A Polycentric Micronesia

Compact of Free Association States

By Daniel Chingyu Chu
diaspora, migration, urban history, marshall islands, compact of free association, climate change

This project uses data, modelling, and qualitative research to demonstrate the polycentric and resilient nature of Micronesian social ecology.

The goal of this project is to demonstrate the polycentric nature of Micronesian people in relation to their own land and with the United States, through movements of population through time and stories on their diaspora, with a particular focus on Marshallese people. This project is created in support of my MS Design & Urban Ecologies thesis, currently titled “‘Atolling’ Sovereignty: Adapting for the Climate Crisis on the Republic of Marshall Islands.”

The focus of this project is on independent island nations formerly within the United Nations Trust Territory of Pacific Islands (TTPI) and currently in a Compact of Free Association (CoFA) agreement with the United States, with a focus on Marshallese peoples. Using data, data modelling, and qualitative research, it argues that Marshallese people no longer live isolated on their origin atolls, but have been forced into diaspora due to various sets of historical and current circumstances.

There are three parts to this project: an animated timeline, a global interactive map with a website, and a detailed service mapping. The timeline demonstrates how populations have changed over time and no longer simply reside within the confines of Micronesia, but have established roots in the US with significant populations. The interactive map relates the timeline with qualitative data and images on how/why Micronesians have migrated out of the region. And the final map shows a map of various Marshallese services in places with a high number of Marshallese people in the United States, showing that they have indeed gathered and started rooting elsewhere. The primary hard data of this project are historical and current population data, and using a linear regression to model missing data between times. Main sources for these data include the United States Census, TTPI Census, and individual national Census available through either the US Census Bureau or Pacific Data Hub, a project spearheaded by Aotearoa New Zealand and Secretariat of the Pacific. Linear regression is used due to the relative smaller population sizes of data points shown and can reflect relative steady change through time in line with qualitative understandings. In addition, these maps are associated with diasporic stories and a Marshallese services in the United States through scraping information from Qualitative data.

Challenges encountered during this data gathering phase include lack of quantitative data that are presented in editable formats, lack of US/Oceania census data. The US census could not fully account for different Pacific Islander ethnicities (using estimates from journalists/academics on population to supplement or refine “Pacific Islander” categories), and building a Timeline of population growth and decline with only some data points available.

Findings of this project shows that trends of migration in the Micronesia region can be traced to specific historical events, such as World War 2, Compact agreements, and withdrawal of Micronesian participation in medicare during the Clinton administration. These findings are further reflected and deepend in the diasporic stories that also show Marshallese resilience in face of these struggles, which are linked from the interactive map to a website that goes into more details with images. The final map shows the existence of extensive Marshallese government and other nonprofit services in Springdale, Arkansas, truly making it an atoll of their own for CoFA migrants. A unique finding is the presence of lots of religious institutions in the area, and suggests that they are an important social infrastructure & reflects the highly christian population of the atolls. Missing places that are known within Marshallese networks but are not documented/reference on public maps have also been added so during this research.

Particular GIS skills used within this project include HTML/CSS, Temporal controls, and geo-data editing, among other things. I do hope to include a more diverse set of information with the presence of more data and a sharper research orientation.