Browsing by Subject "islander"

The Pacific islands’ diaspora consists of first-generation immigrants from different Pacific Island countries. In 2019, only 32 people living in Finland were born in the islands, ten of them participated in this study. Even though there have been studies on the Pacific Islands' diasporas, this is the first time such a study has been conducted in Finland. It is also the first one of its kind to look at long-distance nationalism from the perspectives of the islanders in Finland. The three research questions are, how do the Pacific islanders forge and sustain a community in Finland? How do Pacific Islanders create and maintain connections with their homelands? What challenges do they face in their effort to reconnect with their homelands? The thesis tests three hypotheses; the islanders are creating a place and space for themselves “here” to belong, connect, and to practice their cultures; they maintain the connection to their home-islands through social media, sending remittances, and direct visit; there are factors, such as financial capital and personal changes, that inversely affect the islanders’ connectivity to their homelands. The data for the study was collected through semi-structured interviews of the ten islanders and who are all active members of the islanders’ diaspora in Finland. They are from four different countries and have moved to Finland during the last twenty-four years. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all the interviews were done online. The thematic analysis method is used to analyse the data and five themes emerge. They reflect the recurring meanings across the data set, relevant in answering the research questions, and also support the three hypotheses. The result shows that the Pacific islands’ diaspora has forged and maintained a community for themselves in this country in which they practice and reproduce their cultures strengthening their bonds between themselves, stay connected to each other, and at the same time reconnect to their ancestral lands through organised local activities and also long-distance nationalistic practices such as sending financial and material supports to their homelands.