I have a new article in Oceanographic Magazine
In a collage of cultures, tradition, and science, tourism operators from Italy, Japan, and United States are joining forces with Kosraean government employees in a battle to save the coral reef from Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS) – A species of sea star that has become overpopulated to the point that it is destroying the otherwise remarkably pristine coral reef.
Read the rest at Oceanographicmagazine.com
The slogan on the shirt translates to something like, “We will never forget and we will never give up.”
March 1st is Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in the Marshall Islands. It is a time for Marshallese people to reflect on their nuclear legacy, honor survivors, and remind the US and the world that they are still facing the consequences of nuclear testing that devastated their communities. This day, and every other day, they demand justice.
Students showing scale model of mushroom cloud from
From 1946 to 1958 the US dropped more than 67 bombs on the Marshall Islands. The US was not at war with the Marshallese people, in fact the US “liberated” them from a cruel Japanese occupation during WWII. Yet shortly after, amidst Cold War fears of nuclear war, the US created an apocalypse in the Marshall Islands. Almost 70 of the most destructive weapons known to humankind were detonated on the islands, just for an experiment.
It’s not widely known how insidious the nuclear testing program really was. What little I learned in school, was that the people were unjustly forced to relocate the sake of US weapons tests. I didn’t learn about all of the people intentionally exposed to deadly radiation. The US essentially waged chemical warfare on innocent people because they saw them as disposable. The stories of those experiments are the stuff of nightmares. People’s stories as horrific and shocking as those from Nazi concentration camps.
Winner of high school essay contest performing at the 2020 Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day event.
The atrocities against the Marshallese people were carried out when the barbarous acts of the Nazi party were still a recent memory. It was barely a year after WWII ended. In fact, the first bomb was dropped on Bikini Atoll while the Nuremberg Trials were still ongoing. Let that sink in. The US joined the Allied Forces and went to war to stop the Nazis and while the Allies were still prosecuting Nazi leaders for genocide—sentencing many to death—they began testing nuclear weapons on innocent people.
Although it’s absurd to compare the depravity of one mass murder to another, I find it almost more incomprehensibly evil that there was really no reason at all, other than convenience and Cold War hysteria, for the US to unleash apocalyptic fury on the Marshall Islands. They were not considered a threat, they were not our enemies, they were not scapegoated or resented like the Jews were. Yet the US, like the Nazis, deemed Marshallese people unworthy of consideration callously destroyed their lives. That is the true banality of evil.
On my dad’s side, most of my family died at the hands of Nazis. My grandmother survived several concentration camps and my grandfather was in hiding. At the time of my grandmother’s liberation, she was extremely ill. Had the British liberated her camp even a week later, she might have died and I would not exist. My grandparents met after the war having both lost their spouses. They eventually moved to San Francisco and within only decades, I was born a privileged, white, Jewish-American.
Powerful spoken word performance by Marshall Islands High School student. And that’s the world-famous poet, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner in the front row!
My family history has never limited my opportunities in life. In fact, I have opportunities thrown at me like candy in a parade. My family has been paid reparations. It’s illegal in Germany to deny what was done in the holocaust. Most of the world learns in school about the holocaust and the world will never forget.
Yet reparations have not been sufficiently made in the Marshall Islands. Cancer rates remain high, atolls remain uninhabitable, and the US refuses to tell the whole truth about what happened here or to take responsibility for it. The US consistently downplays the threat of the radioactive tomb in Eniwetok. Americans are not taught in school to remember what our government did to the Marshall Islands in effort to ensure it can never happen again.
As a Jew, knowledge of my family history in the holocaust juxtaposed with the amount of privilege I’ve attained only a generation later have shaped my entire life. I know just how arbitrarily it can be decided that a group of people are not worthy of basic human rights or even existence. It’s still hard for me to reconcile that the world eventually stepped up to put an end to the Holocaust but has let so many other genocides and other injustices continue. So many communities have been deeply shaped by WWII, yet some are still struggling significantly more than others. Solidarity means not turning our backs on people suffering the afteraffects of WWII after we’ve overcome our own injustice.
We cannot even begin to proclaim that “Never again” will we allow the world to see another holocaust, because it’s not really even over yet. The Marshallese people are still dealing with the fallout. The messes need to be cleaned up and reparations need to be made in Micronesia and elsewhere.
We Are Not Drowning
We are fighting!
The Marshall Islands is not the desolate or hopeless place you might assume it to be—and people here, especially youth, want the rest of the world to know that. While most of the media about the Marshall Islands is all doom and gloom, people here are generally pretty happy. They are not giving up on their futures or their country, and neither should you.
Read More
A beach cleanup event with a powerful message, “We are not drowning, We are fighting!”
My greatest concern of the past several years is the potential for climate change to exacerbate pre-existing social tensions and injustices. Already, amidst a so-called “refugee crisis,” many countries are becoming increasingly unaccommodating to migrants and asylum seekers as the number of people forced or pressured to migrate rises. With increasing impacts of climate change, space and resources will become more scarce and those who are already struggling will become increasingly vulnerable. In some cases people may be forced or pressured to move from the hardest hit regions. I am terrified that will increase the risk of genocide and that hundreds of millions of people will suffer and parish if we do not make major political progress not only in mitigating climate change, but also in responding to impacts that are happening now and impacts that are already inevitable.
While that concern is what ultimately drives my work, I’ve come to see these sorts of dramatic narratives about inhabitability and mass exodus as inaccurate and harmful for the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands is not the first country to be lost to climate change and I don’t think it’s likely to be. People do migrate away from the Marshall Islands for all sorts of reasons, I think the academic community doesn’t very will understand how people who do migrate to the US remain connected to their home country, culture, communities, what they’re contributing to the future of Marshall Islands, and whether they intend to come back. I believe, along with others in this community that there is a generation of highly educated youth who have spent time abroad with the intention to lead their country to a better future.
I made a rule for myself that whatever I do in the Marshall Islands has to first and foremost be for the benefit of people here. I refuse to pursue any project or effort that is at the expense of Marshallese people for the sake my broader research or political goals. I’ve been increasingly resentful of how people capitalize on a simplistic story about the Marshall Islands as a rallying cry for environmental efforts that don’t do anything to help this community. It doesn’t help to say this country is doomed. There are so many amazing people in the Marshall Islands fighting for its future and they are the ones who deserve to be shaping the global narrative.
Research as well as informal conversations suggest that Marshallese people who have spent most of their life in United States are often more concerned than people living in RMI about the impacts of climate change. This often attributed to their education and access to information in the US, but it could also have to do with the fact that majority of news about the Marshall Islands is all doom and gloom so they may believe that the situation in the Marshall Islands is more dire than it is. So, I think the narrative about the Marshall Islands can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the exodus narrative is ultimately bad for the country and its future. Instead we need to be giving accurate and detailed information through our research, but also framing our work in ways that leave room for hope.
I’m sure lots of researchers and news-media have the best of intentions; to raise awareness about Marshall Islands and to advocate for them. Particularly, some of the more socially critical researchers are highlighting problems in order to hold the United States government responsible for what they owe to the Marshall Islands. Others, I think, find the doom and gloom narrative somehow alluring, whether because it sells, or because it’s in-line with their broader social concerns and political interests. This is a challenge for me, too, because I share the same ultimate concern that many of them do.
However, I’ve come to resent the Marshall Islands being so-often used as a sort of symbol of climate change or as a canary in the coal mine. I think there are other stories to be told here. Moreover, people don’t often enough consider the impacts on Marshall Islands and on Marshallese people of being portrayed as hopeless, vulnerable, victims; the first to loss in a global struggle against climate change. No, there is a fight here that can be won.
Sure, it’s an uphill battle, but the RMI government is entirely committed to long-term sustainability and habitability. It’s not naive or ill-informed, nor is it some desperate attempt to cling to some dwindling piece of land. They’re going to do it! It’s mostly a matter of acquiring and devoting enough funding and resources and of deciding what compromises can or should be made to support long-term habitability. It’s not going to be easy and there’s no denying that climate change is negatively impacting this country, but it’s not lost cause. Saying that may support global environmental efforts, but it hurts people here in the Marshall Islands.
The exodus narrative is too simple for Marshall Islands and I think it’s not useful or accurate to their struggles, even for those who do migrate. Yet I am simultaneously politically, morally, and religiously emphatic to support people who are forced to migrate as a result of climate change. I’m drawn to the imagery of an exodus. If not here, I do think it will become the reality for some people in some places. However, I think it might be a slower onset and might not always manifest so dramatically.
For now, and for the foreseeable future, I am in the Marshall Islands. I am not going to leave to search for people who better fit the story I had in mind. I am committed to the Marshallese people’s reality more so than my narrative. There is lots to be done here and I believe I can be of service, so that’s what I’ll do.
So, at the very least, please don’t call this place doomed. These are people with full lives, and I think anyone who spends any time here would come to realize they’re not just a story or a symbol of climate change. They’re not doomed. They’re fighting. I’m here, for as long as I am here, to fight alongside them. And I’ll continue to do whatever I think is most useful for Marshall Islands rather than for my career, for some international struggle, or for the sake of a good story.
Stay tuned. I’m also going to be rewriting my research proposal, starting some new projects and putting a new website up soon.
Shipwreck turned water park. You see these sorts of juxtapositions everywhere you look in Marshall Islands.
I want to share some of the differences between the ways Marshall Islands is portrayed in academic literature and what I have expected here so far.
As a diligent PhD candidate, I reviewed as much literature as possible on Marshall Islands, particularly on climate change and migration before arriving. The scope of that literature is somewhat narrow and mostly focused on problems. While it is important focus on and analyze problems, and to recognize how vulnerable Marshall Islands is to climate change, it’s also important to highlight the strength and beauty of this nation. Maybe you have to come here to appreciate it, but this is a truly wonderful, unique place that is so much more than just vulnerable to climate change.
I want to preface this with a disclaimer that I have not formally started my research and do not have any extensive understanding or experience in the local context. I’m writing this based mostly on anecdotal observations and informal conversations over a relatively short period of time exclusively in Majuro. I certainly do not have the full picture of life in Marshall Islands. Surely with time, experience, and your feedback, my perspectives will change.
Nevertheless, I think the view of from the Ivory Tower is very different from the view on the ground and I want to contribute to a more complex and nuanced discussion. In particular, I urgently want to challenge the largely homogeneous representation of Marshallese people and their experiences within academic literature and the overemphasis on vulnerability and problems in the community. Within Marshallese culture and any culture, there are probably as many experiences, desires, and opinions as people. Yet there are elements of culture that shape communities and bind people together. People also speak back to their culture and reshape and reinvent it. So I think as academics, we have to tow the line very carefully between being too individualistic and dismissive of culture and essentializing culture and homogenizing groups of people. I think in academia, we too often focus on trends or patterns in search of universal truths. I aspire toward the opposite; to focus people as individuals in all of their contexts and within a culture that is profoundly significant to how we perceive the world and act within it, but also a culture that each of us adapt and co-create.
Marshallese fishermen during a tournament
I’ve been struck by how happy people here seem and to what extent that is reflective of Marshallese culture. I’m planning another blog unpacking some preconceptions happiness and wellbeing in Marshall Islands, but for now, I only mention it to offset the preconception that some may have, based on the available academic literature, that Marshallese people are fully or wholly defined by the immense challenges they face. Marshall Islands is neither a dystopia nor is it a utopia despite the lure of putting things so dramatically.
Rainbow over one of the more industrial areas in Majuro
I am sure there are some people, maybe especially in the government, who are more constantly preoccupied with the existential threats in the region—not just climate change, but nuclear contamination, health issues, development challenges, and more. There are also probably some people on the opposite extreme who rarely or never think about those concerns or who are not even aware of them. My guess would be that if we think of those as two extremes within a spectrum, the majority of people would be somewhere in-between.
The view of Marshall Islands conveyed through literature, as vulnerable, overwhelmed with problems, and generally dire, isn’t likely the fault of any single researcher or research group. One article can’t cover everything and most of what I’ve read well addresses an important topic. I think the problem is in the synthesis of the work. There simply need to be more articles to add perspectives to the body of literature because most of what’s being published, and especially what is making the news is all doom and gloom.
One of the local churches. It’s probably the busiest spot in town on a Sunday.
Academic publishing often demands a sacrifice of breadth on a topic for depth. That’s not always a bad thing, though. People often want and need concise and focused results rather than a 300 page manuscript exploring all of the nuance and context. So, we have to be diligent, as readers, in seeking out more information and remaining cognizant that a single journal article almost never paints a complete picture, it’s more likely one very narrow and limited look at something. We need critical readers and critical authors—but as Freire reminded us, reading isn’t a passive activity.
There has to be a shared responsibility between the author and the reader to develop a balanced understanding within broader context. Some excellent public health articles well articulate how contemporary issues are rooted in colonial history and nuclear testing in the region. Since academics are often pushed toward decontextualized and apolitical approaches, such critical work is very important and commendable. However, such work still perpetuates a somewhat homogeneous and problem focused view of Marshall Islands that doesn’t match what I’ve seen so far in everyday life here.
In doing my own due diligence by reviewing literature and seeking balance and nuance, I noticed a dearth in the literature on Marshall Islands that explores or highlights things like positive wellbeing, happiness, resilience, strength, assets, opportunities, beauty, and all of the things that make this a place worth fighting for. Very few studies have significantly included Marshallese people’s own voices, their stories, their need, their aspirations. Almost no articles highlighted all of the great organizations and important work within the community. In fact, when I wanted to include some focus on strengths and assets in the community to offset an overwhelming focus on problems, I mostly had to go to the grey literature (e.g., news articles, reports and documents shared on the websites of local agencies and government, social media posts, etc.) and even so, I found out so much more from talking with people and spending time in the community. I think social scientists, and especially positive psychologists might add to the literature by highlighting positive aspects of people’s lives and experiences. I’d highly recommend checking out longer format publications (theses and books) from Peter Rudiak-Gould and Alexander Hirata as both take deeper dives than a typical journal article would allow. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I’ll also have some more to share, too.
Extremely friendly local who asked me to take his picture.
Sometimes people critique positive psychology for ignoring problems and therefore detracting from efforts to raise awareness and make change. As if highlighting how people are or can be happy despite adversity somehow validates or justifies their adversity. No, we are human beings, we are complex and nuanced, and positive and negative emotional states are mostly independent of one another. For example, someone can be burdened with the existential threat of climate change, and still go out with friends and feel happy. Someone else might find a sense of meaning and purpose through their work combating climate change. People have the capacity to understand that sort of nuance, because we all experience it, we all have positive and negative emotions every day. Sometimes we can laugh when we’re sad or cry when we’re happy. For that matter happiness is not as simple or as one-dimensional as it is often understood to be and might even be unique among individuals. In positive psychology, we try to understand the collection of experiences and emotions that make up a fulfilling life. As such I prefer the term wellbeing as a multidimensional concept including both objective circumstances (e.g., physical health and material conditions) and things like living a meaningful life, having fulfilling social relationships, as well as experiencing positive emotions. It does no good to represent Marshallese people as fully or wholly defined by climate change, colonial history, health issues, nuclear radiation, or any other challenges they face. In fact, what makes me love this place so much is how people know all those threats are lingering and still seem committed to being happy and kind and enjoying life.
I think people studying Marshall Islands from afar need to know what a beautiful special place it is and how wonderful the people are. At risk of contributing to the homogeneous view that I aim to disrupt, I will say this: Every single Marshallese person I’ve interacted with has been kind to me, many have been exceptionally friendly and welcoming, and some very quiet, but not a single person has been mean or rude, even when I fumble through cultural norms and communication challenges. Obviously, according to my identities (white, man, American, etc.) my experience is different and I have only interacted with a very small subset of the community, but still I do think there is a cultural emphasis on kindness. In addition to the fact that people seem genuinely happy (we’ll unpack the notion of happiness soon) it culminates in an overall very pleasant experience. Everywhere I go, I see people chilling out in the shade, smiling and laughing, kids playing, people just enjoying life. Also, maybe because I’m a foreigner, whenever I walk around people say hello, introduce themselves, ask about what I’m doing here; I never have that invisible, anonymous, disconnected feeling I have (and sometimes enjoy) walking around a big North American city.
Modern art, recycling, or an outcome of scarcity? I don’t know.
Even as a fairly critical reader and avid literature reviewer, I’ve been surprised by how much life here differs from the preconceptions I’d formed (often without even realizing I’d formed them). That is exactly why I wanted to spend time here and ease into my research very slowly and why I don’t quite feel ready to finalize the design of the study yet. However, as mentioned in my last post, it can be a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg debate because I am trying to be as informed as possible before continuing with a study meant to develop a better understanding understanding. If I could be fully informed on my project, the project might become redundant.
Many of my preconceptions, particularly about people’s experiences and wellbeing, are somewhat intangible. It’s hard to nail down exactly what I thought it would be like here. I was pleasantly surprised by how happy and friendly people are, but it’s not as if I expected everyone to be down-and-out or rude.
There is a single statistic that I think hugely shapes the way international researchers view Marshall Islands. I assume it’s empirically true, but it leads people to think of Marshall Islands in a way that’s not true to life here. Almost every article, whether it’s for an academic journal or a news story, cites that about a third of the nation has migrated, more than 20,000 of a nation of about 50,000 live abroad, mostly in United States. It’s a statistic I have cited in all of my proposals and grant applications, too. However, this place doesn’t feel desolate or abandoned. It doesn’t feel hopeless. Even if the numbers are empirically true, they implicitly lead one’s interpretation toward an incomplete understanding of a country amidst some sort of mass exodus. The Marshallese census also shows that while the nation’s population growth rate is slowing, the population is still increasing. I don’t think anyone would visit here and think it looks like a place that’s being abandoned and it doesn’t seem like people who live here view it that way. At least in Majuro, there are lots of new construction projects, more traffic than you’d expect, and overall a pretty bustling atmosphere much more like a small city than the quiet island villages some might expect—I am sure it’s different on the outer islands, though.
One of several large buildings being constructed in Majuro. Also my Sebastião Salgado (influential photographer) impression :)
Average amount of traffic, Incidentally, this bridge is the tallest point in Majuro, in competition with the local dump.
One of the many smaller construction projects and a view of several sea walls protecting people’s property
Maybe the statistic that a third of the country have left also does not account for people leaving and coming back. Again, I want to emphasize that I’m writing this based on purely anecdotal observations, but I’ve talked with lots of people who have spent extended periods of time in United States or who grew up there but live in Marshall Islands now. I’ve also had the privilege of meeting a Marshallese-American student who grew up in United States but is eager to earn his degree and move to Marshall Islands to use his skills and knowledge to help the community. So, while I wouldn’t go so far as to question the accuracy of the assertion that more than 20,000 Marshallese people are currently living in United States, my impression is that it’s not always a one-way trip. Maybe at any given moment 20,000 Marshallese people are living in the United States, but a simple question is overlooked: How many of those 20,000 intend to return to Marshall Islands. I’ve said it before, but I feel it’s important to reiterate, that I don’t think it’s my business to suggest whether people should stay or go, or go and return, I just feel that this sort of mass exodus imagery is inaccurate. That’s also not to say that it’s impossible that the worst-case scenario when the country becomes uninhabitable is entirely impossible. Especially toward informing policy, I think the contingency of those sorts of mass exodus do need to be planned for.
Abandoned (I think) coconut hut on one of the smaller islands near Majuro
Additionally, international researchers have only focused (to my knowledge) on external migration, despite a well established understanding (among climate change and migration researchers) that people are much more likely to migrate internally (within their country) than externally (to another country) as a result of climate change. Internal migration, most often from rural outer islands to the urban centers (Maruro and Ebeye) is likely of equal or greater interest t for the nation’s future. Particularly in long-term climate change adaptation plans, issues such as land tenure for internal migrants will be critical.
In contrast to some other Pacific Islands, the Marshall Islands is only considering regional adaptation and mitigation strategies and is not pursuing any sort of national relocation plan. One possibility being considered is an internal relocation plan where Majuro might be elevated and some outer islands abandoned. Although this is currently just one possibility being considered, a solid understanding of how and why people migrate from the outer islands to urban centers, what their need are, and how they’re doing might help inform the national adaptation strategy.
Image taken near the Marshall Islands International Airport where significant efforts have been undertaken to back-fill land and create a seawall for the airport to remain in operation.
So, uh, maybe I need to buy a new website on account of the lack of exodus but resilience.com is probably taken. Maybe also I have yet more to learn about the people who have left permanently and why. I really hope one day I can spend some time in the Marshallese diaspora communities in United States to better understand their perspectives and experiences and to meet people here in Majuro who might be considering moving to the US. But all in time. I’m really loving having the opportunity to take things slow and reflect and talk with people. One cool thing about living in such a small country is that it feels like you bump into everyone so I’ve been getting a lot of insight from all sorts of people in the community.
I wanted to share a few personal reflections after having been here about a month. I will try to post more soon about life in Majuro, projects I’ve been working on, and what I’ve seen and learned about the impacts of climate change in Marshall Islands. For now, I think I’m still kind of trying to figure out my own place and my next steps and that feels prerequisite to the other things I want to write about.
I've been thinking a lot about how to get more involved in the community and what contributions I may be able to make. So far, I've chatted with lots of people, observed an amazing youth leadership program, and volunteered a bit with the local International Organization for Migration office doing some survey analysis. These experiences are helping me slowly get to know this place and I'm eager to get going on my project, but after a month here, I feel even more strongly that I need to take plenty of time to understand the people, the community, the culture, and the needs I might help address (to whatever extent it would be possible for me to accomplish those things).
There is already so much going on in Marshall Islands that I think if I just jump into my project, it's likely not to be as useful or relevant as it could be. I read as much as possible before moving here, but it's so different actually being present, seeing things for myself, and talking with real people rather than reading the academic research. There’s so much more nuance than what is conveyed in the literature, and none of the research I’ve read illuminates the beauty of this place or the kindness of the people. Most of the research seems to focus on the adversity and the existential threats (i.e., climate change, nuclear legacy, health issues, etc). It does feel like those are constantly lingering threats that most are well aware of, but despite that (or maybe in a way because of it) people seem to really enjoy life.
Almost everyplace you look there is a vivid juxtaposition of the adversity and the beauty and that’s something I’ve been trying to figure out how to capture through photography. On that note, please check out my Instagram (www.instagram.com/dkrzesni), I’ve been sharing lots of pictures there. As a newcomer to photography, I’m actually very proud of some of my pictures and I have lots of ideas for future more focused photography projects such as a series of environmental portraits I hope to start working on soon.
Despite my eagerness to start getting more active and engaged in this community, I’ve been taking a lot of time to reflect on my experiences and plan my next steps. Most of all, I have been considering whether I should start trying to move forward with my project and view it as kind of an initial/exploratory step, or pursue further volunteer opportunities or even a full-time job here and plan to wait another few months before starting the project. I think for now I'd feel more comfortable working for someone established here than initiating something myself. There are people already who I am confident will provide guidance on my project, though.
I've been hearing about lots of exciting job opportunities, especially in education, and I've been contemplating whether I can (or want to) take on that kind of commitment, and if so, what that would mean for my research and my PhD progress. I think my experience and perceptions would be very different because I’d no longer be just a researcher visiting for an extended period. Being a researcher implies a much more passive and disconnected relationship. Finding a job here might lead to me feeling more connected and becoming more established in the community. It may or may not also influence how long I end up staying and the timeline for my project here.
I’m still very much unsure whether I’ll finish my doctorate and I feel like I just want to work and put the whole thing on hold. However, to be clear, I am still enrolled in my program as a full-time student and completely on track with my academic progress, at this stage all that is left is my dissertation and I have two years of funding left to complete it. There will not likely be any decisive change in the immediate future, in fact, this is kind of the stage in my program where I have the space and time to figure that out. I also want to be clear that I am very committed to doing the project I have planned in Marshall Islands in some form and that is somewhat independent from my PhD program. In other words, I’m more committed to doing something I feel will be meaningful and useful in Marshall Islands than I am to earning my PhD, but I also still do want to earn my PhD if it remains feasible to do both.
Maybe I also just need some more time and distance from my doctoral program to try to recover and regain my bearings. The last few years (even before the PhD) have really rocked my confidence. It's been kind of a downward slope since finishing my M.Ed. from feeling sure I was making a meaningful contribution in the world, to being sure I wasn't. I probably would have been much better positioned for this project immediately following my M.Ed. and having never attended my PhD program, but at the same time, I may have never wound up where I am now if not for the doctoral program and I do feel like I am in a good place, or at least pointed in a good direction. I've felt better in the last month than I have in a long time and I’m pretty optimistic about my time in Marshall Islands-- I just need to make some decisions.
I just feel kind of shaky still, because I have had such a turbid relationship with academia. I want to pursue a project meant to help people rather than just study them and I feel like earning my PhD is both a huge facilitator and an enormous barrier to my goals. The whole academic world has come to feel so toxic, parasitic, cruel, and heartless, yet it opens doors and provides credibility that may help me have the kind of impact I want to have.
I also am starting to feel like whether I stay a year, or significantly more or less time, this is going to be a long-term commitment and it's worth taking the time to try to do it right. I am getting kind of antsy to get out and do more, but I think I also have to be patient… and prudent.
I really would be thankful for it if anyone out there has thoughts or advice. I'll try to start posting more consistent updates, because there is so much I want to share about this special place.
In this photo you can see a home near the place I am staying that is clearly impacted by the eroding shore line. The place I am staying has a sea wall and my host told me that the land has been back-filled behind the wall, otherwise the water would reach her home’s foundation.
Above are a couple pictures of the sea wall when the tide is out and as it is coming in.
I will be arriving in Marshall Islands in July and I am expecting to stay around a year.
In the month or so leading up to my departure, I will continue adding more details about the project as well as information and resources about Marshall Islands, climate change, and migration.
As far as the research goes, I have decided to take things a little slower than initially planned. I will be spending some time volunteering with local organizations, getting to know the community, and seeking insight and feedback on the project before I finalize the research design. I am not sure how long that might take, I am thinking maybe a couple months, but I am committed to taking as long as feels necessary to ensure that the project will be culturally sensitive and meaningful to those who participate. I hope this will also help to maximize the chance for the project to be beneficial for the community.
In the meantime, I will be sharing lots of pictures, videos, and stories from Marshall Islands on this page and on social media. Further down the line, I hope to be posting interviews, reports, editorial-style blog posts, and short documentary films.
Here is a first ‘vlog’ with some reflections about the project. I will keep practicing and experimenting with how to effectively use that format.
