Out of the rural frypan

Books

Out of the rural frypan and into the city fire

Rural poverty causes rapid city growth, and in poor countries the ci ties are doubling in population ev ery 17 years. They will continue to grow, although the cities of the more developed countries show a tenden cy to level off. The newer genera tions of rural people are escaping to the cities from the poverty of the villages.

This is one of the points made in Population Change in the Pacific Region, edited by Yunshik Chang and Peter J. Donaldson (SC4). This is a selection of some of the papers presented in the Symposia on Pacific Populations at the 13th Pacific Science Congress at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and published by the Congress and the Pacific Science Association of Vancouver.

This growth in urban areas is rele vant to what is happening in many of the nations of the Pacific Islands, although this volume deals for the most part with the countries on the Pacific rim, and only three papers examine specific South Pacific problems.

One of these, by Jean Pages of French Polynesia’s ORSTOM Centre, deals with migration and ur banisation in French Polynesia. It points out that French Polynesia is now one of the most urbanised of the South Pacific territories. This ur banisation has occurred exclusively on Tahiti, focusing on Papeete. At the 1971 census, Papeete’s urban population of 65,000 included 82 per cent of the population of Tahiti and 55 per cent of the population of French Polynesia.

The growth has been rapid, and has resulted from changes in the economic and social structure brought about by major investments in the jet airport and tourist facili ties, as well as the development of the nuclear testing programme. The author says that before the estab lishment of the Pacific Ex perimental Centre, internal migra tion within Polynesia was “cir cular”, the migrants going back to their own islands after a stay in the city. But they are now staying in Papeete and this has had a detrimen

tal effect on the traditional agricultural activities, he says.

Migration has caused a modifica tion of the ethnic composition of the population. In 1962, six per cent of the population was European, but the figure is now 15 per cent. There have been many inter-ethnic mar riages and cross-breeding has in creased.

The author is unhappy about the future. He says that “future possibilities are disquieting; no one knows how to establish a state of equilibrium between the city and the archipelagoes and slow down the exodus from the rural areas.”

The other two papers on South Pacific themes in this book deal with Social Boundaries and Migration in New Zealand (David Pitt) and The Impact of Cultural Exchange on the Health of Tokelau Island Migrants (Judith Huntsman).

A separate volume. Mankind’s Future in the Pacific , edited by R. F.

Scagel, is a selection of the plenary and special lectures at the same Science Congress and is published by the University of British Colum bia Press at Vancouver, although our copy comes from the Australia & New Zealand Book Co Pty Ltd,

Sydney (5A10.50).

Mankind’s Future in the Pacific

contains 13 papers dealing with a wide variety of matters, including environment, science policy, biolo gy. primitive navigation (by Thor Heyerdahl) and agricultural re sources.

The proceedings of a seminar sponsored by the Institute of Ap plied Social and Economic Re search in Papua New Guinea in 1976 titled Research Needs and Priorities in Papua New Guinea have now been published as the in stitute’s Monograph Number 1, and edited by R. J. May. The seminar, and these papers, consisted of a series of submissions by various government departments and other organisations such as the PNG Housing Commission, the Law Reform Commission and the University of Papua New Guinea, on what direction they thought the in stitute should take in its research programme. It’s an interesting monograph because of the insight it gives into what organisations in Papua New Guinea see as the problems ahead of this developing

country

E.W.