Gendered Realities of Temporary Labour Migration: Ni-Vanuatu Experiences of New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme

Abstract

This thesis explores women’s experiences of the implementation of New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE Scheme) in Vanuatu. While the RSE Scheme has attracted significant attention since its inception in 2007, most focus has been on its economic development outcomes, positing a narrow understanding of the concept of ‘development’. Drawing on field research in Ambrym, Vanuatu, this thesis examines the realities of women’s experiences of the RSE Scheme in its early years, to present a more nuanced ‘gendered’ view that reflects a broader and holistic understanding of human development. Women’s experiences of the RSE Scheme have been varied in Vanuatu, particularly in Ambrym where women are excluded from RSE Scheme recruitment. A feminist postmodernist deconstruction framework is used to examine unacknowledged power relations, and argue that the RSE Scheme has been presented as a form of ‘Western universally valid and applicable’ knowledge, that subsumes women’s experiences within a homogenous view. Using information gathered from ethnographic research with women, this thesis aims to contribute to current knowledge on women, temporary labour migration, and the RSE Scheme. Secondly, this thesis also aims to contribute to a re-positioning of understandings about development that is achieved through labour migration. It concludes that the policy and practice of the RSE Scheme within each Pacific country should now move to reflect the contextuality of the subjective narratives of gender realities that are resulting from the RSE Scheme’s effects on gender roles, relations, needs and interests, as illustrated by women’s experiences in Ambrym, Vanuatu.