Mothers of the Taukei : Fijian women and 'the decrease of the race (original) (raw)
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The Emergence of Feminism in Fiji1
Womens History Review, 2008
This article traces the etymology of Indo-Fijian (Fiji Indian) feminisms in Fiji. In the first section, the resistances of female indentured laborers (for example, Sukhrania, Naraini and Kunti) are recovered as reflections of early forms of individualized feminisms in the early 1900s. In the second section, it is proposed that the informal and organic, yet socially significant movement of Indian women laborers in Fiji in the 1920s comprised one of the first collective intersections of gendered, classed and ethnicized relationships in Fiji. The 1930 (post-indenture) women's movement, with its main emphasis on economic empowerment, is included in the discussion of Indo-Fijian feminisms in the third section. The conclusion highlights that while each phase of the early feminist movement in Fiji focused on a different set of concerns that impacted on the lives of Indo-Fijian women, this group of women have played and continue to play a prominent role in furthering the rights of women nationally and regionally. Like Griffen, other women from Fiji 5 argue that a Fijian feminist movement-one that advocated women's social, cultural, economic and political rights on the grounds Margaret Mishra was born in the Fiji Islands and lived and worked there until 2001. She then moved to Melbourne and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the history of the women's movement in Fiji at Monash University.
The death of Koro Paka: "traditional" Maori patriarchy.(Report)
The Contemporary Pacific, 2008
Deconstruction does not say there is no subject, there is no truth, there is no history. It simply questions the privileging of identity so that someone is believed to have the truth. It is not the exposure of error. It is constantly and persistently looking into how truths are produced. (Spivak 1988, 28) This paper starts from the simple question of what knowledge is produced about Mäori men and why. In Nietzschean style, I am less concerned with the misrepresentation of truths than with how such truths have come to be privileged. I do not argue that tropes such as the Mäori sportsman, manual laborer, violent criminal, or especially the Mäori patriarch, are "false," for indeed there are many Mäori men who embody these categorizations. 1 To propose such tropes are false would suggest that other forms of Mäori masculinity are "truer," "more authentic" embodiments. Alternatively, I am stimulated to uncloak the processes that produce Mäori masculine subjectivities. Specifi cally, this article deconstructs the invention, authentication, and re-authentication of "traditional" Mäori patriarchy. Here, "invention" refers to the creation of a colonial hybrid. This is not to say, however, that colonization provided the environment for the genesis of Mäori patriarchy, for it is probable that modes of Mäori patriarchy existed prior to colonization (ie, patriarchy as constructed by Mäori tribal epistemologies, focused on notions such as whakapapa [genealogy] and mana [power/prestige/respect]).
Epidemics in Fiji's history: Stories of Power, Resistance and Contradiction
The Journal of Pacific Studies, 2023
This paper is a historical review of known epidemics that have afflicted Fijians since European contact in the late 1700s, with particular attention to the devastations caused by the measles epidemic of 1875 and the influenza pandemic in 1918. The impact of these outbreaks is documented in numerous archival sources, including government records, the 'Proceedings of the Council of Chiefs, the Colonial Secretary's Office (CSO) files, the Fiji Times, and a report of the Royal Commission to investigate 'the decrease of the native population' (1896). The paper argues that despite changing historical contexts and epidemiological circumstances, official responses to disease in Fiji were underscored by assumptions of European superiority and power that ignored how non-Europeans viewed Western medicine with suspicion and colonial rules as contradictory.
2020
This thesis argues that taurima (customary kin adoptive relationships) have been inconsistently treated in Ngāti Mutunga iwi (tribe) since 1820, and disproportionately so since the advent of the Native Land Court in 1862. These inconsistencies include customary observances by Ngāti Mutunga, external legislative influences, public resourcing, and social impacts that affect adults and children involved in taurima relationships. Previously uncollated case studies of Ngāti Mutunga rangatira who died between 1885 and 1901 (Naera Pōmare, Apitia Punga and Hāmuera Koteriki), demonstrate how for Ngāti Mutunga legislation and public agency impacted their own personal taurima relationships (as taurima children themselves and also as fathers of taurima children) in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, internalised effects on Ngāti Mutunga taurima relationships have been perpetuated into contemporary Ngāti Mutunga thinking evidenced by lived experiences of Ngāti Mutunga people interviewed for t...
The Death of Koro Paka: "Traditional" Māori Patriarchy
The Contemporary Pacific, 2007
Deconstruction does not say there is no subject, there is no truth, there is no history. It simply questions the privileging of identity so that someone is believed to have the truth. It is not the exposure of error. It is constantly and persistently looking into how truths are produced. (Spivak 1988, 28) This paper starts from the simple question of what knowledge is produced about M ori men and why. In Nietzschean style, I am less concerned with the misrepresentation of truths than with how such truths have come to be privileged. I do not argue that the tropes such as the M ori sportsman, manual laborer, violent criminal, or especially the M ori patriarch, are "false," for indeed there are many M ori men who embody these categorizations. 1 To propose such tropes are false would suggest that other forms of M ori masculinity are "truer," "more authentic" embodiments. Alternatively, I am stimulated to uncloak the processes that produce M ori masculine subjectivities. Specifically, this article deconstructs the invention, authentication, and re-authentication of "traditional" M ori patriarchy. Here, "invention" refers to the creation of a colonial hybrid. This is not to say, however, that colonization provided the environment for the genesis of M ori patriarchy, for it is probable that modes of M ori patriarchy existed prior to colonization (ie, patriarchy as constructed by M ori tribal epistemologies, focused on notions such as whakapapa [genealogy] and mana [power/prestige/respect]).
The Ethnogenesis of Fiji Examining the Crossroads of Oceania
Diversity in Archaeology Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2020/2021, 2022
The regions of Oceania have long been an interesting place of study for academics. Fiji, which is positioned at the centre of the Oceanic world, has been in a unique position and intrigued researchers from all fields. Although there is a substantial amount of literature that has been and continues to be done, there are not many cross-disciplinary conversations about the various studies being done. All too often the works of archaeologists' dip into historical linguistics, or that geneticists utilise archaeological materials to support their claims, but the level of interaction stops there. This paper will attempt to bridge this gap by involving many of the different studies being done on the Fijian islands. And by doing so, it will aim to uncover how the Fijian peoples came to be. By analysing the various linguistic, anthropological, ethnoarchaeological, archaeological, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and genetic studies done in Fiji and the greater Oceanic region, we can begin to take steps in forming the holistic story of the Fijians.
Digital Thesis- Means of Connecting the Contemporary Indo-Fijian Women to the Imaginary Homeland.pdf
Abstract The ‘Old Indo-Fijian Diaspora,’ of the indentured labourers who came to Fiji between 1879 and 1920 has been an important area of scholarship and research. According to Dr. Brij Lal, some 60,965 indentured labourers came to Fiji during the indenture period; of these,45,439 where from northern India, embarking at Calcutta and the rest came from Southern India after 1903 when recruitment had begun there (Lal, 1983:2). After serving their indenture term, many indentured labourers (such as those interviewed in Ahmed Ali’s book; Girmit: Indian indenture experience in Fiji) revealed that they were trapped away in a far-away land and many had no choice but to make Fiji their home (Ali, 2004). Brij Lal strengthens this point by stating that Indians did not leave their homeland with the view of completely severing their links with it but many of them hoped to go back after acquiring wealth in the colonies (lal, 1983:4). The indentured labourers comprised of Indians of different classes, geographical locations, castes, languages, occupations and an unequal gender balance. The pain and remorse felt by these labourers were worth recording, studying, researching and internalising as today this has provided many intellectuals, academics and researching souls with information to broaden the studies in this area and provide exposure on the Old Indo-Fijian Diaspora. This paper therefore looks in to the movement of Indians from India to Fiji during the indenture period and particularly allegorises the role played by the female girmitiyas during the time of indenture where Gyarti Spivak’s notion of the “triad-use, exchange and surplus” would be employed to explore and discuss the traditional role of the woman girmitiyas (Spivak, 1996). Indo-Fijian women today are thousands of miles away from India yet they are still influenced by the homeland and various connections are evident almost a 130 years since the beginning of the indenture system. These connections to the homeland do not imply that Indo-Fijian women are connected to the whole of India but refers to them identifying themselves with specific aspects. These ‘specific’ aspects in this paper are limited to what these women perceive through the various media available in Fiji and for the purpose of this research, namely: the Bollywood cinema, Independent cinema, Daily-life drama series via Hindi satellite television and the Diaspora poetics (literary works of Indo-Fijian writers on the indenture experiences). In this light the role of the Bollywood cinema and the Daily-life drama series of the Hindi satellite television (which are adopted from epics/religious texts) are of great interest due to copious stereotypical characters of the binary of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and thematic representations of ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ (dharmik/ adharmik) values depicted through these media. A closer look will also be taken at the female portrayals in the above mentioned media and will be weighed against feminist claims of portrayals of ‘round’ female characters on screen in contrast to the Independent cinema which moves away from the fictive and indulges in those subjects of culture and human nature which are not easily accepted by the subjects in concern. Moreover, this paper looks at (through a primary research) how closely the contemporary Indo-Fijian women are connected to the cultural, social and religious aspects of India via the various media mentioned. Additionally, Vijay Mishra’s notion of the emergence of a ‘diasporic imaginary’ growing out of a sense of being marginalised or by being rejected outright by nation states would be looked at in terms of the views and experiences of the Indo-Fijian women from the primary research, illustrating that this diasporic imaginary is also created and promoted mostly through the ‘romanticised images’ of the Bollywood cinema and the Hindi satellite television. The diaspora poetics is also seen as a means of connecting the contemporary Indo-Fijian women (elite group) to the homeland, opposing Vijay Mishra’s claim that the literary works on Indo-Fijians reissue versions of ‘the conscious falsification of reality’ of the Girmit ideology. Instead a positive direction will be ventured towards with Salman Rushdie’s idea of creating fictions of the imaginary homeland (Indias of the mind) and using one’s own memory to create memory of the homeland (an imaginative truth). This paper discusses the role of the above mentioned media in creating ‘Indias of the mind’ amongst the contemporary urban dwelling Indo-Fijian women. Additionally, in order to get first hand information, a survey was carried out and questionnaires were distributed randomly to 100 Indo-Fijian women around the Samabula area, a suburb of Suva, the capital of Fiji. The women used for the primary research varied in age, ranging from 16 to over 60 years with different educational, geographical (that is, where in Fiji they are originally from) caste and sub-racial backgrounds.
A History of Fijian Women’s Activism (1900–2010)
Journal of Women's History, 2012
Fijian women collectively challenged their double colonization since the 1900s. Indentured women workers pioneered 'embryonic agitations' (evidenced through strikes, physical confrontations and written petitions) against exploitative colonial officials and Indian overseers. The 1920s saw a shift in the nature of women's activism towards a discourse of economic empowerment, with the rise of indigenous, organic, organizations like Qele ni Ruve. This was followed by the transcultural platform of the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asian Women's Association in the 1940s and the contemporary women's movement of the 1960s led by the Fiji Young Women's Christian Association. The latter was marked by convergences with and divergences from transnational discourses. The focus-feminisms of the 1980s brought human rights to the forefront of women's activism. This has continued until the present day, although there is now an emphasis on peace and reconciliation in post-coup Fiji. Situating Fijian Women's Resistances Shameem suggests that the Fijian 1 women's movement developed in a lateral fashion, sometimes receding into conservatism then jumping in a very radical way. 2 She explains: 'its articulation was at different levels depending on what else was going on' 3 in the country, the region and the world. Following Shameem, this article situates the multiple resistances of Fijian women within an intricate historical, socio-cultural, economic and political milieu. 4 It will argue that each stage of Fijian women's organizing was distinct, depending on intersections with global, regional, and national networks, discourses and brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Your Woman is a Very Bad Woman': Revisiting Female Deviance in Colonial Fiji
Journal of international women's studies, 2016
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