Environmental Migrations and VOlcanic DIsasters in VAnuatu: a multiple perspective – EMVOLDIVA

This project comes at a time when social and ecological crises are about to increase, making it urgent to better understand the relationship between humans and their environment, especially when it is threatened by extinction. Vanuatu is the most exposed country to ‘natural’ disasters. Between 2017 and 2018, it experienced a major eruption on the island of Ambae causing the forced displacement and relocation of its entire population to other territories. Despite the latent dangers, forced migration was hardship for inhabitants. Our project proposes to place this disaster at the centre of the analysis in order to understand how the human/volcano relationship is constructed. It aims to produce, from an interdisciplinary approach articulating anthropology, archaeology, geography and volcanology, the social and eruptive history of the Ambae’s volcano (paleo-social-volcanology), by looking at short and long time periods. A synthesis of the data collected will allow us to consider the social recompositions induced by such a disaster, to understand if there is a systematic time scale of volcano reactivation and if this corresponds to ancient human displacements. It will thus reveal how past events inform future ones. Moreover, this work will lead to the formulation of operational recommendations in terms of public policies and prevention of ‘natural’ disasters towards the official authorities of Vanuatu which are members of this project. They will be co-produced with the inhabitants, making them effective because they are intelligible by them. Finally, a graphic novel will be written in the three national languages of the country. It will be a testimony for future generations on the eruption of 2017-2018 and will feed more generally, into the current reflections on disasters and environmental migrations. Our project is positioned within the framework of the SDG 10, 13 and 16.