THESES Department of Social and Economic Geography Staying in Niue? Students’ spatial plans related to value systems and climate change Astrid Gustafsson Course: 2KU039: Thesis Project STS – Social and Economic Geography, 15 c Semester: VT2019 Supervisor: Micheline van Riemsdijk Course Administrator: Cecilia Bygdell ABSTRACT Gustafsson, A. 2019. Staying in Niue? Students’ spatial plans related to value systems and climate change. Theses, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University. The Niuean population has been in decline since the airport opened on the island. This thesis investigates a specific aspect of the migration from the island: what final year high school students in Niue plans to do after graduation in relation to leaving or staying in Niue. The study relates this decision to place attachment, values and climate change. The study indicates that Niuean youth doesn’t want to study on the island but instead move to New Zealand to pursue their academic ambitions. The students exhibit a strong sense of place attachment that is based in their identification with the island culture and nature. They want to return to the island after getting their university degree, making them attached stayers. The risk of cyclones does not affect the students wishes to live on the island. Decisions are in large motivated by caring for family, the students want to get a degree and then return to be able to take care and give back to their parents, grandparents and other people that have cared for them during their childhood. Keywords: student migration, staying, Niue, values, cyclone Supervisor: Micheline van Riemsdijk. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis was made possible by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency’s Minor Field Study program and I am very grateful to Uppsala University for granting the fieldwork for this study. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Aim and research questions .................................................................................................. 2 2. BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................... 3 2.1 Developing a nation ............................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Access to education .............................................................................................................. 5 2.3 Cyclones and climate change ............................................................................................... 6 3. PREVIOUS STUDIES ........................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Factors of migrating ............................................................................................................. 8 3.2 Factors of staying ................................................................................................................. 9 3.3 Island culture and values .................................................................................................... 10 4. METHOD ............................................................................................................................. 11 4.1 Fieldwork ........................................................................................................................... 11 4.2 Interviews ........................................................................................................................... 11 4.3 Data analysis ...................................................................................................................... 13 4.4 Research ethics ................................................................................................................... 13 5. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS ............................................................................................. 14 5.1 Planning for education ....................................................................................................... 14 5.2 Planning to return ............................................................................................................... 15 5.3 Factors and values at play .................................................................................................. 17 5.4 Dealing with the risk of cyclones ....................................................................................... 18 6. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 20 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 21 APPENDIX 1 – Informants ...................................................................................................... 23 APPENDIX 2 – Interview questions ........................................................................................ 24 1. INTRODUCTION A place needs its people. People is what makes a place work, through economic activities and social interactions people bring places to life. A decreasing population makes it more difficult to build a functioning and sustainable existence since less people leads to fewer local social and economic opportunities (Connell, 2008, p. 1025). Niue’s population has been in decline since its’ airport opened in the 1970s which put the island in regular fast physical contact with the outside world. Niue is a small upraised atoll in the South Pacific. Today, 1500 people live on the 260 km2 island situated 2,500 km northeast of New Zealand. Before the airport opened in the 1970s the only outside physical contact with the world was the container ship that came in. It had few spaces for passengers, a ticket was expensive, and since the ship delivered cargo to several other islands the trip to New Zealand took about a month. When people got access to planes, leaving the island became cheaper both in relation to money and time and the population decreased significantly. Before the opening of the airport, the population peaked at around 5000 citizens, over the following decade about 2000 people left the island and since then the population has continued to decline (Government of Niue, 2012) (Barker, 2000). According to Connell (2008), Niue has experienced a population decline greater than any other independent state in the world as large parts of the population have migrated overseas to New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere (Connell, 2008, p. 1022). Figure 1: Niues location Source: CIA (2019) Migration can be explained by a myriad of factors, the migration from Niue seems to be caused by two different forces. There is both to a continuous outstream of individual migrants and instances of larger groups migrating at the same time due to climate events (Connell, 2008) Barker (2000). For Niue, as well as for many other small island nations, the social and economic opportunities overseas are greater than those on the island. Niue is still a country under development and with a small population they are struggling to reach a sustainable economy. Cyclones, tertiary education and need for specific medical attentions have also been acknowledged as catalysts when people have decided to move (Connell, 2008, p. 1024). Barker (2000) has mapped the effect which the occurrence of cyclones has had on migration 1 from Niue, often linking a surge of outward migration to the island being struck by cyclones. As the risk of damage done by cyclones increases, I’m interested if not only the event of a cyclone but the risk of them have any effect on people’s decision to migrate. When investigating migration, the option of staying is often overlooked as a non-decision and a result of deciding not to go. However, the process of staying is rarely passive but rather the outcome of complex interplay of personal consideration and the relational process linked to the lives of others. Staying is rarely a final decision but can instead be viewed as being in a state of flux and as an attachment to a specific place. This means that the decision of staying continuously is reconsidered, especially in times of transition in life (Stockdale, Theunissen, and Haartsen, 2017). This thesis aims at contributing depth to the question of migration from Niue by investigating a specific transition in life, graduating high school. It also takes staying into account by assigning value to both deciding to migrate and deciding to stay. 1.1 Aim and research questions The aim of this thesis is to describe what factors affect the people of Niue when deciding whether to leave or stay in Niue. To limit the study, I have focused on students currently in their final year of high school. This decision is motivated by both the fact that graduation can be considered a life transition and the fact that tertiary education has been identified as a reason for migration. To investigate this, the following research questions are chosen: - What are the plans of last year high school students regarding moving from or staying in Niue? - What factors and values are at play when making those plans? - What, if any, impact do the increased risk of cyclones have on this decision? 2 2. BACKGROUND 2.1 Developing a nation Niue is an independent state under free association with New Zealand. The island was brought within the boundaries of New Zealand in 1915 and restored in self-government