Draft 12 November 2017 Circumstances of a Pacific atoll people in diaspora: A retrospective analysis of I-Nikunau Keith Dixon University of Canterbury Contact details: Keith Dixon Department of Accounting and Information Systems Te Kura Umanga o Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha (UCBS) University of Canterbury (Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha) Private Bag 4800 Christchurch 8040 New Zealand Tel: +64 (0)3 3693844 Email:
[email protected] Acknowledgements The assistance is much appreciated of many I-Nikunau and other I-Kiribati, including Tiarum O’Connor, and officials of the Nikunau Island Council, Te Kabowi n Aomata (the Nikunau Island Magistrates Court), Te Kabowi n Aba (the Nikunau Island Lands Court), Te Bobotin Nikunau (the Nikunau Cooperative Society) and Kiribati National Archives. Some participant-observer empirical materials derive from 1997–99 when the researcher was working for the Governments of Kiribati and the United Kingdom: the views expressed in the paper are those of the researcher and do not necessarily represent those of either government. A grant from the University of Canterbury to allow the researcher to visit Nikunau and Tarawa in 2009 is acknowledged. Comments on earlier versions of this paper from Hegnes Dixon, Dick Overy and two anonymous reviewers associated with the 8th Australasian Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research in Christchurch are appreciated, as are comments from participants at that conference and the 11th Conference of the European Society for Oceanists in Munich. I also thank the late Michael Gaffikin for providing some direction to the study of which this paper is part. 1 Abstract Life for people on many atolls is undoubtedly hard, frequently affected by droughts, rough seas and other adverse climatic conditions to name a few.