If Everyone Returned, The Island Would Sink

Focusing on the small island of Paama, Vanuatu, and the capital, Port Vila, this book presents a rare and recent study of the ongoing significance of urbanisation and internal migration in the Global South. Based on longitudinal research undertaken in rural home places, urban suburbs and informal settlements over thirty years, this book reveals the deep ambivalence of the outcome of migration, and argues that continuity in the fundamental organising principles of cultural life in this case centred on kinship and an island home is significantly more important for urban and rural lives than the transformative impacts of migration and urbanisation.