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C. Ledderucci
their audience. Such messages risk being comprehensible only to a small local elite.
Furthermore, the influence of the activists’ campaigns on governmental adaptation
and mitigation plans need to be evaluated with care.
On the one hand, all the campaigns and the protests organized by the activists
are founded on the basic assumption of the scientific proof of climate change, as
they also experience firsthand episodes of extreme weather events, such as cyclones
and flooding (Rudiak-Gould 2012). Yet it is necessary to distinguish between the
scientific fact of climate change and its social discourse and the political claims it
brings with it.
On the other hand, the Warriors strongly contest the Western narrative which
assumes that Pacific communities, who are at the front lines of climate change, are
helpless victims. This victimization has travelled through time and space: Oceania
was always thought of as the ‘invisible continent’ (Le Clézio 2006), composed of tiny
islands usually neglected by the continental public. In Western narratives, Oceania is
known for its comparative remoteness and smallness, sometimes for its poverty and
conspicuous inaction facing modernization and globalization (Hau’ofa 1994). This
rhetoric is now updated with climate change: the idea that one day small islands will
disappear underneath the ocean and that local populations will be forced to leave their
lands and move to Western nations such as Australia and New Zealand. All this negative imaginary is contested by climate activists through their protests and campaigns,
highlighting Pacific cultural singularities such as the high mobility of Pacific societies and their spiritual relationship with the environment. This renders climaterelated migration an exogenous concept: Pacific Islanders were used to migrating
long before the environmental crisis that today is likely to force people to move out
of their islands (Kelman et al. 2015; Nunn 2016, 2017; Suliman et al. 2019). Moreover, as observed by McNamara and Farbotko (2017), the Warriors’ narrative does
not deny the worst-case scenario (which implies mobility and migration), merely
its inevitability. The Warriors’ motto is, therefore, “we are not drowning, we are
fighting!” (350 Pacific 2013). This local rhetoric echoes what Epeli Hau’ofa (1994)
has called ‘a sea of islands’, contesting the reductionist view of Pacific islands as
just tiny dots in a vast ocean.
Other than just contesting the Western narrative and raising awareness among
local communities, the Warriors’ movement is also trying to reconnect traditional
inter-island links through a transnational network, renewing the economic, political, and kinship relations which suddenly disappeared because of the ‘divide and
conquer’ politics of the colonial era, later replaced by the creation of new national
boundaries and through the establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
The Pacific Climate Warriors seek to reconnect Pacific communities through their
campaigns and initiatives, overcoming the previous colonial borders of the NationState (also through the independence movements) and making mobility useful as a
local resource instead of seeing it as a negative quality. This is visible in the structure of their organization: all the Warriors usually meet in one of the islands for
their annual meeting, they lead regional campaigns working together on the same
projects. In times of crisis, they raise funds for self-help and travel all over the world
to give testimony in international fora about what they are experiencing because of
C. Ledderucci
their audience. Such messages risk being comprehensible only to a small local elite.
Furthermore, the influence of the activists’ campaigns on governmental adaptation
and mitigation plans need to be evaluated with care.
On the one hand, all the campaigns and the protests organized by the activists
are founded on the basic assumption of the scientific proof of climate change, as
they also experience firsthand episodes of extreme weather events, such as cyclones
and flooding (Rudiak-Gould 2012). Yet it is necessary to distinguish between the
scientific fact of climate change and its social discourse and the political claims it
brings with it.
On the other hand, the Warriors strongly contest the Western narrative which
assumes that Pacific communities, who are at the front lines of climate change, are
helpless victims. This victimization has travelled through time and space: Oceania
was always thought of as the ‘invisible continent’ (Le Clézio 2006), composed of tiny
islands usually neglected by the continental public. In Western narratives, Oceania is
known for its comparative remoteness and smallness, sometimes for its poverty and
conspicuous inaction facing modernization and globalization (Hau’ofa 1994). This
rhetoric is now updated with climate change: the idea that one day small islands will
disappear underneath the ocean and that local populations will be forced to leave their
lands and move to Western nations such as Australia and New Zealand. All this negative imaginary is contested by climate activists through their protests and campaigns,
highlighting Pacific cultural singularities such as the high mobility of Pacific societies and their spiritual relationship with the environment. This renders climaterelated migration an exogenous concept: Pacific Islanders were used to migrating
long before the environmental crisis that today is likely to force people to move out
of their islands (Kelman et al. 2015; Nunn 2016, 2017; Suliman et al. 2019). Moreover, as observed by McNamara and Farbotko (2017), the Warriors’ narrative does
not deny the worst-case scenario (which implies mobility and migration), merely
its inevitability. The Warriors’ motto is, therefore, “we are not drowning, we are
fighting!” (350 Pacific 2013). This local rhetoric echoes what Epeli Hau’ofa (1994)
has called ‘a sea of islands’, contesting the reductionist view of Pacific islands as
just tiny dots in a vast ocean.
Other than just contesting the Western narrative and raising awareness among
local communities, the Warriors’ movement is also trying to reconnect traditional
inter-island links through a transnational network, renewing the economic, political, and kinship relations which suddenly disappeared because of the ‘divide and
conquer’ politics of the colonial era, later replaced by the creation of new national
boundaries and through the establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
The Pacific Climate Warriors seek to reconnect Pacific communities through their
campaigns and initiatives, overcoming the previous colonial borders of the NationState (also through the independence movements) and making mobility useful as a
local resource instead of seeing it as a negative quality. This is visible in the structure of their organization: all the Warriors usually meet in one of the islands for
their annual meeting, they lead regional campaigns working together on the same
projects. In times of crisis, they raise funds for self-help and travel all over the world
to give testimony in international fora about what they are experiencing because of