298
C. Ledderucci
relations interrupted by colonialism. Such connections place the Warriors in the
flow of globalization and enable a more informed discourse about climate change
and global politics. Reciprocity, as stated by Crook and Rudiak-Gould (2018, p. 2),
“is an important principle and social mode: it involves a sophisticated aptitude for
discovering new possibilities in resources of all kinds, and an equally adept skill in
accepting external interests and turning them into home-grown initiatives”.
As recently observed by Jolly (2018, 2019), resistance (instead of resilience
4 )
can be found not only in political protests, such as those organized by the Pacific
Climate Warriors but also in everyday life. As observed by Miriam Kahn (2011,
p. 182) regarding the Tahitian context, “challenges to conventional behavior do have
the abilities to effect profound change. These spaces of resistance can occur in myriad
ways, both brazenly provocative and quietly subtle”.
I argue that the use of traditional clothes and dances, foregrounded by the Warriors
as part of the ‘Pacific culture’, is a space of resistance. By claiming their way to protest
and organize social mobilization, using traditional clothes and dancing, the activists
re-signify content and objects giving them a different and new meaning.
Billy Cava, the coordinator of the 350 Pacific New Caledonian branch explains
how the movement is organized and how their campaigns are arranged.
What happens is that every year we have… our year always begins in March and ends in
November/December and… and our year is about to begin now, this means that next week…
next month, in April, we will have our first retreat, on this occasion we will meet with the
team 350 Pacific, that is the coordinator of New Caledonia, coordinator of Tuvalu, Kiribati,
Fiji, we are about fifteen from the Pacific islands and we will gather in Samoa, in April,
to organize the campaigns we will perform this year in the Pacific region. […] We will…
develop the regional campaign but at a local level, this means that we will evaluate which
actions we can do relating to… but I cannot say it because it is… it is still secret, this year’s
campaigns are still confidential. (Billy Cava, interviewed on March 15th, 2018 in Nouméa,
author’s translation from French)
Cava underlines the importance of the annual meeting in Samoa at the beginning of the protest season. This meeting is central to maintain social relationships
between activists and especially between islands, and also to create new networks
able to cooperate to achieve their common goal: lobbying big polluting industries and
companies and expressing dissent on how their lucrative businesses are impacting
Pacific Islands States and indigenous livelihoods.
The Warriors’ campaigns and actions are developed and conducted regionally.
Every Warrior organizes a local initiative, involving local communities, to help the
bigger Pacific campaign gain visibility. These actions are intended as key in making
local and indigenous people aware of the climate crisis and aim to empower them
while fostering resilience.
4 Resilience is understood as the capacity of a person to recover from a critical event, that is—in
this case—the capacity to recover from the impacts and disasters exacerbated by climate change.
Resistance, instead, is the capacity to resist and to contest the conventional way to behave and think.
C. Ledderucci
relations interrupted by colonialism. Such connections place the Warriors in the
flow of globalization and enable a more informed discourse about climate change
and global politics. Reciprocity, as stated by Crook and Rudiak-Gould (2018, p. 2),
“is an important principle and social mode: it involves a sophisticated aptitude for
discovering new possibilities in resources of all kinds, and an equally adept skill in
accepting external interests and turning them into home-grown initiatives”.
As recently observed by Jolly (2018, 2019), resistance (instead of resilience
4 )
can be found not only in political protests, such as those organized by the Pacific
Climate Warriors but also in everyday life. As observed by Miriam Kahn (2011,
p. 182) regarding the Tahitian context, “challenges to conventional behavior do have
the abilities to effect profound change. These spaces of resistance can occur in myriad
ways, both brazenly provocative and quietly subtle”.
I argue that the use of traditional clothes and dances, foregrounded by the Warriors
as part of the ‘Pacific culture’, is a space of resistance. By claiming their way to protest
and organize social mobilization, using traditional clothes and dancing, the activists
re-signify content and objects giving them a different and new meaning.
Billy Cava, the coordinator of the 350 Pacific New Caledonian branch explains
how the movement is organized and how their campaigns are arranged.
What happens is that every year we have… our year always begins in March and ends in
November/December and… and our year is about to begin now, this means that next week…
next month, in April, we will have our first retreat, on this occasion we will meet with the
team 350 Pacific, that is the coordinator of New Caledonia, coordinator of Tuvalu, Kiribati,
Fiji, we are about fifteen from the Pacific islands and we will gather in Samoa, in April,
to organize the campaigns we will perform this year in the Pacific region. […] We will…
develop the regional campaign but at a local level, this means that we will evaluate which
actions we can do relating to… but I cannot say it because it is… it is still secret, this year’s
campaigns are still confidential. (Billy Cava, interviewed on March 15th, 2018 in Nouméa,
author’s translation from French)
Cava underlines the importance of the annual meeting in Samoa at the beginning of the protest season. This meeting is central to maintain social relationships
between activists and especially between islands, and also to create new networks
able to cooperate to achieve their common goal: lobbying big polluting industries and
companies and expressing dissent on how their lucrative businesses are impacting
Pacific Islands States and indigenous livelihoods.
The Warriors’ campaigns and actions are developed and conducted regionally.
Every Warrior organizes a local initiative, involving local communities, to help the
bigger Pacific campaign gain visibility. These actions are intended as key in making
local and indigenous people aware of the climate crisis and aim to empower them
while fostering resilience.
4 Resilience is understood as the capacity of a person to recover from a critical event, that is—in
this case—the capacity to recover from the impacts and disasters exacerbated by climate change.
Resistance, instead, is the capacity to resist and to contest the conventional way to behave and think.