Accounting for Culture in Evaluations of Climate‐Induced Noneconomic Losses and Damages: Case Studies With Three Indigenous Communities From Rural Fiji

Abstract

Many Indigenous societies have effective resilience strategies that have served them well for centuries. These strategies have enabled generations of people to cope with, adapt, and overcome diverse forms of adversity. For many semi‐subsistence‐based societies, climate change poses a different threat; one that has rendered some traditional adaptation pathways partially ineffective as natural resources have become less abundant and natural systems more unpredictable. This study presents narratives compiled through ethnography and qualitative research with three rural Indigenous iTaukei communities located on two islands in Fiji. Attributed in part to the prevalence of cultural values centered on relationalism, these communities have retained very effective systems of social resilience; however, losses sustained from almost annual cyclone events and associated landslides and earthquakes are taking their toll on the communities' capacities to recover and re‐establish valued dimensions of social life. This study responds to calls for empirical evidence of the forms and significance of noneconomic loss and damage (NELD) by drawing out gender‐sensitive, relational aspects of loss and damage observed in villagers' narratives.