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Creating Policy That Supports Living Cultural Expression In Melanesia, Thomas Dick

Thomas Dick

In Vanuatu, communities have expressed a desire to continue leading lifestyles based on a traditional economic base. In the context of economic globalisation, however, this possibility is being ignored or denied by government policy decisions made on the basis of ‘economic rationalism’. There is growing concern that these government decisions are in fact destructive of ‘popular cultural expressions’, and do not respect the values of the community in relation to its development.

In 2006, an ‘Economic opportunities fact-finding mission’ to the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was sponsored by NZAID and AusAID. The report that followed recognized that ‘many of …