Journal de la Société des Océanistes 144-145 | 2017 Urbanisation en Mélanésie The achievement of simultaneity: kastom and place in Port Vila, Vanuatu L’accomplissement de la simultanéité : kaston et lieu à Port-Vila, Vanuatu Benedicta Rousseau Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7692 DOI: 10.4000/jso.7692 ISSN: 1760-7256 Publisher Société des océanistes Printed version Date of publication: 15 December 2017 Number of pages: 37-50 ISSN: 0300-953x Electronic reference Benedicta Rousseau, “The achievement of simultaneity: kastom and place in Port Vila, Vanuatu”, Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 144-145 | 2017, Online since 15 December 2019, connection on 15 March 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7692 ; DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.4000/jso.7692 Journal de la société des océanistes est mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. The achievement of simultaneity: kastom and place in Port Vila, Vanuatu by Benedicta ROUSSEau* ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ Historically, ni-Vanuatu in Port Vila have been Par le passé, les ni-Vanuatu de Port-Vila ont été qualifiés portrayed as an un-grounded population, lacking the de population déracinée sans ressources pour perpétuer une resources necessary to perpetuate a kastom-based, indi- identité autochtone basée sur la coutume. Par contraste genous identity. Contrary to that approach, I demons- avec cette approche, je démontre comment l’équation trate how the equation of kastom, place, and identity kastom, lieu et identité fonctionne en ville. Au cœur de operates in town. Central to this is the existence of non- cette équation, on trouve des communautés qui ne sont geographical communities focussed around shared island pas centrées géographiquement sur l’île d’origine, mais sur of origin, and what I term the “achievement of simulta- ce que j’appelle « l’accomplissement de la simultanéité » neity” between town and island. I describe several urban entre ville et île. Je décris plusieurs pratiques urbaines de la kastom practices that work to achieve town/island kastom qui participent de cette simultanéité ville/île et qui simultaneity including recognition of chiefly authority, a incluent la reconnaissance de l’autorité du chef, l’échange dispute settlement exchange, and a ceremony to welcome comme méthode de résolution des conflits et une cérémo- a new member of a political party. Overall, I suggest that nie d’accueil d’un nouveau membre d’un parti politique. the persistence of island-based identity both illustrates Globalement, je suggère que la persistance d’une identité and enables the existence of kastom in town. insulaire illustre et permet l’existence de la kastom en ville. Keywords: Melanesia, chiefs, kastom, urban identity, Mots-clés : Mélanésie, chefs, kastom, identité urbai- simultaneity ne, simultanéité While anthropologists have presented accounts the existence of non-geographical communities of ni-Vanuatu cultures that emphasise primor- centred around shared island of origin and what I dial connection to place as axiomatic to identity term the “achievement of simultaneity” between formation (Bonnemaison, 1994; Jolly, 1994), ni- town and island brought about in the context of Vanuatu in Port Vila have been portrayed as an urban kastom practices. In the first part of the ar- – quite literally – un-grounded population, ticle I examine the development and structuring lacking the resources necessary to perpetuate of non-geographical communities in Vila, ar- a kastom-based, indigenous identity. While ac- guing against accounts that posit a necessary loss knowledging that life in Vila is different to life of island-based identity for the urban population. in the islands, this article demonstrates how the I then move on to show kastom in action in Vila, equation of kastom, place and identity does ope- through ethnographic data on the recognition of rate in this alternative milieu. Central to this is chiefly authority, a reconciliation ceremony, and a * Anthropology, La Trobe University, [email protected] Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 144-145, année 2017, pp. 37-50 38 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES ceremony to welcome a new member of a political balances in previous accounts by foregrounding party. These examples illustrate the way in which the experiences of indigenous urban residents, it place provides the legitimative force necessary for is necessary to recognise that many of those resi- kastom to have effect in town, and are conside- dents have not been and are not always keen to red in relation to Hirsch’s (1995) argument rela- assume a solely urban identity themselves. ting to the achievement of temporal and spatial The European settlement at Port Vila came into simultaneity, and Battaglia’s (1995) analysis of being after earlier attempts to settle at Havannah “practical nostalgia”. Overall, the article suggests Harbour on the north-west coast of Efate were that the persistence of island-based identity both abandoned due to a high incidence of malaria. In illustrates and enables the existence of kastom in its early years, Vila served primarily as an entre- town. In Port Vila, the island – and thus, kastom pôt for traders, then, with the formalisation of – is given substance by jifs – town chiefs – who the Condominium administration in 1906, it also provide the objectification of these communities. housed the headquarters of the colonial powers. Town and island co-exist in the figure ofjifs and Despite its foundations as a European settlement that simultaneity is mirrored in the logic infor- though, Vila has rarely been the “white space” that ming kastom practices that take place in town. the Condominium government promised (Rod- man, 2001). An indication of the variety of inha- bitants of Vila even in the earlier stages of colonia- Port Vila lism can be found in the letters of “Asterisk”, the pseudonym of Robert Fletcher, an Englishman re- While anthropological accounts of life in Vila sident in Vanuatu from 1912 to 1920. He wrote: have increased in recent years (Rousseau, 2004; “You should just see some of the things that haunt Rawlings, 1999; Kraemer, 2013; Lind, 2011; the ‘beach’ in Vila. Their only sustenance is absinthe Lindstrom, 2011; Rio, 2011; Cummings, 2013; and cigarettes, so fever takes them properly. They earn Mitchell, 2003, 2011; Eriksen, 2009), prior to a precarious living by selling grog to Kanakas and gam- the late 1990s only Brown (1970), and the geo- bling in the Chinese opium hovels. It is rarely that they graphers Bedford (1973) and Haberkorn (1989, venture out in the daylight, but if one does chance to see 1992) had focussed primarily on populations in them the object lesson is salutary. I am sorry for some town, while Tonkinson (1968, 1977) and Phili- of the poor devils. They are all ‘libérés’ from Nouméa, bert (1986, 1988, 1989) examined the peri-urban not allowed to go back to France, unfitted for work, villages of Mele-Maat and Erakor respectively. and with every man’s hand against them […]. Talking Other accounts exist that provide “snapshots” of of Chinese, there are about 150 Orientals even in this the town, coming predominantly from European little town – Javanese, Tonkinese, Japs, etc. They’re a settlers and, more recently, development-oriented foul mob – the Tonkinese at any rate – but they can sources. These descriptions encompass the shift cook. They rob the wretched Kanakas right and left and teach them to smoke opium, which kills them off in purpose of Port Vila from European adminis- like flies. The wise Condominium Government places trative centre to its current role as the capital of no restrictions on their coming and they are arriving the independent Republic of Vanuatu. This shift by every steamer. The Tonkinese, of course, are French has involved a change in both the size and demo- subjects, so they do get looked after a bit, but the rest graphic make-up of Vila: from “colonial space” can do what they like.” (Asterisk, 1986 [1923]: 82-84) (Rodman, 1999) dominated by the European po- pulation in the earlier twentieth century, to ove- This air of seediness and transience appears again rwhelmingly ni-Vanuatu at the start of the twen- in a 1939 assessment of Port Vila: A French visi- ty-first century.1 However, in many accounts the tor described it as ni port, ni ville, a town where: indigenous population is ignored, or portrayed as being as foreign as the other residents. Urban “affluent planters seemed content to live in woo- space is not indigenous space; ni-Vanuatu are ill- den huts roofed with corrugated iron, although they equipped for life in town. These ideas continue were a little ashamed of the ugliness of their town.” through to the present day, especially in develop- (D’Obrenan, 1939, in Rodman, 1999: 486) ment literature, with ni-Vanuatu being assigned the roles of either “problem” or “victim”. To some However, the type of interaction implied by extent though they appear also in ni-Vanuatu’s Asterisk’s account is not present in one of the ear- own images and discourses about town. While lier anthropological studies of the town. Brown’s recent anthropological work seeks to redress im- assessment of Vila emphasises the “plural” nature 1. It is important to state that this shift in population resulting in a ni-Vanuatu majority does not correspond with an equally major shift in economic power – “town” is still the centre of non-indigenous businesses which continue to control a disproportionate amount of the country’s monetary wealth. In fact, the gap in wealth between indigenous ni-Vanuatu and expatriates has grown since independence. For instance, the ratio of expatriate to ni-Vanuatu income went from 12:1 in 1983 to 16:1 in 1989.