Scientific estimates suggest that the low-lying coral atolls of the Pacific will be especially affected by climate change. The vulnerability of atoll islands and atoll states results from a specific constellation of physical, ecological, social, and economic conditions, including the lopsided relationship between small land area and lengthy coastlines, and the problems of coastal erosion, limited drinking water, high population density, paucity of economic resources, and low incomes (Barnett and Adger 2003, 322-323; Nurse and others 2014 Nurse and others , 1623 Nurse and others , 1634 Connell 2015, 1). Recent studies of the changing morphology of atolls in the western and central Pacific stress the stability that these islands have so far demonstrated in the face of rising sea levels (McLean and Kench 2015, 456, 458; compare Connell 2015, 9-11). Still, the projected consequences of climate changesea level rise, altered precipitation regimes, an increase in extreme weather events, ocean acidification, and coral bleaching-carry considerable risks for low-lying islands, since in combination with existing environmental challenges they will exert long-term negative effects on ecosystems, coastal regions, land surfaces, settlements, freshwater supply, and food security

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This paper is concerned with a definition of the term ‘cargo cult’ as formulated by Papua New Guineans from their personal experience of the colonial encounter. An examination of the negative connotations inherent in their interpretative reconstruction of the concept ‘cargo cult’ reveals that these resulted from a dialogue with western cultural constructions of ‘cargo cults’ which effectively discredited these movements. Interpreted in this way, the indigenous definition can also become the starting point for a reconsideration of the anthropological concept of ‘cargo cult’.

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Spatial belonging and ethnic identity among the Banabans resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji are the product of historically and culturally specific articulations and transformations. Such reconfigurations of place and ethnicity, based mainly on enmeshments between the Banabans' new island home, Rabi, and their island of origin in the Central Pacific, Banaba, have let them position themselves as an autonomous community living out a diaspora existence. Central to this identity politics of positioning are ethnic performances in which neo-traditional enactments are deployed to produce embodied knowledge of Banaban existence and to communicate such knowledge to a wider world. We argue that the Banabans of Fiji, caught in a post-colonial environment of ethnic-nationalist discourses and practices, make strategic use of such ethnic performances to affirm and advance, both internally and externally, their own politics of spatial and ethnic positioning on Rabi. 368Oceania 75, 2005Kempf and Hermann