FROM SEA AND GARDEN TO SCHOOL AND TOWN: CHANGING GENDER AND HOUSEHOLD PATTERNS AMONG POLLAP ATOLL MIGRANTS

Abstract

POPULATION MOBILITY in many parts of the world is not a simple matter of migration, with permanent movement from rural to urban areas. Nor are recent movements necessarily a radical change from some previous stage of equilibrium or stability. The term “migration” has typically implied a permanent move and a new process contrasting with a sedentary past, yet movement patterns often show considerable continuity with the past, even when factors such as foreign administrations, growth of urban areas, and entry into the world economy affect population movement. Furthermore, movement in many situations and among many migrants is not permanent; people return home, though perhaps only after a long sojourn away, and in other cases, they circulate between two or more sites. The term “circulation” has been proposed for this latter process and is a common pattern in the Pacific (Chapman 1985; Chapman and Prothero 1985; Prothero and Chapman 1985). This applies to the case of people from Pollap, one of a group of three atolls known as the Western Islands of Chuuk State, part of what is now the Federated States of Micronesia. 1 They also have a heritage of mobility, so that in many respects today’s movements are continuous with past ones. Yet this is far more the case for men than for women; mobility is part of male but not female gender ideology, A male focus on travel and adventure appears, in fact, to be a widespread Micronesian cultural factor involved in migration (Rubinstein 1993:260). In recent years, however, women have increasingly participated in these movements.