Paper short abstract:

Australian South Sea Islanders (ASSI) are uniquely placed as a long-term migrant group to Australia who both maintain kinship, sociocultural and identity links with the Pacific and nurture a sense of belonging to various Australian locales. We explore ASSI identity in terms of visions of home.

Paper long abstract:

Australian South Sea Islanders are a unique ethnic group, the Australian born descendants of Pacific Islander labourers recruited (forcibly or otherwise by blackbirding vessels and their crews) to work on sugar plantations in Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Australian South Sea Islanders were recruited mainly from Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, but also came from many other islands in the Pacific, including: New Ireland and the islands in Milne Bay (Papua New Guinea), Samoa and Fiji.

Oral histories tell us that many Australian South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from their island homes and, upon arriving in Australia, had pay withheld and endured terrible living conditions.

With the introduction of the White Australia Policy, many Australian South Sea Islanders were then forcibly deported (often "dropped off" at whatever island the captain decided was "best" for them, regardless of their actual "home" island). This was devastating for many, as a lot of Australian South Sea Islanders had married locally, were born in Australia, and/or had never been to the Pacific Islands.

Today, many Australian South Sea Islands maintain kinship, sociocultural and identity links with the Pacific and nurture a sense of belonging to various Australian locales. In this paper, we use Insider and Islander anthropology to explore Australian South Sea Islander identity in terms of various interpretations and states of home.