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Paper short abstract:

We explore connections between place and displacement for residents of Port Vila without formal leasehold for the land they live on. Prompted by Kapila (2022), we consider the relations that emerge from dispossession, and how relationality springs from insecure or threatened connections to place.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the connections between place and the experience of belonging and/or displacement for residents of Port Vila without formal leasehold for the land they live on. Prompted by Kapila (2022), we consider the relations that emerge from dispossession, and how relationality springs from insecure or threatened connections to place. The seeming coherence of co-located “communities” does not always match with the processes followed to enable access to land and also to dispossess people of rights to occupy land. Those processes are often personalised, while the act of dispossession plays out publicly in a depersonalised manner. Evictions in Vila are often referred to by the name of the location affected – Destination, Bladinieres, Snake Hill, Vila North – giving the sense that it is whole “communities” being removed, rather than specific individuals. Eviction is seen as an indiscriminate tool, wielded against the community without consideration of individual circumstances. Yet our interviews with Vila residents at risk of eviction show that within the same locations, there are often significant differences in how residents have ended up living there, who they have made agreements with and /or payments to, and how secure they feel their right to occupancy remains. This can occur in parallel with different definitions of community – shown in alternative names, boundaries, access to infrastructure, and recognition of authority. We consider how these differences then inform their sense of security and future plans in relation to each other and the landscapes in which those relations occur.