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228 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1995
sure of the heavily aid-funded Te Mautari (the national "commercial" fishingcompany) may have been a blessing indisguise in that its workers subsequently became more committed toworking for the company. What ifmore aid were to be withheld orrejected?
The book's comments regarding distributions of the earnings of the Revenue Equalization Reserve Fund shouldtake account of the nature of this asset,where the country has few other"earners," as well as the nature of theI-Kiribati commitment to forgoingconsumption. As the president states,"the Reserve Fund is seen as an insurance which should not be squandered.It is a sort of security which the country has built up over several years withgreat sacrifice" (306). The real issuethen is when, and for which investments, can the fund feasibly finance adirect investment in the domestic economy? For example, while social wel-
Iare-c-an-5e-illiprov-ed, tfiefunacannot-provide US standards of health andeducation.
Policy compromises may be postponed and development myths mayprevail, but it is encouraging to readthe candid overviews by two of thelongest-serving cabinet members, President Teannaki and Vice President Iuta.Overall the book makes a substantialcontribution toward a more completeunderstanding of the vulnerability andstrengths, trials and achievements ofKiribati politics and development.
STEPHEN J POLLARD
East-West Center
~:-
Planning the Future: Melanesian Citiesin 2010, by John Connell and John PLea. Pacific 2010 series. Pacific PolicyPaper II. Canberra: National Centrefor Development Studies, AustralianNational University, 1993. ISBN0-73 I 5-1694-X; ISSN 0817-0444.Paper, A$25'
This book is the second in a series,edited by Rodney Cole of the Development Studies Centre at the Austra-lian National University, of "doomsday" forewarnings about the PacificIslands. The series is funded by theAustralian International DevelopmentAssistance Bureau, a governmentagency. With luck, many of us willstill be around to see whether theforewarnings come true. The primefocus of the series, as indicated by theeditorial note, "highlights the consequences of failing to recognize andplan for the effects of populationgrowth." The target audiences arelsland-Ieaders-and-"tnos-eln -metropoli-tan countries responsible for the designand delivery of Overseas DevelopmentAssistance. "
With the publication of this policyrelated series, Australia seems poisedto join Hawai'i, including the PacificIslands Development Program at theEast-West Center, as a second majorsource of advice for Pacific Island leaders who may, of course (and this issometimes not fully recognized), alsodefer to their own departmentaladvice, their own consultants, andtheir own regional bodies and universities. The insider-outsider research fieldis spiked with mines that may preventthe Australian National University
BOOK REVIEWS
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229
message getting through. Collaborativework often treads more softly.
The book, a joint effort from theUniversity of Sydney, is by populationgeographer John Connell, whosemajor input is likely to have been thepopulation chapters-population andurbanization, urban primacy andregional development, and urban economy and society-and urban plannerJohn Lea, whose background suggestsa greater input in the remaining chapters-on urban management and planning, land policy, and housing, watersupplies, and sanitation. Each chapterprovides an overview of the issue athand and a commentary on the individual countries of Papua NewGuinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu,and Fiji. The authors have endeavoredto maintain a reasonable balancebetween countries, but the unevenavailability of the secondary data onwhich they rely has meant that thiswa.s_notalways12QSsibl~.Th~QIl1jssiQn
of French-speaking Melanesian NewCaledonia does not imply that itstowns have no problems.
The book is useful in providing general information, not available elsewhere under one cover, for thoseunfamiliar with the Pacific or thosewho have not thought through thepopulation problem in urban termsand this could well include the two target audiences. For those more familiarwith the local scene, the book muststill be Classed as "a good read," but ithas not broken new ground. A bookaimed at the "establishment" may notbe the best place to talk about subordinate global relations and internal classand sectional interests, but something
of causal complexity should have comethrough. How, otherwise, are Pacificleaders to debate the merits anddemerits of the limited options available to them?
The root of the problem is not simply population increase and ruralurban migration. Most of the internal"ingredients" of the impending disaster are mentioned, but separately.There is no mention of external causes.In the opening chapter, appropriatelycalled "A Call to Action," lack of will,poverty, problems of infrastructure,the physical environment, and management are presented. Later is discussion of urban employment, "high"wages, land shortage, and the smallrateable base, each of which is important but relative, connected, and perceivable from other perspectives. Thesituation is described but not analyzed,and it is doubtful that it can be without new research, new data, new per-
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possible to research such a book byexcursions out of Sydney.
I learnt most from the urban management chapters, perhaps because Iknew less about this area in the firstplace, but perhaps also because Connell's broad sweeping brush paints nonew scenes, and his position is notalways without contention. One example may suffice. I am not convinced byhis figures on primacy in Papua NewGuinea or Fiji. For Papua New Guinea(and this is not sour grapes) he seemsunaware of two major monographs Iwrote for the Department of Statistics(Inter-Provincial Migration in PapuaNew Guinea, 1985; Migration andUrbanization in Papua New Guinea:
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23° THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1 995
greater depth of inquiry, and somewhat more care. Would I recommend itto its target audiences? Definitely yes.And a wider audience? Yes, but withcaution.
No book is perfect.
A CROSBIE WALSH
University of the South Pacific
Lokal Musik: Lingua Franca Song andIdentity in Papua New Guinea, byMichael Webb. Apwitihire: Studies inPapua New Guinea Musics, 3. PortMoresby: Cultural Studies Division,National Research Institute, 1993.ISBN 9980-68-019-9, xxii + 272pages, illustrations, maps, musicalexamples, appendixes, notes, bibliography. US$IS.
The close reading Michael Webb givesof contemporary urban musical
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rates this book from reams of ethnomusicological studies in the PacificIslands that fixate on "traditional"music cultures (invented or otherwise).Virtual fringe on the fringe, for musicscholarship itself has been marginalwithin Pacific Islands studies-witness,for example, the absence thus far ofmusic articles in this journal. LokalMusik merits the attention of the moredisparate community of Pacific Islandsscholars, for it illustrates vividly thepower of contemporary popular musical means to resonate broader socialconcerns.
Webb focuses specifically on songswith lyrics in Tok Pisin, a regional lingua franca. His concerns are threefold:"the particular ways in which T[ok]
The I980 Census, 1987), and animportant paper in a special 1980census edition of Yagl-Ambu (10[3]:47-58,1983) that showed how different measures of employment-type primacy produced different hierarchies.For Fiji, even apart from a miscount oftowns and an inaccuracy in Suva's trueshare of the 1986 population (57 percent, not "just over half"), he statesthat Suva's primacy has declined relative to Lautoka. His estimate excludesLami, which was part of Suva in 1976.A more accurate estimate, includingLami at both census dates, shows Suvato have increased its share of the urbanpopulation between 1976 and 1986from S3 to S7 percent, and its primacy(measured against Lautoka) to haveincreased from 4. I times larger to S·7times larger.
These and other factual inaccuraciesare not too important in themselves,but they do cast doubt on other.as~.um12tioll~.Cln<:l~()Ilcl!1~()Ils.The...claim, for example, that differences inrural and urban wages cause migrationhas some general validity, but wagedifferences do not explain the persistence of migration when urban work isnot available (eg, Walsh, Honiara:I986 Census Atlas, 1992) or considerable differences in provincial migrationrates where rural wage levels are similar (Walsh, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 1(2): 196-219, 1990).Sour grapes at being uncited again? Ihope not.
The book has its uses, and those ofus who could have written it anddidn't will be grateful to its authors fortaking important issues to a widerpublic; it is just that we may haveexpected a little more that is new, some
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