Journal articles on the topic 'Foreign exchange rates – Denmark – Case studies'

Company’s involvement in global activities through international trade is the primary source of their foreign exchange exposure. Many empirical studies suggest the negative impact of uncertainty about the development of the exchange rate on cash flow and profitability of companies, and thus their market values. Some economic studies show that foreign revenues are positively correlated with the exchange rate exposure and in a short period, currency depreciation negatively affects the market value of listed companies. On the other hand, there are studies that show no statistically significant links between the value of the companies and exchange rates. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of exchange rates on the value of companies listed on stock exchanges in the Visegrad countries. Paper applies Jorion’s model and panel data regression for the sample period 2002 – 2016. Estimations for the whole period revealed negative relationship between exchange rate and value of stock companies. The highest exposure is observed in case of Hungary and Czechia. Positive tendency can be seen in comparison of pre‑crisis and post‑crisis period. Except the case of Hungary, all markets showed decreased exchange rate exposure in time.

<p>The paper looks into the monetary policy transmission across different segments of the financial market in India from May 2011 to March 2018. It studies the effect of two instruments ie, policy rate and a composite index ( score) comprising of quantity instruments and policy rates on the money market, govt. securities market, foreign exchange market and the stock market using VAR analysis. The results show that monetary transmission is fairly quick in the money market and other interest rates of short maturity compared to interest rates of longer maturities. The impact on interest rates is an appreciation for the policy rate but a depreciation followed by an appreciation for the composite index. Lastly the effect of policy rate and composite index on the sensex is negative.</p>

Abstract This paper examines the effects of foreign electoral shocks on currency markets. I develop a theory of signaling and uncertainty to explain why elections in countries with close economic ties should affect exchange rates. Methodologically, this paper focuses on several case studies, with the 2016 US election as a central case. I utilize an event analysis framework to measure the impact of the election on the Mexican peso by exploiting the plausible exogeneity of Donald Trump's tweets. I also measure changes in the peso using Trump's predicted chance of winning the election and show that the peso is weakest when Trump has the highest chance of winning the election. In addition, I include a series of robustness checks and analyses of other notable recent cases when electoral uncertainty affected currencies in other countries, including the 2018 Brazilian election. The results quantify the effect of foreign elections on exchange rates, building on the existing literature that focuses on how domestic elections shape currency markets. I conclude with a discussion of the external validity of the phenomenon demonstrated by the cases in the paper, charting future research on the topic and outlining ways to extend the findings.

This paper studies the effect of oil price change on the real exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the U.S. dollar. For that, a model is developed which is based on a monetary model of exchange rate which incorporates the real GDP, real money balances, and the interest rates of both the home and foreign country and the real price of the crude oil. Quarterly time series data from 1996 to 2012 is used. Before estimating the model, the time series properties of the data are diagnosed in order to ensure the stationarity of the data. The data series are found to be integrated of order one and the null hypothesis of no cointegration is rejected. Therefore an error correction model is developed and estimated. The estimated results suggest that there is no detectable effect of oil price change on the real exchange rate between the Indian rupee and the U.S. dollar.

PurposeThe study considers time-varying risk premium in investigating the capability of technical analysis (TA) to predict and outperform a buy–hold strategy in Bitcoin exchange rate returns.Design/methodology/approachThe study tests the technical trading rule of fixed moving average (FMA) on daily actual and equilibrium returns of Bitcoin exchange rates. The equilibrium returns are computed using dynamic CAPM in conjunction with a VAR-MGARCH (1, 1) system. The empirical evaluation of the study uses a case study of four Bitcoin exchange rates (BTC/AUD, BTC/EUR, BTC/JPY and BTC/ZAR) for the period 19 June 2010 to 30 October 2020.FindingsThe findings are consistent with related studies in conventional foreign exchange markets that find TA to be profitable, especially in emerging markets. Nevertheless, the consideration of risk premium has the effect of reducing the abnormal returns. Also, further robust tests reveal that Bitcoin returns possess a momentum effect which prompts further study in efficient market hypothesis research.Practical implicationsThe empirical findings of this study should benefit portfolio managers and active investors on the strength of TA to predict returns in a speculative market like the Bitcoin exchange rate market.Originality/valueThe study takes cognisance that cryptocurrency trading is speculative in nature which renders it a good candidate for TA methods. While there are studies that have explored the value of TA in Bitcoin exchange rates, these studies fail to incorporate the effects of time-varying risk premiums, the strength and focus of the current paper.

The paper deals with the identification of potential disadvantages associated with the existence of national currencies with the floating exchange rate regime during the current financial and economic crisis in countries postponing their entry into the eurozone. The hypothesis is that the advantages of a floating exchange rate may be outweighed by their disadvantages (high volatility of exchange rates). First part of the paper provides evidence about the development of Czech crown exchange rate since transition from fix to free float regime. Special attention will be given to the period during the recent global economic crisis. For the sake of comparison, evolution of other currencies in the region (zloty, forint and Slovak crown), will be taken to consideration. Second part of the paper form case studies identifying impact due to volatility on national currencies. Case studies were used to identify possible negative impacts from volatility in national currencies on export firms in the Czech Republic and holders of mortgage loans denominated in foreign currencies in Hungary. The last part of the paper will formulate recommendations for businesses entering into foreign trade relationships, as well as for policy makers in countries using national currencies which are preparing for membership in the eurozone.

This paper examined the potential inflation spill-over effects from BRIC to five SADC countries (Angola, Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia) by using data collected for the period 1985-2020. Thirty-six (36) observations were used to obtain more reliable results with greater precision. Studies conducted on the impossible trinity argue that, in the case of highly financially integrated economies, domestic interest rates are tightly linked to the international interest rates if it is impossible to manipulate domestic interest rates. Specifically, interest rates for open economies tend to be influenced by international interest rates if these economies opt for free capital flows with a fixed exchange rate regime. Fisher's effect theory asserts that domestic interest rates trend positively with inflation rates. The principal method of research used is that of quantitative analysis. Given the empirical nature of the research, the paradigm employed is positivist. This paper employed the generalised method of moments (GMM) model, the Johansen cointegration procedure, and the Granger causality test in a vector error correction (VEC) model. The findings indicated that the fixed-exchange-rate regimes (soft pegs and hard pegs) are associated with high responsiveness of the domestic inflation rate to the foreign countries’ inflation rates, rather than to floating exchange-rate regimes (free-floating and managed floats). The policy implications for control of inflation in SADC economies are that, because of the financial market integration increase between SADC and BRIC economies, monetary authorities in SADC countries should consider floating exchange rate regimes (managed-floats or free-floating).

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of effects of International Clearing Unions on the exchange market pressure (EMP). Using Asian Clearing Union (ACU) as an example of a typical International Clearing Union, the authors infers that ACU has not been very successful in synchronizing the EMP in the region. Other countries that are not members of such clearing union but are interested in monetary cooperation with other countries should consider the behavior of their EMP indices before attempting any form of integration. The study also provides a generic methodology for using EMP as an indicator for predicting the feasibility of monetary cooperation across countries. Design/methodology/approach An EMP model using the median absolute deviation is derived to reflect the policy preferences of each country. The weights for change in foreign reserves and interest rate differential are derived using analytical models. The index is then applied to ACU as a case study using monthly data from 2006 to 2015 for Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iran. The descriptive statistics are studied to find the possibility of short-run relationship between the exchange rates, foreign exchange reserves and interest rate differential. The longitudinal data set generated is checked for cointegration to evaluate the EMPs of the countries. Findings The study finds that the EMP of ACU members’ shows similarity only in short-term movement but have no cointegration of EMP indices indicating the absence of long-term relationship. The absence of long-term cointegration of EMP for ACU members also indicates that ICU membership may not necessarily lead to similarity in exchange rate policies that facilitate the formation of a currency union. Creation of an ICU is not a sufficient condition for the formation of a currency union. The study also finds that the sample countries have faced persistent depreciation pressures in the period. The preferred tool for the management of EMP is direct intervention by sale and purchase of foreign currency. Interest rate changes are found to have the most significant effect on EMP. Research limitations/implications The EMP model limits itself only to the study of exchange rates, foreign reserves and interest rates. Exchange rate variation and policy responses there to are known to be driven by other factors such as speculation, political factors, autonomous capital flows and micro-level dynamics of exchange markets like order flows among others. The EMP model is a simplification of the market dynamics and does not look for associations on the account of these factors. The model is evaluated for only one ICU where member countries regulate exchange rates. The study of ICUs that comprises free float currencies and pegged currencies may yield different results. Practical implications Results indicate that the member of any ICU such as ACU cannot assume that its participation will serve as a foundation for creating higher forms of economic unions such as currency unions. In the absence of any long-term relationship between the EMP of countries, any attempt by these countries may cause the exchange rates to deviate further. This leads to the conclusion that the members of ACU should avoid any attempts to form currency unions or use a common currency for its settlement. Social implications Various countries that are considering the formation of currency union or the use of a common currency peg may like to examine its feasibility using EMP as a tool. Using EMP, they may be able to derive short-term and long-term strategies for pursuing their objectives. Originality/value There are few other studies that use EMP as an index for measuring the feasibility of formation of a currency union among countries that are the member of an ICU. While earlier studies apply EMP to a group of countries, none attempt to modify the index to reflect the EMP that is likely to affect central bank policy action. Few studies have attempted to use EMP to study the feasibility of formation of a currency union in South Asia based on exchange rate markets itself.

Project portfolio selection has been the focus of many scholars in the last two decades. The number of studies on the strategic process has significantly increased over the past decade. Despite this increasing trend, previous studies have not been yet critically evaluated. This paper, therefore, aims to presents a comprehensive review of project portfolio selection and optimization studies focusing on the evaluation criteria, selection approach, solution approach, uncertainty modeling, and applications. This study reviews more than 140 papers on project portfolio selection research topic to identify the gaps and to present future trends. The findings show that not only the financial criteria but also social and environmental aspects of project portfolios have been focused by researchers in project portfolio selection in recent years. In addition, meta-heuristics and heuristics approach to finding the solution of mathematical models have been the critical research by scholars. Expert systems, artificial intelligence, and big data science have not been considered in project portfolio selection in the previous studies. In future, researchers can investigate the role of sustainability, resiliency, foreign investment, and exchange rates in project portfolio selection studies, and they can focus on artificial intelligence environments using big data and fuzzy stochastic optimization techniques.

This paper empirically examines the statistical properties of realized volatility and the relationships between volatility and correlation measurements of realized volatility by using intraday high-frequency foreign exchange (FX) rates. Results regarding the distributional and dynamic properties of realized volatility are in agreement with the findings of previous studies. However, the positive correlation present in previous studies is not found in the case of JPY. On trading days with low volatility in the FX market, realized correlation coefficients between JPY and other currencies have positive values, while realized correlation coefficients on trading days with high volatility show negative values. These results are due to the Japanese government's intervention in the FX market, particularly during trading days with high volatility. In this regard, our results suggest that the positive relationships between volatility and correlations verified in previous studies are not a general phenomenon in the case of government intervention and government intervention may distort the efficiency of the FX market. In addition, we show that the multivariate measurement of realized volatility based on intraday high-frequency data can be a useful tool for determining the occurrence of external intervention in the FX market.

The article is devoted to discussing topical issues about the formation of the price of plane tickets. The paper analyzes and evaluates the degree of influence of factors on the pricing process using regression analysis methods. At the first stage, a review of the available research sources of foreign and Russian authors was carried out, according to the results of which the main characteristics determining the price level of air tickets were identified and considered. In the course of studying the issue, the experience and conclusions, based on previously performed studies of foreign segments of air transportation, are extended to the selection and analysis of current data on the Russian market. The assessment of the degree of a possible influence of the considered price-forming indicators on air ticket fares was carried out using four econometric models of the dependence of ticket prices on exchange rates, fare/air route characteristics, socio-economic and secondary factors. They are checked for lowcost and economy segments based on information on 15 thousand of air tickets of Russian air carriers for the period from 19.01.2021 to 12.02.2021, presented in the form of a single data set. The data was collected independently by daily monitoring of information from the official websites of airlines, federal websites of Rosstat, and Rosaviation. As a result of the research conducted within the framework of this article, it was revealed that with an increase in the distance of the flight, the cost of the ticket increases proportionally. The average income of the population negatively affects prices in the economy and budget classes. A similar trend can be traced concerning the cost of jet fuel at the airport of departure and nonstop flights. Reducing the number of days between the dates of ticket purchase and flight departure will also affect the increase in ticket prices. With a decrease in the exchange rate of foreign currency, the cost of economy class air tickets changes significantly compared to the budget. The reverse trend is observed in the case of the IATA exchange rate, where the effect falls on the last group of shipments. The listed characteristics are identified as the most significant relative to the considered classes of tariff groups in the Russian aviation industry. The results of the work can be recommended to air carriers for use in the process of forming the cost of tickets to achieve maximum efficiency and profitability of the business, used by consumers of the airline services as a tool for finding and buying air tickets with the best conditions and offers.

This study examines the actions of Netflix and Disney+, two of the most popular global brands among the many OTT platforms that continue their broadcasts based on domestic and foreign companies with a significant number of users worldwide and especially in Turkey after 2016. In this regard, as a result of the breakthroughs, strategies, and subscription numbers between Netflix, which started broadcasting in Turkey in January 2016, and Disney+, which started broadcasting in June 2022, it is questioned which platform is the spotlight for what reason and to what extent, and the main reflection of this OTT structure on cinema and television is examined. As the trends towards digital entertainment on a global scale changed and gained momentum as of 2020, the revenues in this sector increased by 31% and reached 61.8 billion dollars. This corresponds to a 26% increase compared to 2019, and OTT platforms worldwide reached 1.1 billion online subscribers. In 2020, the revenues of these platforms increased by 32% compared to the previous year, reaching 24.7 billion dollars. Considering that only Netflix shares are traded on the stock exchange with a value of over $60 billion, the growth rates are seen. The extent and direction of the growth of Netflix, which has 220.67 million users by 2022, and Disney+, which has 221.1 million users, as the leading corporations in this sector is the main issue of this study. This study aims to conclude by discussing the position of OTT platforms in the world and Turkey, the systemic and global structuring of these platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the findings on the similarities or differences between Netflix and Disney+ in Turkey, following the transformations of the compulsory or optional audience perspective in the media and entertainment sector in recent years. Although there are many news and academic studies on Netflix today, since this study is about Disney+, which is a relatively new platform, it is aimed at pioneer studies on this subject, which has not yet been addressed comprehensively.

Feasibility studies, planning, pricing and contract management in the construction industry depend mainly on the stability of the economic process where most infrastructure projects require relatively long periods of time to implement them. In a highly inflationary economy where foreign exchange rates constantly change compared to the local currency for long periods that may extend for years. In such an economy, the prices of construction materials vary according to market variables. The methods of pricing items in bids are not feasible for profit and loss accounts and for competition purposes, which leads to significant complications in the management of construction contracts associated with these projects and generates a new case of continuous change unprecedented and has not been resolved even in the global construction contracts of FIDIC. The researcher monitored and collected the inflation values and the exchange rate of Sudanese pound against US dollar as the main currency for a large number of years against the prices of cement for the same years and then statistically studied through a number of statistical analysis programs. Information has been studied over time and then the change in the price of cement versus inflation and the exchange rate and a try to devise a function has been carried out in order to describe that change and express it in a mathematical formula that facilitates reading, analyzing and forecasting. It was found that the change of cement prices is related in a logarithmic function with both inflation and the exchange rate. The independent explanatory variables (exchange rate and inflation rate) were found to be responsible for at least 80% of the changes in the dependent variables (cement prices). The remaining 20% is the impact of other (random) variables not included in the model, and this is an indication of the quality of the documentation of the model. That the variables included in the model is the most influential in the dependent variable of non-included variables. The mathematical models have passed derived economic and standard criterion and have been acceptable statistically and can therefore be relied upon to test any hypotheses are developed.

Various methods of multi-criteria optimization have been developed and have recently been widely applied in trade. With this in mind, this paper investigates the efficiency of trade in Serbia based on the Promethee method. Using this method, in relation to the analysis of the analysis, we can more accurately assess the efficiency of trade in Serbia in the function of improvement in the future by taking appropriate more efficient measures. The results of research obtained using the Promethee method show that the efficiency of trade in Serbia has been continuously increasing recently. It was the best in 2020. It was positively influenced by numerous macro and micro factors, such as: favorable economic climate, low inflation, lower interest rates, foreign retail chains, increased employment, increased living standards, stable exchange rate, digitalization of the entire business, etc. The impact of the Covid-19 coronary virus pandemic on trade efficiency in Serbia is negligible. It is, among other things, largely neutralized with the increase in electronic sales. This is the case in other countries as well (as evidenced by the recently published available empirical data of Eurostat for European Union distribution trade). Empirical research shows that this is not, however, the case with other sectors in Serbia, such as transport and storage, tourism and catering, banks, etc. To increase (or maintain the existing) efficiency of trade in Serbia in the future, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of management of human resources, assets, capital, sales and profits. The main problem is that there are no similar empirical studies of trade efficiency in other countries, which limits international comparison. This paper can therefore serve as an impetus for future similar empirical research.

Some central banks have maintained overvalued official exchange rates, while unable to ensure that supply of foreign exchange meets legitimate demand for current account transactions at that price. A parallel exchange rate market develops, in such circumstances; and when the spread between the official and parallel rates is both substantial and sustained, price levels in the economy typically reflect the parallel market exchange rate. “Recognizing reality” by allowing economic agents to use a market clearing rate benefits economic activity without necessarily leading to more inflation. But a unified, market-clearing exchange rate will not stabilize without a supportive fiscal and monetary context. A number of country case studies are included; my thanks to Jie Ren for pulling together all the data for the country case studies, and the production of the charts.

Elasticity examining the exporting the products to foreign exchange rates, has been subject to so many studies. Exports are expected to increase in the case of the depreciation of the domestic currency in the economies where exports and imports are sensitive to foreign exchange rate. While foreign currency appreciation increases the profitability of the firms also increases because their costs are in domestic currency. This paper investigates how exchange rate changes affect mining & quarrying exports in Turkey. In this paper we aim to identify the elasticity of mining & quarrying exports to dollar exchange rate changes. Mining & quarrying whose development are mostly dependent on nature sector exports which is predominantly sensitive to the dollar exchange rate, was tried to be analysed by using the least squares method. Data representing the exchange rate for monthly average dollar-selling prices between the years of 2005-2017, obtained from the data system of the TCMB (The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey) is used. In addition this, export data denominated in dollars for mining & quarrying products for the same period, were also obtained from the TUIK (Turkish Statistical Institute). Data obtained from those for 156 periods were analysed through the SPSS statistical packaged software program. As a result, mining & quarry exports are sensitive to the dollar exchange rate and a 1% increase in dollar exchange rate increases mining & quarrying exports by approximately $ 8,8 million. Besides this result, a one percent (1%) standard deviation increase in dollar exchange rate leads to a 0.65 standard deviation increase in exports of mining & quarrying products. These findings are consistent with the literature on elasticity to foreign exchange rate changes.

PurposeThis study constructs time series model, artificial neural networks (ANNs) and statistical topologies to examine the volatility and forecast foreign exchange rates. The Mauritian forex market has been utilized as a case study, and daily data for nominal spot rate (during a time period of five years spanning from 2014 to 2018) for EUR/MUR, GBP/MUR, CAD/MUR and AUD/MUR have been applied for the predictions.Design/methodology/approachAutoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models are used as a basis for time series modelling for the analysis, along with the non-linear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX) neural network backpropagation algorithm utilizing different training functions, namely, Levenberg–Marquardt (LM), Bayesian regularization and scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) algorithms. The study also features a hybrid kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) using the support vector regression (SVR) algorithm as an additional statistical tool to conduct financial market forecasting modelling. Mean squared error (MSE) and root mean square error (RMSE) are employed as indicators for the performance of the models.FindingsThe results demonstrated that the GARCH model performed better in terms of volatility clustering and prediction compared to the ARIMA model. On the other hand, the NARX model indicated that LM and Bayesian regularization training algorithms are the most appropriate method of forecasting the different currency exchange rates as the MSE and RMSE seemed to be the lowest error compared to the other training functions. Meanwhile, the results reported that NARX and KPCA–SVR topologies outperformed the linear time series models due to the theory based on the structural risk minimization principle. Finally, the comparison between the NARX model and KPCA–SVR illustrated that the NARX model outperformed the statistical prediction model. Overall, the study deduced that the NARX topology achieves better prediction performance results compared to time series and statistical parameters.Research limitations/implicationsThe foreign exchange market is considered to be instable owing to uncertainties in the economic environment of any country and thus, accurate forecasting of foreign exchange rates is crucial for any foreign exchange activity. The study has an important economic implication as it will help researchers, investors, traders, speculators and financial analysts, users of financial news in banking and financial institutions, money changers, non-banking financial companies and stock exchange institutions in Mauritius to take investment decisions in terms of international portfolios. Moreover, currency rates instability might raise transaction costs and diminish the returns in terms of international trade. Exchange rate volatility raises the need to implement a highly organized risk management measures so as to disclose future trend and movement of the foreign currencies which could act as an essential guidance for foreign exchange participants. By this way, they will be more alert before conducting any forex transactions including hedging, asset pricing or any speculation activity, take corrective actions, thus preventing them from making any potential losses in the future and gain more profit.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies applying artificial intelligence (AI) while making use of time series modelling, the NARX neural network backpropagation algorithm and hybrid KPCA–SVR to predict forex using multiple currencies in the foreign exchange market in Mauritius.

Financial crisis prediction is a critical issue in the economic phenomenon. Correct predictions can provide the knowledge for stakeholders to make policies to preserve and increase economic stability. Several approaches for predicting the financial crisis have been developed. However, the classification model's performance and prediction accuracy, as well as legal data, are insufficient for usage in real applications. So that, an efficient prediction model is required for higher performance results. This paper adopts a novel two-hybrid intelligent prediction model using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for prediction and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for optimization. At first, a PSO technique produces the hyperparameter value for ANN to fit the best architecture. They are weights and thresholds. Then, they are used to predict the performance of the given dataset. In the end, ANN-PSO generates predictions value of crisis conditions. The proposed ANN-PSO model is implemented on time series data of economic conditions in Indonesia. Dataset was obtained from International Monetary Fund and the Indonesian Economic and Financial Statistics. Independent variable data using 13 potential indicators, namely imports, exports, trade exchange rates, foreign exchange reserves, the composite stock price index, real exchange rates, real deposit rates, bank deposits, loan and deposit interest rates, the difference between the real BI rate and the real FED rate, the M1, M2 multiplier, and the ratio of M2 to foreign exchange reserves. Meanwhile, the dependent variable uses the perfect signal value based on the Financial Pressure Index. A detailed statistical analysis of the dataset is also given by threshold value to convey crisis conditions. Experimental analysis shows that the proposed model is reliable based on the different evaluation criteria. The case studies show that the result for predictive data is basically consistent with the actual situation, which has greatly helped the prediction of a financial crisis.

The paper studies the impact of external supply or “push” factors (global economic and financial indicators, oil prices, sanctions etc.) and internal demand or “pull” factors (actual and expected GDP growth rates, institutional indicators, openness indicators etc.) on private sector capital flow components (foreign direct, portfolio and other investments) and capital flow aggregates (gross capital inflow and outflow, net capital inflow) in the Russian case, based on regressions utilizing 1994–2018 quarterly data. Among the external factors, the VIX volatility index, the real effective exchange rate of the U.S. dollar and the sanction intensity index prove to be consistently significant. The impact of sanction shocks is found to weaken over time, probably reflecting adaptation to sanctions. Among the internal factors, only the expected GDP growth rates prove significant. In contrast to existing literature on emerging markets as a whole, no significant impact of the interest rate and GDP growth differentials (with respect to advanced economies) is established. It is demonstrated that the push factors account for the larger share of explained variance of gross capital inflow and outflow as well as net capital inflow. In addition, capital flow volatility indicators are analyzed, with positive correlations found for the VIX index, the U.S. interest rates, the oil price volatility, and the financial account openness index.

Abstract Urban-regional economies are developing in highly variegated, uneven ways globally. In economic geography, studies of urban-regional development emphasize the prospects for innovative, globally-competitive industrial sectors to emerge and enhance a city-region’s exchange value in global markets. This focus reflects a productivist bias that may fail to address issues related to the use-value of, or living conditions associated with urban transitions. Such concerns are particularly significant in the Global South where urbanization has often not led to socioeconomic transformations that benefit the majority of urban residents. To examine the relationships between a city’s exchange and use value, this paper argues for a sociotechnical systems approach that conceptualizes cities as constituted by interdependent or coupled regimes related to production, consumption, and infrastructure that stabilize urban-regional economies and determine development pathways. The framework is deployed empirically to examine the case of Nairobi, Kenya – a rapidly growing urban-regional economy characterized by high rates of inward foreign direct investment, principally in speculative real estate ventures in the consumption regime. Domestic manufacturing industries (the production regime) are stagnating, struggling to compete against imports, and failing to generate widespread formal employment and raise tax revenues for the infrastructure regime. The net result is a city characterized by fragmented or splintered regimes that create highly uneven, exclusionary development outcomes. These dynamics and findings are analyzed in relation to a similar study of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in order to demonstrate the comparative potential of this conceptual approach. The paper concludes with a call for economic geographers to better account for the use-value of urban-regional economies such that development concerns beyond production become more central to our analyses.

This study clarifies the impact of the fluctuation of the VND/USD and VND/JPY exchange rates on the trade balance between Vietnam and Japan through testing the J-curve effect by using a vector autoregressive (VAR) model, Impulse Response Function (IRF), stationary test, Granger test and variance decomposition analysis. There are 5 variables including oil price (POIL), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Consumer price index (CPI), Trade balance/Capital account (CA), Nominal exchange rate (NER) based on 67 observations from 2001Q1 to 2017Q3. The highlight of this study compared with previous studies is that we not only evaluate the effect of the exchange rate movements towards the total trade balance between Vietnam and Japan but also investigate how the fluctuations of exchange rate affect the trade balance in each commodity group; therefore, we suggest more essence evaluation and policy implications for these sectors. 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Purpose This paper aims to investigate the determinants of bilateral exports of India to the USA by taking the non-linearity issue in export demand equations which is neglected so far in the empirical work. The study tries to know the reaction of change in exports to exchange rate changes in a non-liner fashion. For this purpose, non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) bounds testing approach of Shin et al. (2011) has been used. This approach allows testing for non-linearities both in the short and long run, which might give indications of strategic pricing and non-linearities in exchange rate. The empirical analysis is carried out for bilateral export demand relationships of India with the USA for the period from January 1993 until December 2013. The overall results show that exports are determined in the long run by foreign demand, exchange rates and relative prices. The assumed linearity in export demand functions might be too restrictive. Thereby, the one threshold model that distinguishes exchange rate effects between appreciations and depreciations delivers plausible results. If exchange rate non-linearities are detected, it would seem that exports respond stronger to appreciations than to depreciations. A reason for this might be that firms perform strategic pricing in international trade to gain or maintain market shares. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses the newly developed non-linear ARDL framework of Shin et al. (2011) to investigate whether there are non-linearities with respect to the exchange rate for India’s exports to the USA. One of the important features of this framework is that it is free from unit root pre-testing and can be applied regardless of whether variables are I(0) or I(1). In addition, ARDL and NARDL technique efficiently determines the cointegrating relation in small sample. The short-run and long-run parameters with appropriate asymptotic inferences can be obtained by applying OLS to NARDL with an appropriate lag length. Following is the NARDL representation of equation 4(a) and 4(b). For brevity, this is illustrated for 4(a) only, where is the first difference operator, P is the drift component and it is the white noise residual, the coefficients ?_1 to ?_4 represent the long-run relationship, whereas remaining expressions with summation sign represent the short-term dynamics of the model. This equation nests the linear ARDL model presented in Pesarean et al. (2001) for the case of d_k^+=d_k^-and ?_2=?_3for all k. Thus, equation is less restrictive than a linear model. For this test, as its distribution is non-standard, Pesarean et al. (2001) tabulate the critical values. The bound test is used to examine the existence of the long-run relationship among the variables in the system. This test is based on Wald/F-statistic and follows a non-standard distribution. To check whether a cointegrating relationship exists, one has to test the null hypothesis ?_1=?_2=?_3=?_4 = 0 in the equation. Pesarean et al. (2001) provide two sets of critical values in which lower critical bound assumes that all the variables in the ARDL are I(0) and upper critical bound assumes I(1). The null hypothesis of cointegration is rejected if the calculated F-statistics is greater than the upper bound critical values. If the F-statistics is below than the lower critical bound, then null hypothesis cannot be rejected; this indicates no cointegration among the variables. If it lies within the lower and upper bounds, the result is inconclusive. After examining the cointegration, long-run coefficients are calculated by estimating the model with the appropriate lag orders based on the Schwarz Information Criteria (SIC). Further, the short-run dynamics of the model is also analyzed by using unrestricted error correction model based on the assumption made by Pesarean et al. (2001). Thus, the error correction version of the NARDL model pertaining to the central export equation can be expressed as: 10; 10, where ? is the speed of adjustment parameter, and EC is the residuals that are obtained from the estimated cointegration model of equation 4(a). The EC term is expressed as 10; 10, where are the OLS estimators obtained from the equation (5a). The coefficients of the lagged variables provide the short-run dynamics of the model covering the equilibrium path. The error correction coefficient ( ) is expected to be less than zero, and its significant value implies the cointegration relation among the variables. Finally, various tests such as serial correlation, functional form, normality and heteroskedasticity have been conducted to check the performance of the model. Findings Many empirical studies have estimated the elasticities of different final export demand components with respect to the exports because of their importance in trade policy formulation. But all the work has accounted only linearity in the exchange rate in export demand equation. Hence, in this paper, we tried to estimate non-linearities in export demand equation. The study fills the gap in the literature by improving on existing literature with the incorporation of the newly developed NARDL approach of Shin et al. (2011). This approach allows testing for non-linearities both in the short- and in the long run which might give indications of strategic pricing and non-linearities in exchange rate. The empirical analysis is carried out for bilateral export demand relationships of India with the USA for the period from January 1993 until December 2013. The bound test shows that there exists cointegration among the variables. Results show that exports are determined in the long run by foreign demand, exchange rates and relative prices. The long-run coefficients have got the expected sign and are of reasonable magnitude and statistically significant. Regarding non-linearities, the results show that assuming linearity in export demand functions might be too restrictive. Thereby, the one threshold model that distinguishes exchange rate effects between appreciations and depreciations deliver plausible results. If exchange rate non-linearities are detected, it seems that exports respond stronger to appreciations than to depreciations. A reason for this might be that firms perform strategic pricing in international trade to gain or maintain market shares. Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it applies NARDL approach to Indian trade data (export demand) and analyzes the asymmetrical and non-linear impact of exchange rate changes on Indian exports.

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Introduction The highly contagious COVID-19 virus has presented particularly difficult public policy challenges. The relatively late emergence of an effective treatments and vaccines, the structural stresses on health care systems, the lockdowns and the economic dislocations, the evident structural inequalities in effected societies, as well as the difficulty of prevention have tested social and political cohesion. Moreover, the intrusive nature of many prophylactic measures have led to individual liberty and human rights concerns. As noted by the Victorian (Australia) Ombudsman Report on the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, we may be tempted, during a crisis, to view human rights as expendable in the pursuit of saving human lives. This thinking can lead to dangerous territory. It is not unlawful to curtail fundamental rights and freedoms when there are compelling reasons for doing so; human rights are inherently and inseparably a consideration of human lives. (5) These difficulties have raised issues about the importance of social or community capital in fighting the pandemic. This article discusses the impacts of social and community capital and other factors on the governmental efforts to combat the spread of infectious disease through the maintenance of social distancing and household ‘bubbles’. It argues that the beneficial effects of social and community capital towards fighting the pandemic, such as mutual respect and empathy, which underpins such public health measures as social distancing, the use of personal protective equipment, and lockdowns in the USA, have been undermined as preventive measures because they have been transmogrified to become a salient aspect of the “culture wars” (Peters). In contrast, states that have relatively lower social capital such a China have been able to more effectively arrest transmission of the disease because the government was been able to generate and personify a nationalist response to the virus and thus generate a more robust social consensus regarding the efforts to combat the disease. Social Capital and Culture Wars The response to COVID-19 required individuals, families, communities, and other types of groups to refrain from extensive interaction – to stay in their bubble. In these situations, especially given the asymptomatic nature of many COVID-19 infections and the serious imposition lockdowns and social distancing and isolation, the temptation for individuals to breach public health rules in high. From the perspective of policymakers, the response to fighting COVID-19 is a collective action problem. In studying collective action problems, scholars have paid much attention on the role of social and community capital (Ostrom and Ahn 17-35). Ostrom and Ahn comment that social capital “provides a synthesizing approach to how cultural, social, and institutional aspects of communities of various sizes jointly affect their capacity of dealing with collective-action problems” (24). Social capital is regarded as an evolving social type of cultural trait (Fukuyama; Guiso et al.). Adger argues that social capital “captures the nature of social relations” and “provides an explanation for how individuals use their relationships to other actors in societies for their own and for the collective good” (387). The most frequently used definition of social capital is the one proffered by Putnam who regards it as “features of social organization, such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam, “Bowling Alone” 65). All these studies suggest that social and community capital has at least two elements: “objective associations” and subjective ties among individuals. Objective associations, or social networks, refer to both formal and informal associations that are formed and engaged in on a voluntary basis by individuals and social groups. Subjective ties or norms, on the other hand, primarily stand for trust and reciprocity (Paxton). High levels of social capital have generally been associated with democratic politics and civil societies whose institutional performance benefits from the coordinated actions and civic culture that has been facilitated by high levels of social capital (Putnam, Democracy 167-9). Alternatively, a “good and fair” state and impartial institutions are important factors in generating and preserving high levels of social capital (Offe 42-87). Yet social capital is not limited to democratic civil societies and research is mixed on whether rising social capital manifests itself in a more vigorous civil society that in turn leads to democratising impulses. Castillo argues that various trust levels for institutions that reinforce submission, hierarchy, and cultural conservatism can be high in authoritarian governments, indicating that high levels of social capital do not necessarily lead to democratic civic societies (Castillo et al.). Roßteutscher concludes after a survey of social capita indicators in authoritarian states that social capital has little effect of democratisation and may in fact reinforce authoritarian rule: in nondemocratic contexts, however, it appears to throw a spanner in the works of democratization. Trust increases the stability of nondemocratic leaderships by generating popular support, by suppressing regime threatening forms of protest activity, and by nourishing undemocratic ideals concerning governance (752). In China, there has been ongoing debate concerning the presence of civil society and the level of social capital found across Chinese society. If one defines civil society as an intermediate associational realm between the state and the family, populated by autonomous organisations which are separate from the state that are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values, it is arguable that the PRC had a significant civil society or social capital in the first few decades after its establishment (White). However, most scholars agree that nascent civil society as well as a more salient social and community capital has emerged in China’s reform era. This was evident after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where the government welcomed community organising and community-driven donation campaigns for a limited period of time, giving the NGO sector and bottom-up social activism a boost, as evidenced in various policy areas such as disaster relief and rural community development (F. Wu 126; Xu 9). Nevertheless, the CCP and the Chinese state have been effective in maintaining significant control over civil society and autonomous groups without attempting to completely eliminate their autonomy or existence. The dramatic economic and social changes that have occurred since the 1978 Opening have unsurprisingly engendered numerous conflicts across the society. In response, the CCP and State have adjusted political economic policies to meet the changing demands of workers, migrants, the unemployed, minorities, farmers, local artisans, entrepreneurs, and the growing middle class. Often the demands arising from these groups have resulted in policy changes, including compensation. In other circumstances, where these groups remain dissatisfied, the government will tolerate them (ignore them but allow them to continue in the advocacy), or, when the need arises, supress the disaffected groups (F. Wu 2). At the same time, social organisations and other groups in civil society have often “refrained from open and broad contestation against the regime”, thereby gaining the space and autonomy to achieve the objectives (F. Wu 2). Studies of Chinese social or community capital suggest that a form of modern social capital has gradually emerged as Chinese society has become increasingly modernised and liberalised (despite being non-democratic), and that this social capital has begun to play an important role in shaping social and economic lives at the local level. However, this more modern form of social capital, arising from developmental and social changes, competes with traditional social values and social capital, which stresses parochial and particularistic feelings among known individuals while modern social capital emphasises general trust and reciprocal feelings among both known and unknown individuals. The objective element of these traditional values are those government-sanctioned, formal mass organisations such as Communist Youth and the All-China Federation of Women's Associations, where members are obliged to obey the organisation leadership. The predominant subjective values are parochial and particularistic feelings among individuals who know one another, such as guanxi and zongzu (Chen and Lu, 426). The concept of social capital emphasises that the underlying cooperative values found in individuals and groups within a culture are an important factor in solving collective problems. In contrast, the notion of “culture war” focusses on those values and differences that divide social and cultural groups. Barry defines culture wars as increases in volatility, expansion of polarisation, and conflict between those who are passionate about religiously motivated politics, traditional morality, and anti-intellectualism, and…those who embrace progressive politics, cultural openness, and scientific and modernist orientations. (90) The contemporary culture wars across the world manifest opposition by various groups in society who hold divergent worldviews and ideological positions. Proponents of culture war understand various issues as part of a broader set of religious, political, and moral/normative positions invoked in opposition to “elite”, “liberal”, or “left” ideologies. Within this Manichean universe opposition to such issues as climate change, Black Lives Matter, same sex rights, prison reform, gun control, and immigration becomes framed in binary terms, and infused with a moral sensibility (Chapman 8-10). In many disputes, the culture war often devolves into an epistemological dispute about the efficacy of scientific knowledge and authority, or a dispute between “practical” and theoretical knowledge. In this environment, even facts can become partisan narratives. For these “cultural” disputes are often how electoral prospects (generally right-wing) are advanced; “not through policies or promises of a better life, but by fostering a sense of threat, a fantasy that something profoundly pure … is constantly at risk of extinction” (Malik). This “zero-sum” social and policy environment that makes it difficult to compromise and has serious consequences for social stability or government policy, especially in a liberal democratic society. Of course, from the perspective of cultural materialism such a reductionist approach to culture and political and social values is not unexpected. “Culture” is one of the many arenas in which dominant social groups seek to express and reproduce their interests and preferences. “Culture” from this sense is “material” and is ultimately connected to the distribution of power, wealth, and resources in society. As such, the various policy areas that are understood as part of the “culture wars” are another domain where various dominant and subordinate groups and interests engaged in conflict express their values and goals. Yet it is unexpected that despite the pervasiveness of information available to individuals the pool of information consumed by individuals who view the “culture wars” as a touchstone for political behaviour and a narrative to categorise events and facts is relatively closed. This lack of balance has been magnified by social media algorithms, conspiracy-laced talk radio, and a media ecosystem that frames and discusses issues in a manner that elides into an easily understood “culture war” narrative. From this perspective, the groups (generally right-wing or traditionalist) exist within an information bubble that reinforces political, social, and cultural predilections. American and Chinese Reponses to COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan in December 2019. Initially unprepared and unwilling to accept the seriousness of the infection, the Chinese government regrouped from early mistakes and essentially controlled transmission in about three months. This positive outcome has been messaged as an exposition of the superiority of the Chinese governmental system and society both domestically and internationally; a positive, even heroic performance that evidences the populist credentials of the Chinese political leadership and demonstrates national excellence. The recently published White Paper entitled “Fighting COVID-19: China in Action” also summarises China’s “strategic achievement” in the simple language of numbers: in a month, the rising spread was contained; in two months, the daily case increase fell to single digits; and in three months, a “decisive victory” was secured in Wuhan City and Hubei Province (Xinhua). This clear articulation of the positive results has rallied political support. Indeed, a recent survey shows that 89 percent of citizens are satisfied with the government’s information dissemination during the pandemic (C Wu). As part of the effort, the government extensively promoted the provision of “political goods”, such as law and order, national unity and pride, and shared values. For example, severe publishments were introduced for violence against medical professionals and police, producing and selling counterfeit medications, raising commodity prices, spreading ‘rumours’, and being uncooperative with quarantine measures (Xu). Additionally, as an extension the popular anti-corruption campaign, many local political leaders were disciplined or received criminal charges for inappropriate behaviour, abuse of power, and corruption during the pandemic (People.cn, 2 Feb. 2020). Chinese state media also described fighting the virus as a global “competition”. In this competition a nation’s “material power” as well as “mental strength”, that calls for the highest level of nation unity and patriotism, is put to the test. This discourse recalled the global competition in light of the national mythology related to the formation of Chinese nation, the historical “hardship”, and the “heroic Chinese people” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). Moreover, as the threat of infection receded, it was emphasised that China “won this competition” and the Chinese people have demonstrated the “great spirit of China” to the world: a result built upon the “heroism of the whole Party, Army, and Chinese people from all ethnic groups” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). In contrast to the Chinese approach of emphasising national public goods as a justification for fighting the virus, the U.S. Trump Administration used nationalism, deflection, and “culture war” discourse to undermine health responses — an unprecedented response in American public health policy. The seriousness of the disease as well as the statistical evidence of its course through the American population was disputed. The President and various supporters raged against the COVID-19 “hoax”, social distancing, and lockdowns, disparaged public health institutions and advice, and encouraged protesters to “liberate” locked-down states (Russonello). “Our federal overlords say ‘no singing’ and ‘no shouting’ on Thanksgiving”, Representative Paul Gosar, a Republican of Arizona, wrote as he retweeted a Centers for Disease Control list of Thanksgiving safety tips (Weiner). People were encouraged, by way of the White House and Republican leadership, to ignore health regulations and not to comply with social distancing measures and the wearing of masks (Tracy). This encouragement led to threats against proponents of face masks such as Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases, who required bodyguards because of the many threats on his life. Fauci’s critics — including President Trump — countered Fauci’s promotion of mask wearing by stating accusingly that he once said mask-wearing was not necessary for ordinary people (Kelly). Conspiracy theories as to the safety of vaccinations also grew across the course of the year. As the 2020 election approached, the Administration ramped up efforts to downplay the serious of the virus by identifying it with “the media” and illegitimate “partisan” efforts to undermine the Trump presidency. It also ramped up its criticism of China as the source of the infection. This political self-centeredness undermined state and federal efforts to slow transmission (Shear et al.). At the same time, Trump chided health officials for moving too slowly on vaccine approvals, repeated charges that high infection rates were due to increased testing, and argued that COVID-19 deaths were exaggerated by medical providers for political and financial reasons. These claims were amplified by various conservative media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham of Fox News. The result of this “COVID-19 Denialism” and the alternative narrative of COVID-19 policy told through the lens of culture war has resulted in the United States having the highest number of COVID-19 cases, and the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. At the same time, the underlying social consensus and social capital that have historically assisted in generating positive public health outcomes has been significantly eroded. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of U.S. adults who say public health officials such as those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are doing an excellent or good job responding to the outbreak decreased from 79% in March to 63% in August, with an especially sharp decrease among Republicans (Pew Research Center 2020). Social Capital and COVID-19 From the perspective of social or community capital, it could be expected that the American response to the Pandemic would be more effective than the Chinese response. Historically, the United States has had high levels of social capital, a highly developed public health system, and strong governmental capacity. In contrast, China has a relatively high level of governmental and public health capacity, but the level of social capital has been lower and there is a significant presence of traditional values which emphasise parochial and particularistic values. Moreover, the antecedent institutions of social capital, such as weak and inefficient formal institutions (Batjargal et al.), environmental turbulence and resource scarcity along with the transactional nature of guanxi (gift-giving and information exchange and relationship dependence) militate against finding a more effective social and community response to the public health emergency. Yet China’s response has been significantly more successful than the Unites States’. Paradoxically, the American response under the Trump Administration and the Chinese response both relied on an externalisation of the both the threat and the justifications for their particular response. In the American case, President Trump, while downplaying the seriousness of the virus, consistently called it the “China virus” in an effort to deflect responsibly as well as a means to avert attention away from the public health impacts. As recently as 3 January 2021, Trump tweeted that the number of “China Virus” cases and deaths in the U.S. were “far exaggerated”, while critically citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology: “When in doubt, call it COVID-19. Fake News!” (Bacon). The Chinese Government, meanwhile, has pursued a more aggressive foreign policy across the South China Sea, on the frontier in the Indian sub-continent, and against states such as Australia who have criticised the initial Chinese response to COVID-19. To this international criticism, the government reiterated its sovereign rights and emphasised its “victimhood” in the face of “anti-China” foreign forces. Chinese state media also highlighted China as “victim” of the coronavirus, but also as a target of Western “political manoeuvres” when investigating the beginning stages of the pandemic. The major difference, however, is that public health policy in the United States was superimposed on other more fundamental political and cultural cleavages, and part of this externalisation process included the assignation of “otherness” and demonisation of internal political opponents or characterising political opponents as bent on destroying the United States. This assignation of “otherness” to various internal groups is a crucial element in the culture wars. While this may have been inevitable given the increasingly frayed nature of American society post-2008, such a characterisation has been activity pushed by local, state, and national leadership in the Republican Party and the Trump Administration (Vogel et al.). In such circumstances, minimising health risks and highlighting civil rights concerns due to public health measures, along with assigning blame to the democratic opposition and foreign states such as China, can have a major impact of public health responses. The result has been that social trust beyond the bubble of one’s immediate circle or those who share similar beliefs is seriously compromised — and the collective action problem presented by COVID-19 remains unsolved. Daniel Aldrich’s study of disasters in Japan, India, and US demonstrates that pre-existing high levels of social capital would lead to stronger resilience and better recovery (Aldrich). Social capital helps coordinate resources and facilitate the reconstruction collectively and therefore would lead to better recovery (Alesch et al.). Yet there has not been much research on how the pool of social capital first came about and how a disaster may affect the creation and store of social capital. Rebecca Solnit has examined five major disasters and describes that after these events, survivors would reach out and work together to confront the challenges they face, therefore increasing the social capital in the community (Solnit). However, there are studies that have concluded that major disasters can damage the social fabric in local communities (Peacock et al.). The COVID-19 epidemic does not have the intensity and suddenness of other disasters but has had significant knock-on effects in increasing or decreasing social capital, depending on the institutional and social responses to the pandemic. In China, it appears that the positive social capital effects have been partially subsumed into a more generalised patriotic or nationalist affirmation of the government’s policy response. Unlike civil society responses to earlier crises, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, there is less evidence of widespread community organisation and response to combat the epidemic at its initial stages. This suggests better institutional responses to the crisis by the government, but also a high degree of porosity between civil society and a national “imagined community” represented by the national state. The result has been an increased legitimacy for the Chinese government. Alternatively, in the United States the transformation of COVID-19 public health policy into a culture war issue has seriously impeded efforts to combat the epidemic in the short term by undermining the social consensus and social capital necessary to fight such a pandemic. Trust in American institutions is historically low, and President Trump’s untrue contention that President Biden’s election was due to “fraud” has further undermined the legitimacy of the American government, as evidenced by the attacks directed at Congress in the U.S. capital on 6 January 2021. As such, the lingering effects the pandemic will have on social, economic, and political institutions will likely reinforce the deep cultural and political cleavages and weaken interpersonal networks in American society. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated global public health and impacted deeply on the world economy. Unsurprisingly, given the serious economic, social, and political consequences, different government responses have been highly politicised. Various quarantine and infection case tracking methods have caused concern over state power intruding into private spheres. The usage of face masks, social distancing rules, and intra-state travel restrictions have aroused passionate debate over public health restrictions, individual liberty, and human rights. Yet underlying public health responses grounded in higher levels of social capital enhance the effectiveness of public health measures. In China, a country that has generally been associated with lower social capital, it is likely that the relatively strong policy response to COVID-19 will both enhance feelings of nationalism and Chinese exceptionalism and help create and increase the store of social capital. 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“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them [...] life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (Garcia Marquez 165) Introduction The refugee experience is, at heart, one of rebirth. Just as becoming a new, distinctive being—biological birth—necessarily involves the physical separation of mother and infant, so becoming a refugee entails separation from a "mother country." This mother country may or may not be a recognised nation state; the point is that the refugee transitions from physical connectedness to separation, from insider to outsider, from endemic to alien. Like babies, refugees may have little control over the timing and conditions of their expulsion. Successful resettlement requires not one rebirth but multiple rebirths—resettlement is a lifelong process (Layton)—which in turn require hope, imagination, and energy. In rebirthing themselves over and over again, people who have fled or been forced from their homelands become both mother and child. They do not go through this rebirthing alone. A range of agencies and individuals may be there to assist, including immigration officials, settlement services, schools and teachers, employment agencies and employers, English as a Second Language (ESL) resources and instructors, health-care providers, counsellors, diasporic networks, neighbours, church groups, and other community organisations. The nature, intensity, and duration of these “midwives’” interventions—and when they occur and in what combinations—vary hugely from place to place and from person to person, but there is clear evidence that post-migration experiences have a significant impact on settlement outcomes (Fozdar and Hartley). This paper draws on qualitative research I did in 2012 in a regional town in New South Wales to illuminate some of the ways in which settlement aides ease, or impede, refugees’ rebirth as fully recognised and participating Australians. I begin by considering what it means to be resilient before tracing some of the dimensions of the resettlement process. In doing so, I draw on data from interviews and focus groups with former refugees, service providers, and other residents of the town I shall call Easthaven. First, though, a word about Easthaven. As is the case in many rural and regional parts of Australia, Easthaven’s population is strongly dominated by Anglo Celtic and Saxon ancestries: 2011 Census data show that more than 80 per cent of residents were born in Australia (compared with a national figure of 69.8 per cent) and about 90 per cent speak only English at home (76.8 per cent). Almost twice as many people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as the national figure of 2.5 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics). For several years Easthaven has been an official “Refugee Welcome Zone”, welcoming hundreds of refugees from diverse countries in Africa and the Middle East as well as from Myanmar. This reflects the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s drive to settle a fifth of Australia’s 13,750 humanitarian entrants a year directly in regional areas. In Easthaven’s schools—which is where I focused my research—almost all of the ESL students are from refugee backgrounds. Defining Resilience Much of the research on human resilience is grounded in psychology, with a capacity to “bounce back” from adverse experiences cited in many definitions of resilience (e.g. American Psychological Association). Bouncing back implies a relatively quick process, and a return to a state or form similar to that which existed before the encounter with adversity. Yet resilience often requires sustained effort and significant changes in identity. As Jerome Rugaruza, a former UNHCR refugee, says of his journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Australia: All the steps begin in the burning village: you run with nothing to eat, no clothes. You just go. Then you get to the refugee camp […] You have a little bread and you thank god you are safe. Then after a few years in the camp, you think about a future for your children. You arrive in Australia and then you learn a new language, you learn to drive. There are so many steps and not everyone can do it. (Milsom) Not everyone can do it, but a large majority do. Research by Graeme Hugo, for example, shows that although humanitarian settlers in Australia face substantial barriers to employment and initially have much higher unemployment rates than other immigrants, for most nationality groups this difference has disappeared by the second generation: “This is consistent with the sacrifice (or investment) of the first generation and the efforts extended to attain higher levels of education and English proficiency, thereby reducing the barriers over time.” (Hugo 35). Ingrid Poulson writes that “resilience is not just about bouncing. Bouncing […] is only a reaction. Resilience is about rising—you rise above it, you rise to the occasion, you rise to the challenge. Rising is an active choice” (47; my emphasis) I see resilience as involving mental and physical grit, coupled with creativity, aspiration and, crucially, agency. Dimensions of Resettlement To return to the story of 41-year-old Jerome Rugaruza, as related in a recent newspaper article: He [Mr Rugaruza] describes the experience of being a newly arrived refugee as being like that of a newborn baby. “You need special care; you have to learn to speak [English], eat the different food, create relationships, connections”. (Milsom) This is a key dimension of resettlement: the adult becomes like an infant again, shifting from someone who knows how things work and how to get by to someone who is likely to be, for a while, dependent on others for even the most basic things—communication, food, shelter, clothing, and social contact. The “special care” that most refugee arrivals need initially (and sometimes for a long time) often results in their being seen as deficient—in knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capacities as well as material goods (Keddie; Uptin, Wright and Harwood). As Fozdar and Hartley note: “The tendency to use a deficit model in refugee resettlement devalues people and reinforces the view of the mainstream population that refugees are a liability” (27). Yet unlike newborns, humanitarian settlers come to their new countries with rich social networks and extensive histories of experience and learning—resources that are in fact vital to their rebirth. Sisay (all names are pseudonyms), a year 11 student of Ethiopian heritage who was born in Kenya, told me with feeling: I had a life back in Africa [her emphasis]. It was good. Well, I would go back there if there’s no problems, which—is a fact. And I came here for a better life—yeah, I have a better life, there’s good health care, free school, and good environment and all that. But what’s that without friends? A fellow student, Celine, who came to Australia five years ago from Burundi via Uganda, told me in a focus group: Some teachers are really good but I think some other teachers could be a little bit more encouraging and understanding of what we’ve gone through, because [they] just look at you like “You’re year 11 now, you should know this” […] It’s really discouraging when [the teachers say] in front of the class, “Oh, you shouldn’t do this subject because you haven’t done this this this this” […] It’s like they’re on purpose to tell you “you don’t have what it takes; just give up and do something else.” As Uptin, Wright and Harwood note, “schools not only have the power to position who is included in schooling (in culture and pedagogy) but also have the power to determine whether there is room and appreciation for diversity” (126). Both Sisay and Celine were disheartened by the fact they felt some of their teachers, and many of their peers, had little interest in or understanding of their lives before they came to Australia. The teachers’ low expectations of refugee-background students (Keddie, Uptin, Wright and Harwood) contrasted with the students’ and their families’ high expectations of themselves (Brown, Miller and Mitchell; Harris and Marlowe). When I asked Sisay about her post-school ambitions, she said: “I have a good idea of my future […] write a documentary. And I’m working on it.” Celine’s response was: “I know I’m gonna do medicine, be a doctor.” A third girl, Lily, who came to Australia from Myanmar three years ago, told me she wanted to be an accountant and had studied accounting at the local TAFE last year. Joseph, a father of three who resettled from South Sudan seven years ago, stressed how important getting a job was to successful settlement: [But] you have to get a certificate first to get a job. Even the job of cleaning—when I came here I was told that somebody has to go to have training in cleaning, to use the different chemicals to clean the ground and all that. But that is just sweeping and cleaning with water—you don’t need the [higher-level] skills. Simple jobs like this, we are not able to get them. In regional Australia, employment opportunities tend to be limited (Fozdar and Hartley); the unemployment rate in Easthaven is twice the national average. Opportunities to study are also more limited than in urban centres, and would-be students are not always eligible for financial assistance to gain or upgrade qualifications. Even when people do have appropriate qualifications, work experience, and language proficiency, the colour of their skin may still mean they miss out on a job. Tilbury and Colic-Peisker have documented the various ways in which employers deflect responsibility for racial discrimination, including the “common” strategy (658) of arguing that while the employer or organisation is not prejudiced, they have to discriminate because of their clients’ needs or expectations. I heard this strategy deployed in an interview with a local businesswoman, Catriona: We were advertising for a new technician. And one of the African refugees came to us and he’d had a lot of IT experience. And this is awful, but we felt we couldn't give him the job, because we send our technicians into people's houses, and we knew that if a black African guy rocked up at someone’s house to try and fix their computer, they would not always be welcomed in all—look, it would not be something that [Easthaven] was ready for yet. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (Refugees and Employment) note that while Australia has strict anti-discrimination legislation, this legislation may be of little use to the people who, because of the way they look and sound (skin colour, dress, accent), are most likely to face prejudice and discrimination. The researchers found that perceived discrimination in the labour market affected humanitarian settlers’ sense of satisfaction with their new lives far more than, for example, racist remarks, which were generally shrugged off; the students I interviewed spoke of racism as “expected,” but “quite rare.” Most of the people Colic-Peisker and Tilbury surveyed reported finding Australians “friendly and accepting” (33). Even if there is no active discrimination on the basis of skin colour in employment, education, or housing, or overt racism in social situations, visible difference can still affect a person’s sense of belonging, as Joseph recounts: I think of myself as Australian, but my colour doesn’t [laughs] […] Unfortunately many, many Australians are expecting that Australia is a country of Europeans … There is no need for somebody to ask “Where do you come from?” and “Do you find Australia here safe?” and “Do you enjoy it?” Those kind of questions doesn’t encourage that we are together. This highlights another dimension of resettlement: the journey from feeling “at home” to feeling “foreign” to, eventually, feeling at home again in the host country (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, Refugees and Employment). In the case of visibly different settlers, however, this last stage may never be completed. Whether the questions asked of Joseph are well intentioned or not, their effect may be the same: they position him as a “forever foreigner” (Park). A further dimension of resettlement—one already touched on—is the degree to which humanitarian settlers actively manage their “rebirth,” and are allowed and encouraged to do so. A key factor will be their mastery of English, and Easthaven’s ESL teachers are thus pivotal in the resettlement process. There is little doubt that many of these teachers have gone to great lengths to help this cohort of students, not only in terms of language acquisition but also social inclusion. However, in some cases what is initially supportive can, with time, begin to undermine refugees’ maturity into independent citizens. Sharon, an ESL teacher at one of the schools, told me how she and her colleagues would give their refugee-background students lifts to social events: But then maybe three years down the track they have a car and their dad can drive, but they still won’t take them […] We arrive to pick them up and they’re not ready, or there’s five fantastic cars in the driveway, and you pick up the student and they say “My dad’s car’s much bigger and better than yours” [laughs]. So there’s an expectation that we’ll do stuff for them, but we’ve created that [my emphasis]. Other support services may have more complex interests in keeping refugee settlers dependent. The more clients an agency has, the more services it provides, and the longer clients stay on its books, the more lucrative the contract for the agency. Thus financial and employment imperatives promote competition rather than collaboration between service providers (Fozdar and Hartley; Sidhu and Taylor) and may encourage assumptions about what sorts of services different individuals and groups want and need. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (“‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”) have developed a typology of resettlement styles—“achievers,” “consumers,” “endurers,” and “victims”—but stress that a person’s style, while influenced by personality and pre-migration factors, is also shaped by the institutions and individuals they come into contact with: “The structure of settlement and welfare services may produce a victim mentality, leaving members of refugee communities inert and unable to see themselves as agents of change” (76). The prevailing narrative of “the traumatised refugee” is a key aspect of this dynamic (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”; Fozdar and Hartley; Keddie). Service providers may make assumptions about what humanitarian settlers have gone through before arriving in Australia, how they have been affected by their experiences, and what must be done to “fix” them. Norah, a long-time caseworker, told me: I think you get some [providers] who go, “How could you have gone through something like that and not suffered? There must be—you must have to talk about this stuff” […] Where some [refugees] just come with the [attitude] “We’re all born into a situation; that was my situation, but I’m here now and now my focus is this.” She cited failure to consider cultural sensitivities around mental illness and to recognise that stress and anxiety during early resettlement are normal (Tilbury) as other problems in the sector: [Newly arrived refugees] go through the “happy to be here” [phase] and now “hang on, I’ve thumped to the bottom and I’m missing my own foods and smells and cultures and experiences”. I think sometimes we’re just too quick to try and slot people into a box. One factor that appears to be vital in fostering and sustaining resilience is social connection. Norah said her clients were “very good on the mobile phone” and had links “everywhere,” including to family and friends in their countries of birth, transition countries, and other parts of Australia. A 2011 report for DIAC, Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals, found that humanitarian entrants to Australia were significantly more likely to be members of cultural and/or religious groups than other categories of immigrants (Australian Survey Research). I found many examples of efforts to build both bonding and bridging capital (Putnam) in Easthaven, and I offer two examples below. Several people told me about a dinner-dance that had been held a few weeks before one of my visits. The event was organised by an African women’s group, which had been formed—with funding assistance—several years before. The dinner-dance was advertised in the local newspaper and attracted strong interest from a broad cross-section of Easthaveners. To Debbie, a counsellor, the response signified a “real turnaround” in community relations and was a big boon to the women’s sense of belonging. Erica, a teacher, told me about a cultural exchange day she had organised between her bush school—where almost all of the children are Anglo Australian—and ESL students from one of the town schools: At the start of the day, my kids were looking at [the refugee-background students] and they were scared, they were saying to me, "I feel scared." And we shoved them all into this tiny little room […] and they had no choice but to sit practically on top of each other. And by the end of the day, they were hugging each other and braiding their hair and jumping and playing together. Like Uptin, Wright and Harwood, I found that the refugee-background students placed great importance on the social aspects of school. Sisay, the girl I introduced earlier in this paper, said: “It’s just all about friendship and someone to be there for you […] We try to be friends with them [the non-refugee students] sometimes but sometimes it just seems they don’t want it.” Conclusion A 2012 report on refugee settlement services in NSW concludes that the state “is not meeting its responsibility to humanitarian entrants as well as it could” (Audit Office of New South Wales 2); moreover, humanitarian settlers in NSW are doing less well on indicators such as housing and health than humanitarian settlers in other states (3). Evaluating the effectiveness of formal refugee-centred programs was not part of my research and is beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, I have sought to reveal some of the ways in which the attitudes, assumptions, and everyday practices of service providers and members of the broader community impact on refugees' settlement experience. What I heard repeatedly in the interviews I conducted was that it was emotional and practical support (Matthews; Tilbury), and being asked as well as told (about their hopes, needs, desires), that helped Easthaven’s refugee settlers bear themselves into fulfilling new lives. References Audit Office of New South Wales. Settling Humanitarian Entrants in New South Wales—Executive Summary. May 2012. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/245/02_Humanitarian_Entrants_2012_Executive_Summary.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y>. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2011 Census QuickStats. Mar. 2013. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0>. Australian Survey Research. Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals—Report of Findings. Apr. 2011. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/settlement-outcomes-new-arrivals.pdf>. Brown, Jill, Jenny Miller, and Jane Mitchell. “Interrupted Schooling and the Acquisition of Literacy: Experiences of Sudanese Refugees in Victorian Secondary Schools.” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 29.2 (2006): 150-62. Colic-Peisker, Val, and Farida Tilbury. “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement: The Influence of Supporting Services and Refugees’ Own Resources on Resettlement Style.” International Migration 41.5 (2004): 61-91. ———. Refugees and Employment: The Effect of Visible Difference on Discrimination—Final Report. Perth: Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University, 2007. Fozdar, Farida, and Lisa Hartley. “Refugee Resettlement in Australia: What We Know and Need To Know.” Refugee Survey Quarterly 4 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/search?fulltext=fozdar&submit=yes&x=0&y=0>. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Harris, Vandra, and Jay Marlowe. “Hard Yards and High Hopes: The Educational Challenges of African Refugee University Students in Australia.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 23.2 (2011): 186-96. Hugo, Graeme. A Significant Contribution: The Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants—Summary of Findings. Canberra: Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011. Keddie, Amanda. “Pursuing Justice for Refugee Students: Addressing Issues of Cultural (Mis)recognition.” International Journal of Inclusive Education 16.12 (2012): 1295-1310. Layton, Robyn. "Building Capacity to Ensure the Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups." Creating Our Future conference, Adelaide, 28 Jul. 2012. Milsom, Rosemarie. “From Hard Luck Life to the Lucky Country.” Sydney Morning Herald 20 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/national/from-hard-luck-life-to-the-lucky-country-20130619-2oixl.html>. Park, Gilbert C. “’Are We Real Americans?’: Cultural Production of Forever Foreigners at a Diversity Event.” Education and Urban Society 43.4 (2011): 451-67. Poulson, Ingrid. Rise. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008. Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Sidhu, Ravinder K., and Sandra Taylor. “The Trials and Tribulations of Partnerships in Refugee Settlement Services in Australia.” Journal of Education Policy 24.6 (2009): 655-72. Tilbury, Farida. “‘I Feel I Am a Bird without Wings’: Discourses of Sadness and Loss among East Africans in Western Australia.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 14.4 (2007): 433-58. ———, and Val Colic-Peisker. “Deflecting Responsibility in Employer Talk about Race Discrimination.” Discourse & Society 17.5 (2006): 651-76. Uptin, Jonnell, Jan Wright, and Valerie Harwood. “It Felt Like I Was a Black Dot on White Paper: Examining Young Former Refugees’ Experience of Entering Australian High Schools.” The Australian Educational Researcher 40.1 (2013): 125-37.

I have only ever owned one pig. It didn’t have a name, due as it was for the table. Just pu‘aka. But I liked feeding it; nothing from the household was wasted. I planned not to become attached. We were having a feast and a pig was the one essential requirement. The piglet came to us as a small creature with a curly tail. It would not even live an adult life, as the fully-grown local pig is a fatty beast with little meat. Pigs are mostly killed when partly grown, when the meat/fat ratio is at its optimum. The pig was one of the few animals to accompany Polynesians as they made the slow journey across the islands and oceans from Asia: pigs and chickens and dogs. The DNA of island pigs reveals details about the route taken that were previously hidden (Larsen et al.). Of these three animals, pigs assumed the most ceremonial importance. In Tonga, pigs often live an exalted life. They roam freely, finding food where they can. They wallow. Wherever there is a pool of mud, often alongside a road, there is a pig wallowing. Huge beasts emerge from their pools with dark mud lining their bellies as they waddle off, teats swinging, to another pleasure. Pig snouts are extraordinarily strong; with the strength of a pig behind them, they can dig holes, uproot crops, and generally wreak havoc. How many times have I chased them from my garden, despairing at the loss of precious vegetables I could get no other way? But they must forage. They are fed scraps, and coconut for protein, but often must fend for themselves. Despite the fact that many meet an early death, their lives seem so much more interesting than those lived by the anonymous residents of intensive piggeries in Australia, my homeland. When the time came for the pig to be sacrificed to the demands of the feast, two young Tongan men did the honours. They also cooked the pig on an open fire after skewering it on a pole. Their reward was the roasted sweetmeats. The ‘umu was filled with taro and cassava, yam and sweet potato, along with lū pulu and lū ika: tinned beef and fish cooked in taro leaves and coconut cream. In the first sitting, all those of high status—church ministers, college teachers, important villagers and pālangi like me—had the first pick of the food. Students from the college and lowly locals had the second. The few young men who remained knew it was their task to finish off all of the food. They set about this activity with intense dedication, paying particular attention to the carcass of the pig. By the end of the night, what was left of our little pig was a pile of bones, the skeleton taken apart at every joint. Not a scrap of anything edible remained. In the early 1980s, I went to live on a small island in the Kingdom of Tonga, where my partner was the Principal of an agricultural college, in the main training young men for working small hereditary mixed farms. Memories of that time and a recent visit inform this reflection on the contemporary Tongan diet and problems associated with it. The role of food in a culture is never a neutral issue. Neither is body size, and Tongans have traditionally favoured the large body as an indication of status (Pollock 58). Similarly the capacity to eat has been seen as positive. Many Tongans are larger than is healthy, with 84% of men and 93% of women “considered overweight or obese” (Kirk et al. 36). The rate of diabetes, 80% of it undiagnosed, has doubled since the 1970s to 15% of the adult population (Colagiuri et al. 1378). In the Tongan diaspora there are also high rates of so-called “metabolic syndrome,” leading to this tendency to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In Auckland, for instance, Pacific Islanders are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from this condition (Gentles et al.). Its chief cause is not, however, genetic, but comes from “differences in obesity,” leading to a much higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (Gentles et al.). Deaths from diabetes in Tonga are common. When a minister’s wife in the neighbouring village to mine died, everyone of status on the island attended the putu. Though her gangrenous foot could have been amputated, the family decided against this, and she soon died from the complications of her diabetes. On arrival at the putu, as well as offering gifts such as mats and tapa, participants lined up to pay very personal respects to the dead woman. This took the form of a kiss on her face. I had never touched a dead person before, let alone someone who had died of gangrene, but life in another culture requires many firsts. I bent down and kissed the dry, cold face of a woman who had suffered much before dying. Young men of the family pushed sand over the grave with their own hands as the rest of us stood around, waiting for the funeral food: pigs, yes, but also sweets made from flour and refined sugar. Diet and eating practices are informed by culture, but so are understandings of illness and its management. In a study conducted in New Zealand, sharp differences were seen between the Tongan diaspora and European patients with diabetes. Tongans were more likely “to perceive their diabetes as acute and cyclical in nature, uncontrollable, and caused by factors such as God’s will, pollution in the environment, and poor medical care in the past”, and this was associated “with poorer adherence to diet and medication taking” (Barnes et al. 1). This suggests that as well as being more likely to suffer from illnesses associated with diet and body size, Tongans may also be less likely to manage them, causing these diseases to be even more debilitating. When James Cook visited the Tongan group and naively named them the Friendly Islands, he was given the customary hospitality shown to one of obviously high status. He and his officers were fed regularly by their hosts, even though this must have put enormous pressure on the local food systems, in which later supply was often guaranteed by the imposition of tapu in order to preserve crops and animals. Further pressure was added by exchanges of hogs for nails (Beaglehole). Of course, while they were feeding him royally and entertaining his crew with wrestling matches and dances, the local chiefs of Ha‘apai were arguing about exactly when they were going to kill him. If it were by night, it would be hard to take the two ships. By day, it might be too obvious. They never could agree, and so he sailed off to meet his fate elsewhere (Martin 279-80). As a visitor of status, he was regularly fed pork, unlike most of the locals. Even now, in contemporary Tonga, pigs are killed to mark a special event, and are not eaten as everyday food by most people. That is one of the few things about the Tongan diet that has not changed since the Cook visits. Pigs are usually eaten on formal feasting occasions, such as after church on the Sabbath (which is rigorously kept by law), at weddings, funerals, state occasions or church conferences. During such conferences, village congregations compete with each other to provide the most lavish spreads, with feasting occurring three times a day for a week or more. Though each pola is spread with a range of local root crops, fish and seafood, and possibly beef or even horse, the pola is not complete unless there is at least one pig on it. Pigs are not commercially farmed in Tonga, so these pigs have been hand- and self-raised in and around villages, and are in short supply after these events. And, although feasts are a visible sign of tradition, they are the exception. Tongans are not suffering from metabolic syndrome because they consume too much pork; they are suffering because in everyday life traditional foods have been supplanted by imports. While a range of traditional foods is still eaten, they are not always the first choice. Some imported foods have become delicacies. Mutton flap is a case in point. Known as sipi (sheep), it is mostly fat and bone, and even when barbequed it retains most of its fat. It is even found on outer islands without refrigeration, because it can be transported frozen and eaten when it arrives, thawed. I remember once the local shopkeeper said she had something I might like. A leg of lamb was produced from under the counter, mistakenly packed in the flap box. The cut was so unfamiliar that nobody else had much use for it. The question of why it is possible to get sipi in Tonga and very difficult to get any other kind of fresh meat other than one’s own pigs or chickens raises the question of how Tonga’s big neighbours think of Pacific islands. Such islands are the recipients of Australian and New Zealand aid; they are also the recipients of their waste. It’s not uncommon to find out of date medications, banned agricultural chemicals, and food that is really unsuitable for human consumption. Often the only fresh and affordable meat is turkey tails, chicken backs, and mutton flap. From July 2006 to July 2007, New Zealand exported $73 million worth of sheep off-cuts to the Pacific (Edwardes & Frizelle). Australia and the US account for the supply of turkey tails. Not only are these products some of the few fresh meat sources available, they are also relatively inexpensive (Rosen et al.). These foods are so detrimental to the health of locals that importing them has been banned in Fiji and independent Samoa (Edwardes & Frizelle). The big nations around the Pacific have found a market for the meat by-products their own citizens will not eat. Local food sources have also been supplanted as a result of the high value placed on other foods, like rice, flour and sugar, which from the nineteenth century became associated with “civilisation and progress” (Pollock 233). To counter this, education programs have been undertaken in Tonga and elsewhere in the Pacific in order to promote traditional local foods. These have also sought to address the impact of high food imports on the trade balance (Pollock 232). Food choices are not just determined by preference, but also by cost and availability. Similarly, the Tonga Healthy Weight Loss Program ran during the late 1990s, but it was found that a lack of “availability of healthy low-cost food was a problem” to its success (Englberger et al. 147). In a recent study of Tongan food preferences, it was found that “in general, Tongans prefer healthier traditional, indigenously produced, foods”, but that they are not always available (Evans et al. 170). In the absence of a consistent supply of local protein sources, the often inferior but available imported sources become the default ingredient. Fish in particular are in short supply. Though many Tongans can still be seen harvesting the reef for seafood at low tide, there is no extensive fishing industry capable of providing for the population at large. Intensive farming of pigs has been considered—there was a model piggery on the college where I lived, complete with facilities for methane collection—but it has not been undertaken. Given the strongly ceremonial function of the pig, it would take a large shift in thinking for it to be considered an everyday food. The first cooked pig I encountered arrived at my house in a woven coconut leaf basket, surrounded by baked taro and yam. It was a small pig, given by a family too poor to hold the feast usually provided after church when it was their turn. Instead, they gave the food portion owed directly to the preacher. There’s a faded photo of me squatting on a cracked linoleum floor, examining the contents of the basket, and wondering what on earth I’m going to do with them. I soon learnt the first lesson of island life: food must be shared. With no refrigeration, no family of strapping youths, and no plans to eat the pig myself, it had to be given away to neighbours. It was that simple. Even watermelon went off within the day. In terms of eating, that small pig would have been better kept until a later day, when it reached optimum size, but each family’s obligation came around regularly, and had to be fulfilled. Feasting, and providing for feasting, was a duty, even a fatongia mamafa: a “heavy duty” among many duties, in which the pig was an object deeply “entangled” in all social relations (Thomas). A small pig was big enough to carry the weight of such obligations, even if it could not feed a crowd. Growing numbers of tourists to Tonga, often ignored benignly by their hosts, are keen to snap photos of grazing pigs. It is unusual enough for westerners to see pigs freely wandering, but what is more striking about some pigs on Tongatapu and ‘Eua is that they venture onto the reefs and mudflats at low tide, going after the rich marine pickings, just as their human counterparts do. The silhouette of a pig in the water as the tropical sun sinks behind, caught in a digital frame, it is a striking memory of a holiday in a place that remains largely uninterested in its tourist potential. While an influx of guests is seen by development consultants as the path to the nation’s economic future, Tongans bemusedly refuse to take this possibility seriously (Menzies). Despite a negative trade balance, partly caused by the importation of foreign food, Tonga survives on a combination of subsistence farming and remittances from Tongans living overseas; the tourist potential is largely unrealised. Dirk Spennemann’s work took a strange turn when, as an archaeologist working in Tonga, it became necessary for him to investigate whether these reef-grazing pigs were disturbing midden contents on Tongatapu. In order to establish this, he collected bags of both wet and dry “pig excreta” (107). Spenemann’s methodology involved soaking the contents of these bags for 48 hours, stirring them frequently; “they dissolved, producing considerable smell” (107). Spennemann concluded that pigs do appear to have been eating fish and shellfish, along with grass and “the occasional bit of paper” (107). They also feed on “seaweed and seagrass” (108). I wonder if these food groups have any noticeable impact on the taste of their flesh? Creatures fed particular diets in order to create a certain distinct taste are part of the culinary traditions of the world. The deli around the corner from where I live sells such gourmet items as part of its lunch fare: Saltbush lamb baguettes are one of their favourites. In the Orkneys, the rare and ancient North Ronaldsay Sheep are kept from inland foraging for most of the year by a high stone fence in order to conserve the grass for lambing time. This forces them to eat seaweed on the beach, producing a distinct marine taste, one that is highly valued in certain Parisian restaurants. As an economy largely cut out of the world economic loop, Tonga is unlikely to find select menus on which its reef pigs might appear. While living on ‘Eua, I regularly took a three hour ferry trip to Tongatapu in order to buy food I could not get on my home island. One of these items was wholemeal flour, from which I baked bread in a mud oven we had built outside. Bread was available on ‘Eua, but it was white, light and transported loose in the back of truck. I chose to make my own. The ferry trip usually involved a very rough crossing, though on calmer days, roof passengers would cook sipi on the diesel chimney, added flavour guaranteed. It usually only took about thirty minutes on the way out from Nafanua Harbour before the big waves struck. I could endure them for a while, but soon the waves, combined with a heavy smell of diesel, would have me heading for the rail. On one journey, I tried to hold off seasickness by focussing on an island off shore from Tongatapu. I went onto the front deck of the ferry and faced the full blast of the wind. With waves and wind, it was difficult to stand. I diligently stared at the island, which only occasionally disappeared beneath the swell, but I soon knew that this trip would be like the others; I’d be leaning over the rail as the ocean came up to meet me, not really caring if I went over. I could not bear to share the experience, so in many ways being alone on the foredeck was ideal for me, if I had to be on the boat at all. At least I thought I was alone, but I soon heard a grunt, and looked across to see an enormous sow, trotters tied front and back, lying across the opposite side of the boat. And like me, she too was succumbing to her nausea. Despite the almost complete self-absorption seasickness brings, we looked at each other. I may have imagined an acknowledgement, but I think not. While the status of pigs in Tongan life remains important, in many respects the imposition of European institutions and the availability of imported foods have had an enormous impact on the rest of the Tongan diet, with devastating effects on the health of Tongans. Instead of the customary two slow-cooked meals, one before noon and one in the evening (Pollock 56), consisting mostly of roots crops, plantains and breadfruit, with a relish of meat or fish, most Tongans eat three meals a day in order to fit in with school and work schedules. In current Tongan life, there is no time for an ‘umu every day; instead, quick and often cheaper imported foods are consumed, though local foods can also be cooked relatively quickly. While some still start the day by grabbing a piece of left over cassava, many more would sit down to the ubiquitous Pacific breakfast food: crackers, topped with a slab of butter. Food is a neo-colonial issue. If larger nations stopped dumping unwanted and nutritionally poor food products, health outcomes might improve. Similarly, the Tongan government could tip the food choice balance by actively supporting a local and traditional food supply in order to make it as cheap and accessible as the imported foods that are doing such harm to the health of Tongans References Barnes, Lucy, Rona Moss-Morris, and Mele Kaufusi. “Illness Beliefs and Adherence in Diabetes Mellitus: A Comparison between Tongan and European Patients.” The New Zealand Medical Journal 117.1188 (2004): 1-9. Beaglehole, J.C. Ed. The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery: The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780. Parts I & II. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1967. ­­­____. Ed. 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Cockbain, and James Beasley. “Obesity in Tonga: A cross-sectional comparative study of perceptions of body size and beliefs about obesity in lay people and nurses.” Obesity Research & Clinical Practice 2.1 (2008): 35-41. Larsen, Gregor, et al. “Phylogeny and Ancient DNA of Sus Provides New Insights into Neolithic Expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104.12 (2007): 4834-39. Martin, John. Tonga Islands: William Mariner’s Account, 1817. Neiafu, Tonga: Vava‘u, 1981. Menzies, Isa. “Cultural Tourism and International Development in Tonga: Notes from the Field”. Unpublished paper. Oceanic Passages Conference. Hobart, June 2010. Pollock, Nancy J. These Roots Remain: Food Habits in Islands of the Central and Eastern Pacific since Western Contact. Honolulu: Institute for Polynesian Studies, 1992. Rosen, Rochelle K., Judith DePue, and Stephen T. McGarvey. “Overweight and Diabetes in American Samoa: The Cultural Translation of Research into Health Care Practice.” Medicine and Health/ Rhode Island 91.12 (2008): 372-78. Spennemann, Dirk H.R. “On the Diet of Pigs Foraging on the Mud Flats of Tongatapu: An Investigation in Taphonomy.” Archaeology in New Zealand 37.2 (1994): 104-10. Thomas, Nicholas. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Objects and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1991.