Prefabrication, Patrilineality, and Intergenerational Reuse: The Ruined Third Church of Aniwa, Southern Vanuatu, and its Integration into Domestic Architecture

Abstract

In 1959, the Third Presbyterian Church on Aniwa, a small, low lying island in the TAFEA Province of Southern Vanuatu, was destroyed in Tropical Cyclone Amanda. Following its collapse, structural and other components of the building, a prefabricated structure imported from Australia in 1894, were collected by senior male Elders of the Church and repurposed into domestic architecture. Passed through intergenerational cycles of domestic reuse and favored for structural soundness, much of this material still exists in the homes of male descendants, who still serve important roles in the Presbyterian and wider community. This prefabricated church represents both an expanding network of international capitalism and local Indigenous agency, the blend of which is still evident in Aniwa’s domestic architecture. Survey and interviews revealed not only important structural information about the Third Church, but insight into the patrilineal manner through which structural material and social memory are inherited and dispersed on Aniwa.