From displacement to development: arts education as a means to build cultural resilience and community-led arts production in the Marshall Islands

这是一个参与性的艺术教育项目，在马绍尔群岛和夏威夷为学童、他们的大家庭成员以及见习学校教师举办了一系列讲习班。讲习班将包括创作、视觉艺术和摄影方面的活动，并将产生创造性的成果(马绍尔儿童、见习教师和参与该项目的艺术家)和学术成果(由项目组产生)，探索由于以下原因造成的马绍尔人流离失所的经历：i)美国在冷战期间进行核试验；2)夸贾林岛被挪用并继续用于美国弹道导弹试验；2)由于贫困条件，需要移民到夏威夷和美国其他地区寻求更好的生活质量。马绍尔群岛在西班牙、德国、日本以及美国的统治下经历了长达5个世纪的殖民统治。在20世纪，全球战争和美国的军事扩张导致许多人被迫流离失所(往往是永久性的)。在第二次世界大战期间，马绍尔人被迫从夸贾林岛撤离，为日本人，然后是美国的军事设施让路，在冷战期间，更多的马绍尔人被迫离开北部的环礁(如比基尼和埃尼韦塔克)，为美国的核试验让路。比基尼亚人被告知，他们的流离失所将是暂时的，但核辐射的污染已经使他们的家园在大约3万年内无法居住，并使马绍尔人受到一系列严重健康问题(包括癌症和出生缺陷)的影响，这些问题仍然在几代人之后出生的后代身上表现出来。核难民被迫在马朱罗和埃贝耶等南部岛屿定居，当美国在冷战期间在夸贾林建立弹道导弹试验基地时，来自夸贾林的剩余岛民被迫搬迁。马绍尔群岛于1979年自治，并于1986年与美国签署了《自由联盟条约》，赋予岛上居民在美国工作和定居的权利，并包括一次性解决核赔偿索赔问题。然而，和解基金过于有限，无法解决检测造成的巨大环境和健康损害，许多贫困的马绍尔人移民到美国邻近的州(如夏威夷)寻求更好的生活水平，结果发现许多权利(如投票权或申请国家医疗保健计划的权利)只适用于在美国出生的马绍尔人。这加剧了现有的贫困状况，此外，移民在美国媒体和公共言论中被污名为消耗公共资源(包括卫生和福利体系)。该项目旨在更好地了解马绍尔人流离失所的经历，并探讨如何部署留在社区内的复原力战略，以建设未来的教育和社会经济能力。太平洋其他地区的艺术运动显示了创造性工作的潜力，以见证和帮助从殖民主义下流离失所和被剥夺的创伤中恢复过来。在大洋洲的大部分地区都有一个强大的土著专业艺术家和艺术教育者网络，该项目旨在探索马绍尔群岛加入这一创意社区的潜力，在这方面的初步行动的基础上(例如最近通过在南太平洋大学马绍尔群岛分校举办的一系列讲习班复兴了马绍尔编织(衣垫))。除了一些创造性的成果外，该项目还将向马绍尔的学校教师提供可持续的艺术教育培训，并编制政策文件分发给马绍尔政府和其他利益攸关方。

This is a participatory arts education project involving a series of workshops conducted with schoolchildren; members of their extended families; and trainee schoolteachers in the Marshall Islands and Hawaii. The workshops will include activities in creative writing, the visual arts, and photography, and will result in creative outputs (by Marshallese children, trainee teachers, and artists involved in the project) and academic outputs (produced by the project team) exploring the Marshallese experience of displacement as a result of:i) US nuclear testing during the Cold Warii) The appropriation and continued use of Kwajalein island for US ballistic missile testingiii) Resulting conditions of poverty necessitating migration to Hawaii and other parts of the US in search of a better quality of life. The Marshall Islands experienced five centuries of colonisation under Spain, Germany, Japan and finally the US, and during the twentieth century, global wars and US military expansion led to the forcible (and often permanent) displacement of much of the population. During the Second World War, Marshallese were forcibly evacuated from Kwajalein island to make way for Japanese, then US military installations, and during the Cold War, many more Marshallese were forced to leave northern atolls (such as Bikini and Enewetak) to make way for US nuclear testing. The Bikinians were told their displacement would be temporary, but contamination from nuclear radiation has rendered their homeland uninhabitable for an estimated 30,000 years, as well as afflicting Marshallese exposed to fallout with a range of serious health problems (including cancers and birth defects) which are still manifesting in descendants born generations later. Nuclear refugees were forced to settle on southern islands such as Majuro and Ebeye, and were joined by remaining islanders from Kwajalein forced to relocate when the US established a ballistic missile testing base on Kwajalein during the Cold War. The Marshall Islands became self-governing in 1979, and signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (in 1986) which granted islanders the right to work and settle in the US, and included a one-off settlement for nuclear compensation claims. However, the settlement fund is far too limited to address the immense environmental and health damage caused by the tests, and many impoverished Marshallese have migrated to neighbouring US states (such as Hawaii) in search of a better standard of living, only to discover that many entitlements (such as the right to vote or to apply to national healthcare schemes) are only extended to US-born Marshallese. This has exacerbated existing conditions of poverty, and in addition, migrants have become stigmatised in US media and public discourse as a drain on public resources (including health and welfare systems). This project aims to better understand the Marshallese experience of displacement, and to explore how strategies of resilience that remain within the community might be deployed to build educational and socioeconomic capacity in the future. Arts movements elsewhere in the Pacific have demonstrated the potential for creative work to bear witness to, and aid recovery from, the traumas of displacement and dispossession under colonialism. There is a robust network of professional indigenous artists and arts educators extending throughout much of Oceania, and the project aims to explore potential for the Marshall Islands to join this creative community, building on incipient moves in this direction (such as the recent revival of Marshallese jake-ed (clothing mat) weaving through a series of workshops held at the Marshall Islands branch of the University of the South Pacific). In addition to a number of creative outputs, the project will deliver sustainable arts education training to Marshallese schoolteachers, and produce policy documents for circulation to the Marshallese government and other stakeholders.