building topogeny and developing their own community social structure and social order. I argue that these processes are leading to the emergence of a new phenomenon: primary town emplacement. By coming into relationship with Freswota land, these young men are not only transforming it from virtual no-place into some place, they are also transforming themselves from ‘unplaced’ persons into emplaced ‘Freswota men’. I conclude that this is generating a new locative identity: it is now the Freswota community rather than their parents’ home island places that is emerging as their primary location of belonging and the source both of their sense of self and their social identification. A central aim of this thesis is to draw attention to the positive and creative ways in which unemployed young men, usually criticised and stigmatised as delinquents in newly and rapidly urbanising contexts, are actively engaged in developing their community and their relationships in order to live more viable and socially productive lives. 4 Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................7 List of Figures......................................................................................................... 11 List of Maps............................................................................................................12 List of Appendixes..................................................................................................12 List of Key Characters...........................................................................................13 Freswota Time Line................................................................................................14 Map 1: Vanuatu......................................................................................................19 Map 2: Port Vila Residential Communities.........................................................20 Map 3: Freswota Community areas 1-6...............................................................21 Map 4: Freswota-4 .................................................................................................22 Preface..................................................................................................................... 23 Where did you grow up? 23 Young People in Town 28 Introducing ‘The Boys’ 33 Thesis Outline 37 Introduction: Planting Roots.................................................................................40 Place Making a Process of Transformation 41 Roots and Rootedness 42 Planting Roots 48 Ni-Vanuatu Mobility 52 Building Communities in New Places 56 Ontological Shift 60 From ‘Vila bay’ to ‘Vila town’ 63 Urban Vanuatu 67 Freswota Community and Situating the Field-Site 68 Methodological Considerations and Ethics 72 5 Chapter 1: Confusion Zone................................................................................... 80 Introduction 80 The Significance of ‘Having’ a Home Island Place 81 Unplaced Youth 86 Floating 93 Marginalisation in Town 96 ‘I’m Just Doing Nothing At All’ 102 Confusion Zone 104 Conclusion: Argument for Town Emplacement 107 Chapter 2: The ‘Squad’ and the Making of Community................................... 108 Introduction 108 Crisis of Sociality 110 The ‘Squad’: A Mode of Social Organisation 117 The Kingston-4 Squad of Boys 120 Practices That Build ‘Organisation’ 125 Practices That Build ‘Cooperation’ 129 Conclusion: Becoming a ‘Good’ Community 136 Chapter 3: ‘Boys of the Road’...............................................................................138 Introduction 138 The Meaning of Roads 140 A Prelude to Place Making in Freswota 141 Road Naming and the Production of Locative Identities 146 ‘Walking About’: Social Relationships On and Of the Road 154 ‘Making History’: A Discursive Project 159 Conclusion: Reconfiguring Place 163 Chapter 4: ‘Do You Have a Mobile?’ Connections and Disconnections...........164 Introduction 164 New Technology 166 The Power of the Text Message 167 ‘TVL: To Tell Stories Is To Live’ 172 Private Love 176 6 Disconnections: Digicel the ‘Bigger Better Network’ 180 Evidence 183 ‘I Will Just Delete Him From My Inbox!’ 187 Conclusion: The ‘Digicel Baby-Boom’ 190 Chapter 5: The Building of Shared Experience Movements Concerning Cigarettes, Alcohol and ‘Smok’...................................192 Introduction 192 What the Boys’ Movements Reveal 193 Concealing Alcohol and ‘Smoke’: Negating Relationships 198 Evasive Strategies 203 Smoking: the Building of Shared Experience 206 ‘Smok’ and the Growing of Effective Male Bodies 214 Conclusion: Drugs as a Subject of Analytical Significance 218 Epilogue: Roots Men..............................................................................................220 Rootedness: A Way of Being 222 ‘Man Freswota’ 225 Planting Roots for a Better Future 227 Appendix 1.............................................................................................................. 232 Appendix 2.............................................................................................................. 233 Appendix 3.............................................................................................................. 234 References............................................................................................................... 235 7 Acknowledgements A friend recently noted that it ‘takes an entire village to make an anthropologist’. Nothing truer could be said about this undertaking as this thesis would never have come to fruition without the support, help, advice and friendship of a great many people. First I thank the Kingston-4 boys of Freswota-4 Community. To protect their anonymity I will not mention them all by name. I am grateful to them for the time spent together, for teaching me about life in their ghetto, for introducing me to reggae music, and for their friendship. I also thank them for their consistent support of this project even after I had left the field. I dedicate this thesis to them and to their endeavour to build a better life for themselves, and for future generations of ni-Vanuatu youth in town. I am also appreciative to the wonderful people of Freswota Community who warmly let me into their lives. In particular I am indebted to the Molsir family, and the Langises Family. I thank them for their generosity and kindness and for the many conversations to ‘fill up my notebooks’. I am grateful for their hospitality and care for my wellbeing, and for all the laughter. I am also pleased