Another time, another place

This paper explores the way in which the languages of space and time conden se and how the values of spatiotemporal fluidity and fixity are gendered. I t considers several narratives from South Pentecost, Vanuatu, stories of pr imordial beings and of more proximate ancestors which alike stress women's association with flight and flood. Such narratives are situated in the cont ext of labour migration in colonial history and more recent patterns of mig ration to towns. Here too, the movement of men and women is differentially constructed. These processes are considered in the context of recent femini st theories of the relation of spatiality and temporality, in modernity and 'postmodernity'.