Weathering Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu: Leaf-houses, Flying Foxes, and Body Bags

At November’s Island Studies Lecture, Dr. Jean Mitchell will share “Stories of Weathering Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu: Leaf-houses, Flying Foxes, and Body Bags.” The lecture is Tuesday, November 15, at 7 pm in the SDU Main Building Faculty Lounge on the UPEI campus.

With winds up to 300 kilometers per hour, Cyclone Pam was the largest cyclone to make landfall in the South Pacific islands since recordkeeping began. It struck the island of Vanuatu on March 13, 2015, leaving in its wake enormous losses of infrastructure, housing, animals, and food gardens. But why did so few islanders die during the cyclone and its aftermath? Drawing on recent interviews with islanders from the southern islands of Erromango and Tanna, which were literally in the eye of the storm, this presentation recounts stories about the cyclone and its aftermath. How social relationships, the gift/kastom economies, local knowledge, and the ways in which nature and culture are entangled in Vanuatu offer powerful insights into how to survive a cyclone.

Dr. Mitchell, an associate professor of Anthropology at UPEI, has been working in Vanuatu for 20 years and has conducted research in Kiribati and Solomon Islands. In Vanuatu, she started the Young People's Project at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Her research interests include post-colonialism, youth, gender, health and urbanization. She has co-edited several volumes of essays on L.M. Montgomery and has been researching the Presbyterian Missionary history that connects Vanuatu and Prince Edward Island. She has, together with Vanuatu Cultural Centre, recently started a project on local knowledge, youth and the ecologies of gardens in Tanna and Erromango.

Admission to the lecture is free. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Watch for details for another lecture about islands—near and far—December 6.

For more information, please contact Laurie at iis@upei.ca or 902-894-2881.