Climate change and SIDS in the transpacific region: flows of people, capital and goods

Abstract

This article will discuss how the impacts of climate change are shaping the flows of people, capital and goods within the transpacific region. These flows are intimately shaped by the geographies and colonial histories of transpacific small island developing states, as well as the migratory patterns and diaspora communities of small island developing states. Findings are drawn from 12 months of ethnographic research, which explored the recovery of twenty low-income households during the first year after hurricane Maria, which devastated the Caribbean island, Puerto Rico on 21 September 2017. The article is supplemented with images taken from two comics that graphically illustrate the research findings, and which demonstrate how academic research can be fruitfully supplemented with visual representations that can distil complex theoretical ideas into engaging visual formats.