The Politics of Property: Gender, Land and Political Authority in Solomon Islands

In his 2012 New Years address to the nation, Solomon Islands GovernorGeneral Sir Frank Kabui warned that land tenure had become the issue most likely to spark conflict within the scattered archipelagic nation. He went on to outline a number of issues he perceived to be a problem, including: the communal ownership of land by kin groups and the need to register land in order to make it marketable; the inequitable distribution of natural resource rents; and the illegal occupation of land in the vicinity of the national capital, Honiara, by migrants from other islands. He exhorted Solomon Islanders to adjust our mindset or remain caught between our cultural way of life and the cash economy (Damosuaia 2012).