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Contribution short abstract:

Based on original fieldwork in Tuvalu in 2025, this presentation shall engage with the country's plans to create a digital twin in cyberspace as part of its Future Now project, raising questions of statehood and identity and their potential to unroot Western hegemonic ideals - or sustain them.

Contribution long abstract:

Tuvalu is widely known for being considered one of the first small island developing states (SIDS) to face inundation due to rising sea levels caused by global climate change. The narrative of Tuvalu as “sinking islands” stands emblematic for the foreign perception of the nation, posing serious questions concerning Tuvalu’s sovereignty in case of loss of territory. This issue is tackled through Tuvalu’s Future Now initiative, that, alongside physical adaptation processes like seawalls and softer practices like migration treaties (like the fale pili Union with Australia), proposes the creation of a digital twin of the country in cyberspace. The establishment of this digital twin is supposed to ensure maintenance of sovereignty in an unprecedented case that questions hegemonic notions of statehood, centering Pacific knowledge systems such as fenua. At the same time, it bears questions regarding its sustainability and global dependencies in the question of server locations around the world.

Based on two months of fieldwork, this presentation shall deal with this ambivalence through the following questions: How does the Tuvaluan population deal with the risks of inundation and the government’s plans to create a digital twin of the country alongside adaptation and migration pacts like the fale pili union? And is the cyberspace migration proposal of the government a challenge to current ideals of statehood or merely a symptom of post-Fordist solutions to real problems affecting real people? Finally, what does this mean for the idea of physical land as a commons in a world of rising sea levels?