Reframing Climate Mobility in Fiji and Samoa

Challenge

Gendered climate risks in Fiji and Samoa affect who can move temporarily for safety or work and who is constrained to remain in high-risk locations.

Solution

Examine micro-mobilities and circular migration with communities to understand their roles, limits, and gendered impacts in adaptation.

Overview

Communities in Pacific Island countries face increasingly severe climatic risks that affect homes, land, and livelihoods. Families are already moving livestock, goods, and people over short distances, or sending members away for short periods and then welcoming them back with new income or skills. These everyday movements can support people who want to remain in place rather than leave permanently, but they can also deepen divides over who is able to move.

Andreas Neef (Griffith University, Australia) is leading a project, supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), that is assessing how micro-mobilities and circular migration are shaping adaptation options and gendered climate risks in Fiji and Samoa.

Micro-mobilities and circular migration

The project is focusing on short-distance and short-duration movements as potential adaptation strategies. Micro-mobilities include actions such as moving livestock to higher ground during floods and building multi-local households that spread climatic risks across locations.

Circular migration covers short-term labor migration, usually under 1 year, within or across borders in response to climate-related hazards, with attention to how return may affect households and livelihoods. The project team is asking who can use these strategies, who is excluded and left behind, and how one person’s mobility affects the ability of others to move or stay.

Study aims and approach

The project is examining how micro-mobilities and circular migration interact with gender roles, social norms, and climate risk in Fiji and Samoa. The project team has been designing a shared methodology across both countries so research can document mobility patterns, resilience outcomes, and experiences of being left behind. Study objectives include identifying which groups can engage in specific mobility strategies, how these strategies relate to resilience, and how findings can inform regional debates on climate migration, planned relocation, and staying in place.

The project has organized inception workshops in Suva (Fiji) and Apia (Samoa), combining government representatives, regional organizations, and civil society groups. Participants include staff from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Samoa), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Climate Change Division (Fiji), and regional bodies such as the Pacific Community and the Pacific Network on Globalisation. Workshop discussions are focusing on how temporary and short-distance movements can contribute to climate-affected people’s ability to remain in their area of origin.

Community engagement and methods

After the inception phase, the project team has held community consultation meetings and intensive researcher training workshops in Fiji and Samoa. The researchers are developing a mixed-methods approach that combines household mobility mapping, causal loop diagramming, Q-sort exercises, Photovoice, and Pacific research methodologies such as talanoa. These tools capture how households experience climate impacts, describe mobility, and how gender, disability, and cultural norms shape decisions to move or stay.

Household data collection in both countries has taken place between June and September 2024 and is producing a shared dataset for cross-country comparison. The project team is using these data to analyze how mobility interacts with climate risks and to trace links between people who move and people who remain in place. The researchers are also focusing on ethical practices, including informed consent and participant control over images and stories shared through Photovoice and other visual methods.

Networks, learning, and emerging outputs

The project website, Climate Change Plus serves as a hub for project information. Once data are validated and permissions are finalized, the project team will share research outputs and communication materials through this platform. The team is also building policy and research networks, including new contacts with the Pacific Climate Change Centre at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The project website shows a range of outputs. Team members have been presenting on research methods and early insights at regional and international conferences. Presentations include work on transdisciplinary methods for understanding circular migration and climate mobility, evaluation of research methodologies in Pacific communities, land access and climate micro-mobility in Samoa, climate mobilities in Fiji through visual and Pacific research methods, and the role of Pacific commons for resilience and climate mobilities. Journal articles and policy briefs are among other planned outputs.

Project details

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) under its Collaborative Regional Research Programme (CRRP). Acknowledgments also go to Anita Latai Niusulu (National University of Samoa, Samoa), Masami Tsujita (National University of Samoa, Samoa), Renata Varea (The University of the South Pacific, Fiji), Rufino Varea (The University of the South Pacific, Fiji), Mathea Melissa Lim (The University of Auckland, New Zealand), Eseta Drova (The University of the South Pacific, Fiji), Jesse Hession Grayman (The University of Auckland, New Zealand), Sarai Toleagoa (National University of Samoa, Samoa), Alapati Ainuu (National University of Samoa, Samoa), and Salafai Ah-Tong (National University of Samoa, Samoa).