Cultural Synergy of Clean Energy

Despite contributing less than 0.03% of carbon emissions combined, the Pacific Islands are at the forefront of the climate crisis. With many of these islands being low-lying and with an average sea level rise of between 25 cm and 58 cm predicted by 2050, the urgency cannot be overstated. As a result, Pacific Islanders have been a leading voice for climate action on the international stage, pleading for cooperation toward carbon neutrality and sustainable development. While slow progress is being made, with the Federated States of Micronesia’s electricity generation being only 3% renewable in 2020, the problem I highlight is that of indigenous self-sufficiency and cultural survivance amid under-researched mitigation and development of the region.

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands, not unlike any other Indigenous peoples across the globe, are culturally intertwined with their environments: the seas, the mountains, the rainforests, and the reefs are all integral parts of our collective physical and spiritual well-being. And while climate crisis symptoms like sea level and global temperature rise are a threat to the linked cultures and environments, mitigative and developmental measures themselves in sensitive environments such as those of the Pacific Islands can have irreversible effects on the Indigenous cultures – both physical and metaphysical. What good is preserving and developing the land if it aims to replicate other societies and lose traditional customs in the process? 

We are currently working towards an ecological framework for sustainable energy development that is culturally informed and led by indigenous Pacific Islander knowledge. Starting with the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, the island of our family origins, we aim to investigate what “sustainable development” means and looks like for the indigenous islanders in a way that marries renewable energy technology and the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Pohnpei. Our general research question: How do the tiahk en sapw, the Pohnpeian customs of the land, inform concepts like energy sovereignty and sustainable development?

The focus of our work is energy sovereignty as we believe it is foundational for a self-sufficient future in the Pacific islands. In terms of technology, we specifically want to investigate enhanced geothermal energy systems and their potential implications on the indigenous culture if applied on an island-wide infrastructural scale. Enhanced geothermal energy systems are relatively novel and theoretically applicable to all places on Earth rather than just areas with volcanic activity. Pohnpei does not have this volcanic activity and as such, we aim to understand the relationship between this technology and our traditional customs. We aim to expand upon the hypothesis that Robin Wall Kimmerer makes about renewable energy sources below.

“We can understand these renewable sources of energy as given to us, since they are the sources that have powered life on the planet for as long as there has been a planet. We need not destroy the earth to make use of them. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy – the so-called “clean energy” harvests – when they are wisely used seem to me to be consistent with the ancient rules of the Honorable Harvest.”

– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass 

To best understand this, we aim to develop a relationship with our knowledge holders in our chiefdom system in Pohnpei and over time learn and piece together the answers to our research questions while understanding the local nuances between development and preservation, especially with ideas of newer energy technologies. Thereafter, we aim to encapsulate wise use that follows the values of the Honorable Harvest, those inherently part of our tiahk en sapw: respect and responsibility for the well-being of the environment into a framework that achieves a synergistic relationship. 

The solution we work towards is a lifelong mission inherently connected with our family, people, and island. The target populations whose lives we aim to directly and meaningfully improve are the indigenous peoples of the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia and those spread throughout the United States diaspora. Using the privileges of academic scholars in a university in the United States as our team is partially within academia, we wish to offer a platform for indigenous Pohnpeians to lead our collective development through co-producing and stimulating much-needed research.

We specify the definition of our people’s population to include the diaspora in the United States as it is a fairly new diaspora, beginning in the 1980s with the Compact of Free Association and inherently intertwined with the U.S. imperial project in the Pacific. This diaspora is an important component of our way of being, while also being a prominent pressure of cultural loss. Much of the latest generation of Pohnpeians was born in the United States, including our team lead. A particular tradition that all Pohnpeians share is the return to our home island at the end of our lifetimes to be buried or spread across the land and seas. While the island remains an epicenter of this transnational culture, there is a common fear that one day we will feel too estranged from our traditions to practice.

Our solution aims to not only connect renewable energy technology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Pohnpei but also strengthen the connection of those in the diaspora to the older generations, the land and seas, and our tiahk en sapw in a way that focuses our attention on the development of our islands and their environments. To best understand and engage the needs of our people, both new and old generations must be involved, and as such, both those at home and here in the United States. We intend for our solution to be collaborative across generations and transnational as a result, with our elders teaching the tiahk en sapw and our youth to lead change, connecting the past with the future.

Along with myself and my doctoral advisor at Purdue University, I also include the matriarchs from my immediate family in my project team. I envision this project, and my research in general, as an endeavor for the entire family. As Pohnpeians living in the United States diaspora, our perspective on cultural survivance is beneficial as the repercussions of being disconnected from our island’s environment are a part of our everyday experience.  They are fluid, while paradoxically still in tension, as we live in different parts of the United States, each drastically different than any tropical island.

My mom and sister serve as points of connection to our genealogies and, thus our people, both at home and in the United States. My mother, born and raised in Pohnpei, maintains connections with our extended family back home while my sister, as the eldest of our generation, maintains connections to all of us here in the states spread from Alaska to Florida. These communities of Pohnpeians, spread thin and far in the diaspora, are all important in the cultural resurgence and technological development of our island.

My doctoral advisor, Dr. Stephanie Masta, specializes in qualitative methods and centering indigenous perspectives in research. These are vital attributes for this work as I want to protect my family and people from the potential, recursive harms of academic research. She is a guide and inspiration for my work to create a co-production of Pohnpeian-centered research.

These three women are teachers and leaders not only for me but their respective communities as well. Like many other Pacific Islander cultures, Pohnpei is matriarchal, so who better to guide me than the original guides? I hope to serve as a bridge between symmetrical worlds. A conduit of change for these women and our people. 

As we are still in the conceptual stages of our framework and are not an organization, we have not built or tested anything material or served customers. 

The investments from this organization through collaborative development, both monetary and non-monetary, would also allow us the tools needed to create solutions for change. The project we propose is a long-term and island-scaled project aiming to become applicable to other areas with similar tensions. It is in our hopes that through this opportunity, we can also connect with people with the passion to invest in the futurity of Pohnpei, Micronesia, and the Pacific Islands as well as learn from others doing energy sovereignty work as we have much to learn about actually implementing infrastructure after applying our framework. To do meaningful indigenous-centered research, creating and maintaining networks of connections in all directions is vital. This opportunity is positioned as a connector, poised to help us overcome these obstacles and catalyze our growth. 

Jayvaughn is a Pohnpeian scholar born into the United States diaspora by two Pohnpeian parents who migrated to Hawai'i in the 1990s. He maintains his connection to his communities through his family and their active participation in the Micronesian communities online, on the island, and across the United States diaspora. 

As far as we know, enhanced geothermal energy systems have not been investigated for applicability in Small Island Developing States like the Federated States of Micronesia. Similarly, the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Pohnpei has yet to be researched for energy resource integration, especially geothermal energy.