Paper short abstract:

Kinship transformations have received scant attention in Vanuatu, where kinship once was a preoccupation of 'classic' kinship studies. This paper examines the creolisation of practice and the consequences for land tenure and exchange and concomitant conflict over rights and symbolic capital.

Paper long abstract:

The Pacific post colonial nation state of Vanuatu provides a fertile site for a revaluation of the kinship studies carried out by its first and second wave of ethnographers in the 20th century. Kinship in Vanuatu had been at the forefront of the theoretical heartland of kinship studies but little attention has been paid to transformations at the local level and in the broader context of the nation state. This paper seeks to explore whether there is an emergent Vanuatu kinship, that is developing, like the lingua franca bislama, its own spoken, ritual and symbolic vocabulary. The transformations in north Ambrymese kinship will be the focus of the paper, offering suggestions for further examination of the national context where a creolisation of practice is emerging in the context of inter-island marriage and a reevaluation of specific local practice with increasing conflict over access to resources and symbolic capital.