Fiscal and non-fiscal ideas of responsibility amongst Samoan diaspora in Greater Brisbane

This research draws on a longitudinal qualitative study with Samoan diaspora living in the Greater Brisbane area. Based on my PhD research, I examine how responsibility towards their family, their community, and themselves is described by the participants. I explore how participants enact responsibility to their households, which includes both financial and non-financial contributions. Second, I describe how participants enact responsibility towards their community, including extended family in Greater Brisbane and abroad, and how this results in either close engagement with or deliberate separation from the diaspora in Greater Brisbane. Third, I discuss how participants draw on the choices of their parents and other relatives to feel a sense of responsibility towards their future selves, being able to care and provide for their family and community. Introduction Australia has a highly multicultural population, and increased migration to Australia from diverse cultural groups, such as those from the Pacific Islands, will only make it more so (Batley, 2017). It is thus arguably increasingly important for social research, policies, and programs to take the diverse range of meaning-making processes into account. According to Batley (2017), who compared 2006, 2011, and 2016 Australian census data, those claiming Pacific Islander heritage has increased both in absolute and relative terms. By far, those who identify as having Samoan heritage make up the largest increase of Pasifika immigrants (Batley, 2017). According to the 2016 Australian National Census (ABS, 2017), in Greater Brisbane, those claiming Samoan ancestry account for approximately one percent of the population, with that increasing in certain areas, such as 2.49 percent in Ipswich (to Brisbane’s west) and 2.17 percent in Logan and Beaudesert (to Brisbane’s south). 1 Perhaps more pertinent is that these figures are rapidly increasing, with a 30 percent increase from 2011 and a 100 percent increase since 2006 across Greater Brisbane. Despite this, there has been limited research in Greater Brisbane that examines cultural perspectives of responsibility, both fiscal and non-fiscal responsibility. Williams (2012) describes responsibility in terms of prospective (duties that are expected) and retrospective (duties that are failed to be fulfilled) responsibilities. Much of the Pasifika literature describes these prospective responsibilities as ‘obligations’. Faleolo (2019) argues that these obligations can extend across transnational spaces, referring to especially to financial obligations to extended family members in the islands, and may influence migration decisions (e.g. taking a better paid job in Brisbane than a more prestigious but less well paid job in Auckland). Stanley and Kearney (2017) describes the tensions these obligations cause can cause amongst Samoan youth, particularly when they conflict with personal desires or goals (e.g. higher education attainment). These obligations are often referred to as fa’alavelave, which encompass monetary gifts but also the performance of social responsibilities for major life events such as births, weddings and funerals (Lilomaiava-Doktor, 2009). 1 By Greater Brisbane, I am referring to the urban areas in southeast Queensland known as Brisbane City, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands and Moreton Bay. These figures were constructed using the ANCP1 and ANCP2 variables for the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (UR). Laura Simpson Reeves | Research working paper prepared for the ANU Pacific Migration Research Workshop 17 June 2021 Page 2 of 6 The findings in this research working paper are drawn from PhD fieldwork completed between December 2018 and February 2021. During this period, I conducted repeat interviews with 16 Samoan diaspora currently living in Greater Brisbane. Some participants were only interviewed once, while others were interviewed up to 5 times during this period. While some interviews took place face-to-face (mostly pre-COVID), the majority were undertaken during 2020 via Zoom or