Moving Houses: Residential Mobility and the Mobility of Residences in Longana, Vanuatu

A key to understanding the mobility of residence patterns in Oceania can be found in the movement of houses themselves. In this article I explore the processual dynamic of residence over a 12‐year period in Longana and document the high frequency with which people moved houses and households while maintaining a strong preference for virilocality. For example, more than 80% of the buildings changed households, underwent major physical changes, or both between 1978 and 1982. The reasons why houses change hands and move about relate to the domestic cycle and highlight competition between the requirements of renovation and plans to construct new buildings. Further, the impermanence of local building materials gives rise to a contradiction between rootedness and transience that defines the meaning of place. Finally, houses serve as symbols of kinship that articulate land and people and that express a link between matrilineal and patrifilial groups.