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Urbanization in Vanuatu has increased rapidly in recent decades. Circular mobility has gradually given way to urban permanence as second and third generations grow up in urban centres. Migrants from the small outer island of Paama are numerically signiicant in the capital Port Vila with more Paamese living there than in their 'home' island. Few have returned to Paama, despite a substantial proportion of all generations professing intentions to do so, 'one day', after other goals had been realised, while maintaining economic and social ties with island residents. Constraints to return included secure urban employment and housing, access to education and health services, the location of kin, fear of sorcery and intermarriage with people from other islands, while few welcomed the challenges of returning to more subsistence-oriented livelihoods and lifestyles. hose who had returned to Paama were mainly individuals with particular social status in island life, rather than people seeking to develop economic opportunities, on an island where employment and other economic activities are scarce, and carrying capacity limited.

Although the translocal practices of first generation migrants have been relatively well researched, little is known about whether, and to what extent, their children—the second generation—engage in translocalism. Using the case study of remitting by Paamese rural–urban migrants living in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this paper compares translocal behaviours of first and second generation migrants and draws connections between the transnational and translocal scales. For Paamese, remitting provided visible evidence of incorporation into the translocal community and was considered something migrants “should” do. Beliefs about remitting were not related to migrant generation, and although remitting reliably was associated with social prestige, those who did not remit experienced feelings of guilt and shame. Participation in remitting was almost universal, and whereas first generation migrants remitted to a wider range of individuals, second generation migrants, who concentrated their remittances on close kin, remitted more frequently and reliably. Most remittances were sent to home villages, however a significant proportion were intra‐diasporic, with remittance destinations determined by the location of close family members. It is argued first, that migrant generation is not necessarily a reliable indicator of translocalism, and second, that where translocal behaviours such as remitting represent a strong social norm, it is unlikely that they will disappear with the second, or subsequent, generations.

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