After the Flood Reflections on the Sociality of Saltwater Inundation on an Anthropogenic Atoll Are Erik Brandvik Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.A. in Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. MAY 2016 Table of Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... VII PROLOGUE ................................................................................................................................ IX INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... XVII SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS .................................................................................................... XVII A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE CONDUCTED FIELDWORK ............................................................XIX I: ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY AND OTHER WORKS OF SIGNIFICANCE .............................. 23 ADDRESSING THE WORLD ..................................................................................................... 24 A DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE .................................................................. 29 ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND OTHER INFLUENCES ...................................................... 32 A BRICOLEUR’S APPROACH TO HARAWAY ........................................................................... 36 ADDITIONAL CLIMATE LITERATURE ..................................................................................... 39 II: SMALL STATE, BIG GRIEVANCE ........................................................................................ 41 DEMOGRAPHY AND OTHER FACTS ......................................................................................... 41 BETWEEN DESTINATIONS ...................................................................................................... 42 THE MAP AND THE MISSION .................................................................................................. 43 THE IN-BETWEEN BECOMES A DESTINATION ........................................................................ 44 GERMAN ANNEXATION AND EARLY COLONIALISM ............................................................... 47 BOMBS .................................................................................................................................. 49 THE DAWN OF THE TWO CITIES ............................................................................................ 50 LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE ........................................................................ 52 AN OFFSPRING OF IDEOLOGY ............................................................................................ 53 COMPACT OF FREE ASSOCIATION .......................................................................................... 55 EMIGRATION AND LIFE OVERSEAS ........................................................................................ 56 PERCEIVED REMOTENESS ...................................................................................................... 57 iii III: EVERYDAY LIFE, AND THE INCURSION OF POST-FLOOD CONSTRAINTS ........................ 59 IN BETWEEN: PRE- AND POST- FLOOD PLACEMENTS IN THE FIELD ....................................... 60 THE HOUSEHOLDS OF MAJURO ............................................................................................. 63 AMBER PALM FRONDS AND BARE BREADFRUIT TREES......................................................... 65 A TOPOGRAPHY OF LOSS....................................................................................................... 67 SHIFTS IN MATERIAL CONSUMPTION IN A POST-FLOOD SETTING .......................................... 72 IV: ANTHROPOGENIC SUBSISTENCE UNDER SIEGE ................................................................ 85 ENGINEERED ENVIRONMENTS, AND THE HARSH CONDITIONS OF ATOLLS ............................ 86 VEGETATION AND LIFE ......................................................................................................... 90 EROSION AND MEDICINE ........................................................................................................ 95 WATER AND LIFE ................................................................................................................ 100 AT THE END OF THE RAINY SEASON ................................................................................ 102 LOJET AS HUNTING GROUND ........................................................................................... 103 “INVOLUTION” AND AGGREGATED EFFECTS ....................................................................... 105 THE SYMBOLIC ASPECT ...................................................................................................... 105 V: REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE PRESENT ........................................................................ 109 AD HOC SOLUTIONS WITHIN THE RESTRAINTS OF MATERIAL CONSUMPTION ..................... 109 RE-EVALUATING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: TWO APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN RMI .................................................................................................................................... 115 THE GREAT MOVE ABROAD ................................................................................................ 120 BIBLIOGRAPHY: ..................................................................................................................... 123 iv List of Illustrations LIST OF MAPS MAP 1. NORTH FACING MAP OF RMI, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ............................ XIII MAP 2. ARNO ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ....................................................XIV MAP 3. KWAJALEIN ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ............................................ XV MAP 4. MAJURO ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ................................................XVI LIST OF PHOTOS PHOTO 1. FACSIMILES DETAILING THE EROSION OF DEMON TOWN CEMETERY. ........................ 26 PHOTO 2. ERODED FOUNDATIONS. ............................................................................................. 62 PHOTO 3. NAKED BREADFRUIT TREES. ...................................................................................... 70 PHOTO 4. FISHERMAN ABOUT TO DIVE INTO THE LAGOON. ........................................................ 78 PHOTO 5. DIMINISHED AMERICAN-STYLE HOUSE. ................................................................... 111 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1. THE IMPORTANCE, VULNERABILITY, AND UTILITY OF 29 MARSHALLESE PLANTS .... 92 v vi Acknowledgements This MA is affiliated with the ECOPAS Project, coordinated by the University of Bergen with the University of the South Pacific (USP) as the major Pacific partner; and this affiliation has been central for the planning and execution of fieldwork. A number of people affiliated with USP Campus Majuro have come through in ways that helped facilitate a successful stay in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In that regard I am especially grateful to Dr. Irene Taafaki, Tamara Greenstone Alefaio, Kimber Rilometo, Brooke Takala, Jackdrik Bobo, and many others. I will be forever grateful to the people of Rearlaplap, and particularly to the family that took so good care of me during my extended stays in Langor, and so many others whom I came to appreciate as good friends; allow me to extend a heartfelt Kommol tata! I am equally indebted to my supervisor, Professor Edvard Hviding, who has helped me on a journey that would have been difficult to finish without such an experienced mentor. My sincere thanks to the Bergen Pacific Studies research group, whose various members have given me an appreciation of what anthropology can be in an open forum, as well as giving me feedback on my ideas. I am particularly grateful to Nora Haukali, Eilin Holtan Torgersen, Dr. Tammy Tabe, Ane Straume, and those others who have contributed in a large or small way. I am forever grateful for the academic discussions and other insights offered by Tord Austdal during the last leg of the writing process. Lastly, but not least, this thesis would not have been possible without my friends, who provided me with much needed intermission from both my own thoughts and the creative dilemmas that come with any such writing process. vii viii Prologue On 3 March, 2014, certain areas of the coral atolls of Arno, Mili and Majuro within the Republic of the Marshall Islands, in the central tropical Pacific, became flooded with saltwater. This flood was caused by an extreme weather event, an extraordinarily high ‘king tide’; as the waters rose to unusually high levels during the early morning tide peak, waves were carried over the ocean-side reef wall and onto land. The following account has been constructed from interviews, images, and film documenting the event as it unfolded in Arno, around Rearlaplap’s lagoon. I was not present in Rearlaplap at the time, and arrived 26 days after the event took place. In the dark of night the L. family had to evacuate their mõn kuk (cookhouse), as it was located right next to Rearlaplap’s lagoon; the very same lagoon through which the angry sea now poured onto the narrow strip of land the family inhabited. The east lagoon first experienced the surge as it came in atop the northwest-facing barrier reef. The waves spread