Environments and Socialities in Oceania – Changing Ideas and Practices

Abstract

This Introduction provides an overview of the topics and discussions addressed in the Special Issue ‘Environments and Socialities in Oceania'. It focuses on the phenomenon that people in Oceania engage in new globalised or transnational environmental and social challenges through dialogue and interaction with various global and local actors, both human and other-than-human, who offer various (new) ideas and practices. We present two linked perspectives of looking at this: Firstly, it becomes crucial to concentrate on the fundamental assumptions of individuals in Oceania when dealing with changes. Secondly, ethnographic research should consider “encounters across difference” (Tsing 2005). In these encounters between actors in different settings, 'environmental' and 'social' become of great importance in different context-specific interpretations and forms. While they can be accompanied by disagreements, they also create dialogues and collaborations, and people develop novel concepts and methods. With an ethnographic description of the authors' research on climate change in Vanuatu, alongside the contributions to different forms of encounters in the Anthropocene, this Special Issue highlights the innovative and creative abilities of people living in Oceania.