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Declarations of ‘Self-Reliance’: Dependency, Citizenship, and Development in Vanuatu

In development and migration discourse, the small island nations of the Pacific that span the Pacific, are often characterized as hopelessly dependent on aid and migration. This article discusses how dependency’s antonyms, ‘independence’ and ‘self-reliance’ express and shape aspirations for development, and ideas about citizenship in Vanuatu. These ‘keywords’ were popularized in the process of decolonization and nation-building in Vanuatu, and influenced by Dependency Theory, Pan-Africanism and the Non-Alignment Movement. But, as I discuss in this paper, ‘self-reliance’ is also deployed to articulate different aspirations for development at ‘grassroots’ community level.