Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Fiji History'

The overarching aim of this study is to trace evidence of resistant behaviour among subordinate groups in the first forty years of Fiji's colonial history (1874-1914). By rereading archival materials "against the grain", listening to oral history, and engaging postcolonial scholarship, the study intends to disturb accepted ways of understanding Fiji's past. This approach reveals the existence of numerous people, voices, and events which until recently have remained largely on the margins of Fiji's process of historical production. As a chronological survey, the study produces a body of evidence which uncovers a rich array of forms of resistance. The points at which these forms of resistance engaged dominant culture are divided into two broad categories. The first examines several forms of organized resistance such as the Colo War of 1876, the Tuka Movement of 1878 to 1891, the Seaqaqa War of 1894, the Movement for Federation with New Zealand from 1901 to 1903, the Viti Kabani Movement of 1913 to 1917, and the various instances of organised labour protest on Fiji's plantations. The second addresses everyday forms of resistance in the villages and plantations such as tax and land boycotts, violence and retributive justice, avoidance protest, petitioning, and various aspects of women's resistance. In their entirety these aspects of resistance reveal a complex web of relationships between powerful and subordinate groups, and among subordinate groups themselves. These conclusions preclude framing resistance as a totality and advocate instead a conceptualization of resistance as a multi-layered and multi-dimensional reality. In contributing to the reconstruction and revision of Fiji's early colonial history, the study seeks to both clarify and complicate future research in the area.

In early December 2006, the Fijian military seized power in a coup led by the Armed Forces commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama. It was a coup long expected, and Fiji’s fourth since 1987. Internationally, the response was swift imposing sanctions and removing or delaying international aid programmes. This has a potentially significant impact on Fiji because it is one of the largest per capita recipients of developmental aid funding in the world. However, it may also have little impact because, despite such assistance, the Fijian GDP has stagnated with an average growth of under 1% for the last 20 years. Other developmental indicators are also bleak. This thesis thus examines the dichotomy between Fiji’s ODA and its apparent inability to arrest the decline of the Fijian lifestyle and economy. However, to review all international developmental programmes across all sectors of Fijian society, while maintaining contemporary relevance and coherency, is untenable. Therefore, the thesis will focus on the European Union and its external relations with Fiji. The EU is one of the most influential partners for Fiji and is often overlooked by scholars, allowing this thesis to make a valuable contribution to developmental studies in the pacific region. The thesis has selected and examines four sectors of Fijian society, that of the Economy, Governance, Sugar, and Education sectors. This is because they are the sectors that the European Union is presently devoting most attention. Therefore, these areas best illustrate Fijian reaction to the importance and effectiveness of EU involvement. Overall, the thesis intends to demonstrate both the efficacy and the attitudes of local representatives to foreign aid programmes, and ultimately provide a unique ‘inside looking out' perspective not typical of publications about Fiji.

Anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation impacts are no longer a worry for the distant future but a real concern for the present. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the poor, who often live by fragile ecosystems, are amongst the most vulnerable and exposed to the impacts of climate change. For these populations, climate related risks exacerbate other stressors and negatively impact livelihoods, security, and health. For low lying SIDS in particular, an additional fear is that climate change endangers their whole way of life, with their nationhood and culture being slowly engulfed by the approaching sea. Whilst the need to adapt is apparent, adaptation funding and motivating people to take up adaptive behaviours is a serious challenge. According to the ODI, financing climate change adaptation in the developing world can cost upwards of US$ 100-450 billion a year. Building adaptive capacity through cost effective solutions such as microloans for adaptive investments can be a promising strategy. By utilising the case study of Fiji, this Thesis attempts to unpack the cognitive drivers of climate change adaptive stated investment behaviour through a survey-based experiment (N=205). The prominent empirical method employed in this thesis was mediation analysis and specifically path analysis whereby the model specified is driven by theory. The choice of this method is justified through a comparison with multinomial logit. In the first instance, the antecedents of climate adaptive stated behaviour and the impact of information on subsequent stated behaviour were assessed through the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. In addition perceptions to climate change in Fiji were explored through guided interviews (N=50). Overall positive attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control towards conservation and adaptation positively influenced intention to invest in adaptive strategies though intention only significantly influenced subsequent stated behaviour when information on climate change adaptation was provided. Next, the efficacy of incentives in engaging adaptive investments was assessed. The results indicated that the use of ‘green’ incentives (whereby loans are contingent on ecosystem impacts) was most conducive to the choice of adaptive investments over nonadaptive. In addition behavioural intention significantly mediated stated investment behaviour under the green incentive condition – which it is argued may show that such incentives crowd-in internal motives for engaging in environmentally protective behaviours. We also found that ethnicity was a strong positive moderator of behavioural antecedents and subsequent stated investment behaviour. Lastly the moderators of stated behaviour and its antecedents were examined by exploring resource dependence, perceived shocks, and perceived severity of environmental and other issues. Again, it was found that green incentives were successful in engaging people to take up adaptive investments more so then under a dynamic (whereby loans are contingent on repayement) and a no incentive condition. It was found that perceived shocks, and resource dependence could significantly impact cognitive antecedents of behaviour as specified by the Theory of Planned Behaviour and in particular perceptions of behavioural control. Shocks, resource dependence and perceived severity also moderated subsequent stated behaviour, with greater variability between between adaptive and non-adaptive investment choices under the no incentive and dynamic incentive conditions. The latter had a greater probablity of agents choosing non-adaptive over adaptive investments whilst in the former the opposite was true. Overall the results can be useful for adaptation policies, microloan best practice, and behavioural change interventions in SIDS in particular.

This thesis contributes to the literature on the history of the transition from colonial to post-colonial in the Pacific. It explores the contribution of an individual to this transition, Rev. Dr. Alan Richard Tippett, as a focus for illuminating the struggles in the transitions and the development of post-colonial theory for mission. Alan Richard Tippet sailed to Fiji as an ordained Methodist missionary in 1941. He was a product of a Methodist parsonage and heir to the evangelical and revival tendencies of the Cornish Methodism of his family. He began his missionary career steeped in the colonial visions of the mission enterprise fostered by the Board of Missions of his church. He was eager to study anthropology but was given no chance to do so before he left Australia. He pursued his study of anthropology and history in Fiji and began to question the paternalism of colonial theory. Early in his time in Fiji he made the decision to join with those who sought change and the death of colonial mission. In his work as a circuit minister, theological educator, writer and administrator he worked to this end. He developed his talent for writing and research, encouraging the Fijian church to take pride in its past achievements. He became alienated from the administrators of the Australasian Methodist Board of Missions and could find no place in the Australian church. In 1961 he left Fiji and began a course of study at the newly formed Institute of Church Growth in Eugene, Oregon. This led him into the orbit of Donald McGavran and the newly emerging church growth theory of Christian mission. Although his desire was to enhance the study of post-colonial mission in Australia he could not find a position to support him even after he gained a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oregon. After research in the Solomon Islands he returned to the USA to assist Donald McGavran in the formation of the now famous School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. While at Fuller he exercised considerable influence in the development of missiological theory and especially the application of anthropological studies in post-colonial mission. Although he contributed to both the ecumenical and evangelical debates on mission, he found himself caught up in the bitter debates of the 1960s and 1970s between them and, despite all efforts to maintain links, lost contact with the ecumenical wing. Retiring to Australia in 1977 he found that his world reputation was not recognised in his native land. He continued his work apace, although he was deeply saddened by the ignorance he found in Australia and by his continued rejection. He finally donated his library to St. Mark???s National Theological Centre. He died in 1988 in Canberra.

Cette thèse prend pour base l'œuvre de Jacob Böhme (1575-1624) afin d'étudier les rapports du fini et de l'Absolu dans le monisme. Le concept central de la spéculation böhmienne est le " Sans-fond " (Ungrund) : Unité suressentielle, Néant indéterminé, Volonté pure. Le caractère volontariste de cette unité méontologique transforme la pensée böhmienne en un monisme dynamique non réductible à l'hénologie apophatique traditionnelle ; se fait ainsi jour dans la doctrine un mouvement de manifestation de l'Ungrund dans le Grund, c'est-à-dire une introduction et une réalisation de l'Absolu dans la limite et dans la finitude, qui n'est pas conçu comme une chute mais comme une médiation positive aboutissant à fonder l'infini dans le fini. Partant du néant absolu, la doctrine fonde en outre la subjectivité de la substance à partir de sa propre impersonnalité. Il est donc possible de repérer, chez le maître de Görlitz, un schème de la manifestation de l'Ungrund qui ordonne la manière dont le premier principe parachève progressivement son essence à travers les modifications (" omnis determinatio positio est "). L'étude de la détermination ontologique et gnoséologique de ce néant constitue précisément l'axe central de ce travail : il s'agit de mettre en lumière le processus de détermination de la substance qui préside à la transformation de l'Absolu en essence et de l'essence en être, ainsi que d'analyser le rapport liant le fini à l'infini dans cette manifestation (opposition ou inféodation). Cette étude a enfin pour objet d'éclairer les liens qui rattachent la doctrine de Böhme à la mystique spéculative allemande et à l'idéalisme postkantien (particulièrement à Hegel et à Schelling)
This thesis bases its theory on the work of Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), in order to study the relationship between the finite and the infinite in monism. The main concept of the Boehmian speculation is the “Ungrund”, which is a superessential One, an indeterminate Nothingness and a pure Will. The voluntaristic nature of this meontological unity turns the Boehmian thought into a dynamic monism, instead of reducing it to the tradition of the apophatic henology. The movement which is at work in the Boehmian theory is a manifestation of the Ungrund in the Grund, that is to say the introduction and the realisation of the Absolute in the limit of finity; this process is not conceived as a fall, but as a positive mediation, necessary to create a basis for the infinite into the finite. It is therefore possible to outline the metaphysical scheme assigned to reveal the Ungrund and to progressively manifest the Absolute into alien modifications (according to this heterodox formula: “omnis determinatio positio est”). The analysis of this onto-gnoseological process of determination forms the structure of this study: its goal is to bring to light the entire process of manifestation as well as the relationship it creates between the finite and the infinite (which can be an opposition or an infeudation). Finally, this study intends to throw a new light on the relationship between the doctrine of Jacob Böhme and that of the German Mysticism and German Idealism (mainly Hegel and Schelling)

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Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
The objective of this study is to determine how one of the three largest circulation national newspapers in Brazil Folha de S. Paulo covered Venezuela and President Hugo Chávez between the years 2002-2005. During this period Venezuela went through one of the most troubled times in its recent history with a coup in 2002, strikes, social demonstrations, recall referendums and the opposition refusal to participate in the legislative elections in 2005 facts that justify the attention given to the country by the communications media. In the development of this dissertation points pertinent to the methodology adopted and relevant historical aspects recovered from the trajectory of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo are clarified within its chapters. A full background on recent Venezuelan history is seen, from the introduction of liberal democracy in the country in 1958, based on the role of traditional political parties such as Acción Democrática and COPEI and the agreement known as the Punto Fijo Pact, that was responsible for the adoption of neo-liberal policies that led to crises in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s and which resulted in the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. Analysis is also seen of Folha de S. Paulo s editorial coverage in relation to the Venezuelan government and highlighting of the arguments that led this paper to consider it undemocratic, besides explaining the paper s understanding of democracy and how this could be linked to a liberal definition of the concept, as well as proceeding to an analysis of the Venezuelan opposition newspaper and the similarities between the coverage of Folha and that of private Venezuelan communication media against the government established by Chávez. In this way the analysis recurs to the interwoven critique of Hugo Chávez and the construction of his images as a populist leader a concept that became the subject of considerable historical discussion, bearing negative value from the links of his profile as a politician who deceived and manipulated the populace. Thus, we have aimed at a critical look at the concepts used by the Folha de S. Paulo to explain the nature of the Chávez government, beginning with data of the Venezuelan social reality that could explain the nature of the Chávez government and how it became possible to identify the ideology propagated by the Brazilian newspaper recovered from identification of the social function to which it complies as a vehicle of the major press and media and its influence in shaping Brazilian public opinion in relation to its neighboring country
O trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar a cobertura realizada pelo jornal brasileiro Folha de S. Paulo um dos três jornais do país que conta com ampla circulação nacional no que se refere à Venezuela e ao presidente Hugo Chávez entre os anos de 2002 e 2005. Durante este período a Venezuela passou por um dos momentos mais conturbados de sua história recente, com golpe de Estado em 2002, greves, manifestações sociais, referendos revogatórios e a recusa da oposição em participar das eleições legislativas em 2005, fatos que justificaram a atenção dada ao país pelos meios de comunicação. Na elaboração desta dissertação e ao longo de seus capítulos são esclarecidos os pontos pertinentes à metodologia adotada e resgata-se da historiografia aspectos relevantes da trajetória do jornal Folha de S. Paulo. A realização de uma retrospectiva sobre a história recente venezuelana foi observada desde a instauração da liberaldemocracia no país em 1958, com o protagonismo de seus partidos políticos tradicionais como Acción Democrática e COPEI e o acordo que ficou conhecido como Pacto de Punto Fijo, responsável pela adoção de políticas neoliberais que levaram às crises ocorridas durante as décadas de 1980 e 1990 e que resultou na eleição de Hugo Chávez em 1998. Também se observa a análise da cobertura da Folha de S. Paulo em seus editoriais sobre o governo venezuelano e a destacada argumentação que promoveu este periódico em considerá-lo antidemocrático, além de explicitar o entendimento do jornal sobre democracia e como pode ser vinculada à definição liberal do conceito, bem como se procedeu a análise dos jornais de oposição na Venezuela e as semelhanças entre a cobertura da Folha e a realizada pelos meios de comunicação privados venezuelanos, contrários ao governo implantado por Chávez. Desse modo, a análise recai sobre a crítica tecida a Hugo Chávez e a construção de sua imagem como um líder populista conceito que se tornou alvo de grande discussão historiográfica ao carregar em sua definição um valor negativo , além de vincular seu perfil ao de um político que enganou e manipulou a população. Nesse sentido, procurou-se fazer a crítica aos conceitos utilizados pela Folha de S. Paulo, a partir de dados da realidade social venezuelana que explicitaram a natureza do governo Chávez e que tornaram possível identificar a ideologia propagada pelo jornal brasileiro, resgatada a partir da identificação da função social que este cumpre como veículo da grande imprensa e de interferência na construção da opinião pública brasileira em relação ao país vizinho

La faille de haiyuan s'etend sur plus de 1000 km en bordure nord-est du tibet et accommode la partie decrochante senestre de la convergence entre le tibet et la plateforme de gobi. Sa partie centrale (220 km) constitue une lacune sismique. Nous etudions le comportement de cette faille sur quelques annees a quelques millions d'annees. Cinq seismes de m>5, les plus forts depuis ceux de 1920 et 1927 (m8), se sont produits pres de la lacune depuis 1986. Nous avons determine les mecanismes au foyer et l'origine tectonique des seismes de tianzhu (01/06/96) et yongden (21/07/95), qui mettent en jeu des structures secondaires de la faille. La microsismicite enregistree de 1996 a 1998 par six stations autour de la lacune confirme l'existence d'un decollement reliant en profondeur (15-20 km) les chevauchements des qilian shan et la faille de haiyuan. L'analyse photogrammetrique de photographies du segment du maomao shan de la lacune, prises par un avion teleguide, a permis de mesurer les decalages de bords de terrasses alluviales, datees au 1 4c, et d'en deduire la vitesse holocene de ce segment : 124 mm/an. Au moins deux seismes passes de m8 semblent s'etre produits sur la lacune, possibles seismes caracteristiques, de deplacement cosismique 124 m, se repetant tous les 1050450 ans. La vitesse post-glaciaire du segment du leng long ling, 205 mm/an, a l'ouest de la jonction des failles de haiyuan et gulang, a ete deduite du decalage d'une moraine glaciaire, datee par isotopes cosmogeniques ( 2 6al, 1 0be). Les premieres mesures gps entre 1994 et 1999 de deux profils perpendiculaires a la lacune montrent des mouvements compatibles avec une faille senestre, encore difficilement interpretables en terme de vitesse de glissement actuelle. L'existence de la faille pourrait remonter au miocene superieur. Son rejet fini, dont nous identifions de nouveaux marqueurs morphologiques et geologiques, pourrait etre superieur a 100 km.

Philippe Sellier a montré que l’ascension et la chute sont constitutives de l’imaginaire pascalien. Mais l’ascension n’est pas toujours heureuse, ni la chute sans promesse, et Pascal ne cesse de dialectiser, en tous ordres, ces deux mouvements dont l’un entraîne l’homme vers ce qui dépasse ses limites, et l’autre le ramène à ces mêmes limites. Notre thèse se propose de synthétiser la façon dont Pascal rend compte de la dimension finie de l’homme et des tensions paradoxales qui la parcourent, d’un point de vue rhétorique et philosophique. On repère une pensée de la finitude, à la source d’une ou de plusieurs poétiques de la finitude, et condensée dans une formule que nous considérons, au-delà du contexte dans lequel elle s’inscrit, comme son étymon spirituel : « L’homme passe l’homme ». Une première partie étudie l’omniprésence du corps et l’épreuve linguistique qui en découle : comment dire l’union qu’est l’homme, inconcevable à son esprit ? Une deuxième partie étudie les limites de l’esprit et le rôle argumentatif que Pascal dévoue à l’incompréhensible, et à l’indémontrable. Une troisième partie rend compte de la seule fin de l’homme – le bonheur – et de l’impossibilité de l’accomplir sans la grâce de Dieu : comment alors entendre la recherche que Pascal met au fondement de son projet ? Une quatrième partie s’interroge sur la dimension collective de la finitude, et reprend sous cet angle la question de l’énonciation paradoxale, que nous qualifions d’ironique et d’amicale, dans les Pensées, et une cinquième partie, enfin, ressaisit le portrait de la finitude chrétienne, entre transfiguration et humilité du corps et de la langue
In an article entitled “L’ascension et la chute”, Philippe Sellier showed how these antithetical movements structure Pascal’s imaginary world. But Pascal does not strictly oppose them: he rather highlights the dialectical tension which leads man to surpass his limits and brings him back to these limits. Our thesis aims to synthetize the way Pascal explores the finite human condition and its paradoxical tensions, from a rhetorical and philosophical point of view. We see in Pascal’s works a poetics of finitude, encapsulated in a phrase that we regard as its “spiritual etymon”: “L’homme passe l’homme”. The first part focuses on the incarnate dimension of man and its linguistic consequences : how to write about the union of body and soul that is man, if we can’t understand it ? The second part focuses on the limits of the mind and on the way Pascal makes room – textually – for what one cannot comprehend and demonstrate. A third part studies the links between the will and its ultimate end – happiness, unattainable without the grace of God : how then can we understand the idea of inciting man to the search of God ? A fourth part questions the collective dimension of finitude and then reinterrogates Pascal’s enunciative choices in the Pensées, oscillating between irony and benevolence. A fifth part, eventually, draws the portrait of the Christian condition which appears to humiliate and transform the body and the language

La question de la réalité, de la nature et du rôle de la relation entre science de l'univers et spiritualité dans l'oeuvre de connaissance scientifique, plus généralement dans l'histoire de la pensée, motive le présent travail. Afin de traiter cette question, l'auteur a choisi d'étudier la pensée de deux savants spiritualistes : Isaac Newton et Georges Lemaître, qui façonnent deux moments majeurs de l'histoire des sciences, celui de la fondation de la mécanique céleste, creuset de la science moderne, et celui de la fondation de la cosmologie moderne, lieu d'une définition radicalement nouvelle de l'univers et de la place de l'homme en son sein. Ces deux moments, newtonien et lemaîtrien, s'apparient l'un à l'autre, d'une part en raison de l'objet d'étude commun : le tout, et d'autre part en termes de succession et d'avancées dans l'histoire des sciences, puisqu'ils nous entraînent de la science du ciel en l'absolu newtonien, à la science du commencement et de l'évolution cosmologique en la relativité générale. La relation entre science de l'univers et spiritualité se révèle, sur la base de l'étude détaillée des deux pensées, comme une relation dynamique à double sens : de la science à la spiritualité et inversement, et une dimension cruciale de l'histoire conceptuelle, plus généralement de l'histoire de la pensée. Chez Newton et Lemaître, la recherche et les résultats scientifiques entraînent réflexion et conclusion spirituelles. Inversement, la recherche spirituelle représente une motivation de l'étude scientifique, conçue comme étude de l'ordre, de l'arrangement divin du monde. La présente thèse procure par conséquent des éléments de synthèse et de comparaison des deux pensées et permet d'asseoir plus largement, aux plans historique et philosophique, le choix du sujet. Celui-ci en ressort étayé. Mais au-delà des termes mêmes de l'histoire de la pensée, la démarche première de l'auteur a consisté à comprendre des acteurs éminents de celle-ci, comprendre, à travers leur démarche de pensée, l'être, l'esprit, par la lettre de l'histoire. Ce travail, le premier en son genre, en traitant de certains ressorts essentiels de la dynamique de l'esprit et de l'histoire de la pensée, traite des fondements de la connaissance.

Ma'afu, born in Tonga about 1826, was a son of Aleamotu'a, Tu'i Kanokupolu and a cousin of Tupou I, king of Tonga. When aged about 21, he came to live in Fiji and within fifteen years established a power base to rival that of any indigenous chief. In 1865, a Wesleyan missionary visiting the island of Vanuabalavu paid a call on Ma'afu at his home in Lomaloma.

The role of the Fiji military in politics characterized by the 1987, 2000 and 2006 coups has been interpreted through the broad lenses of ethnic tensions and civil-military relations models. This thesis argues that those coups are best understood through an analysis of the interplay between Fijian traditional politics and the predominantly indigenous Fijian military. Like the usurpation of the traditional Sacred King by the Warrior Chief in Fiji's leading pre-colonial state of Bau, the military's role in politics today is an inversion of the neo-traditional political order, and the military has now moved from a mediator role to play a more enduring function in the governance of Fiji. Given the influence of vanua politics in modern Fiji, and the importance of the neo-traditional Turaga-Bati relationship, models of coups and military-civilian relationships drawn from the literature are of variable usefulness. Finer's Opportunity and Disposition calculus, which emphasizes the coalescence of civilian and military elites in coup making, certainly applies to Fiji and is used in this thesis. On the other hand, Fiji's military professionalism must be seen as differing from Samuel Huntington's civil supremacy model. An additional consideration examined in this thesis is the influence of international peacekeeping operations on the domestic politics of the countries from which peacekeepers are drawn. In Fiji's case, it is argued; experience in peacekeeping operations has influenced the military's self image as political mediator and encouraged it to adopt a role that encompasses security. This has correspondingly led to the militarization of government by a largely ethnic Fijian military.

In 1835 Fijian society was a complex web of discrete social groups, connected either by common ancestry or political affiliation, ruled by chiefs with varying degrees of authority. The largest and most powerful were the political matanitu (confederations) whose paramount chiefs ruled through turaga bale kei Viti, a powerful chiefly system sustained through tribute, approbation and reciprocity. Maintaining their power was a paramount force at the time of missionary contact when constant warfare embroiled all Fijian societies to a greater or lesser extent. The Methodist evangelists, first Westemers to make an impact of consequence on Fijian society, realised the overwhelmingly challenging task of introducing Christianity to so complex a society: tyranny of distance, deified chiefs, rigid mores, dialectic differences, diverse religious beliefs, priests with a vested interest in maintaining power; all these strands omnipresent in an ancient society with limited Western contact. Acceptance of the Christian God would challenge fundamental tenets of chiefly authority and power, as well as Fijian spiritual belief and worship. Making meaningful progress involved the missionaries acknowledging Fijian authority, working within the Fijian social system and, of paramount importance, training and providing Fijian Christian acceptors with the tools for their work of evangelisation. Most effective of all the tools of written language, single dialect, literacy and education, was the utilisation for a Christian liturgy of the meke. Meke, all indigenous sung poetry, is the repository of Fijian oral culture and the one unifying factor in Fijian societies at the time of missionary contact. Events of consequence, past and present, are recorded in the music text known and sung by all indigenous Fijians. Here then was the vital tool for imparting the principles of Christian theology in the semiotics of their first language. Known as taro (catechism), same and polotu, these compositions together with Methodist prayers gave Fijians a complete theological framework in the tradition of their music. This thesis examines the pivotal role of Christianised meke as an evangelising tool in the introduction of Christianity. The text of this music spoke directly to Fijians in their oral tradition. Understanding the impact of that contact is to know the elements constituting Fijian society at the time of missionary contact, to be studied with the ethos of the missionaries and the process of adjoining Methodist theocracy to a polytheistic society. Examination of the music and text of the liturgy will show how an indigenous form so completely and uniquely accommodated a rubric for Christian worship.

This study presents an analysis of the interactions observed among the West Polynesia islands of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, using concepts of regional systems and trade networks. The connections between these island groups in the period between the 1770s and the 1870s are examined in extensive detail. In particular, this analysis takes the theoretical framework of the world-systems approach of Chase-Dunn and Hall and applies a method involving networks of exchange to this region. These networks include the information network, the bulk products network, the political/ military network and the network of prestige valuables. Archival data show the operation and content of these networks and demonstrate that with the influx of European products in the early colonial period, there was an efflorescence of long-distance exchange in this region. This analysis of networks linking the island groups suggest that Fiji, Tonga and Samoa should be viewed as a regional unit instead of three distinct societies for many subjects of investigation.

The first aim of my research project is to determine from oral accounts I recorded over a period of some fifty years, how Fijians especially in western areas of Fiji currently understand and explain (a) the origins, characteristics, development and interactions of the social and political divisions of late pre-colonial traditional Fijian society, and (b) the general principles of traditional land tenure. The second aim is to assess the reasoning, consistency and, where possible, the historical accuracy of such understandings. The period on which my project concentrates is the two centuries or so immediately prior to Cession. Under the Deed of Cession a number of the major chiefs of Fiji had offered to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria; and after the offer had been accepted, Fiji became a British Crown Colony on lOth October 1874. The traditional Fijian society and system of land tenure with which the project is particularly concerned is referred to in this dissertation as "pre-colonial" or "pre-Cession" Fijian society. For the sake of chronological convenience, pre-colonial Fijian society has been divided into "late prehistoric" and "protohistoric" periods. "Proto-historic" refers to the century ending at Cession in 187 4 and beginning with the arrival of the first outsiders to have significant interaction with Fijians. Other studies of Fijian traditional social structure have generally concentrated on areas in the eastern parts of Viti Levu and in other parts of Fiji to the east of the main island (the so-called Na Tu i Cake). Partly for this reason and partly because I have been familiar with the area since 1951, my investigations culminating in this dissertation have concentrated on the relatively little known west (the Yasayasa vakaRa). It is hoped that the outcome of my project will now enable people to endorse the more easily the line with which I introduce Chapter 1, "But westward look, the land is bright." Research into pre-colonial Fijian society began incidentally when I was an officer of the Colonial Service in the Fiji District Administration and in the Fijian Administration in the 1950s and 1960s. My experience and general investigations while a member of these two Administrations served as a background to my later formal research conducted directly in relation to this project. When I returned to carry out the latter research in the 1990s, I endeavoured to operate through both these Administrations as well as through the currently recognised socio-political units or polities.

The study of Indian indentured servitude in the British Empire has largely been confined to the histories of slavery or free labor. Few scholars have connected indenture to larger processes in the British Empire. This dissertation examines the global nature of Indian indenture to find how trends in colonial power were inflected in the relationship between the state and the indentured worker. This dissertation uses the colonial experience in South Asia as a basis for its global history. It contends that the history of the colonial rule of law in the subcontinent was of deep importance to the mechanisms of indenture. By looking at archival records from the United Kingdom, Trinidad, Fiji, and elsewhere, this dissertation finds that officials in the indenture colonies were attempting to transform indebted Indian peasants into indentured workers. This process was inflected by the experience of colonial rule elsewhere. At first, this meant the implementation of ideas tied to imperial liberalism. Following the challenges to British colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, the indenture colonies mirrored a wider movement towards conservative governance. The ways in which the colonial state attempted to control and manipulate workers underwent a dramatic shift. In the indenture colony, colonial power exerted both authoritarian and paternalist tendencies. This dissertation uses the governorships of Arthur Hamilton-Gordon in Trinidad and Fiji to explore this shift. This dissertation makes its argument by focusing on the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. In doing so, it moves beyond the model of studying indenture that has looked at the British Empire as a whole, or otherwise in specific colonies or sub-regions. Using Trinidad and Fiji allows for a deep understanding of continuity and change. For example, Trinidad can be used to examine indenture’s beginnings, as the colony began to import Indian indentured labor in 1842, while Fiji can be used to understand late indenture. Furthermore, colonial officials, ideas of authority, capital, labor, and goods were always circulating throughout this global empire. The study of Trinidad and Fiji allows for a critical understanding of such exchanges and this dissertation uses both to explore bureaucratic offices, law, financial systems, governance, protest, medicine and health, and global agitation in Indian indenture. “The Currents of Restless Toil” is an in-depth study into the nature of colonial governance in the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. It explores the nuances of colonial power, providing a window into the theory and practice that shaped the restless toil of Indians across the world.

This thesis examines modalities of identity and representation for the Indo-Fijian diaspora and its second shift diasporic remove in Liverpool, Sydney, Australia. Indo-Fijian Literature in English, Fiji-Hindi, Memoir form of Indo-Fijian diasporic writings along with representations of Indo- Fijians in other texts are examined in the first instance to enable siting of various identities and representations. This is used as a springboard to engage with instances of production; expression and consumption of Popular Culture in Indo-Fijian diasporas are examined towards a critical inquiry into the problematic of Indo-Fijian diasporic identities and representations. The problem at hand is the issue of identity and representation between the binaries of homogeneous constructs of a people and their lives and that of heterogeneous modalities that takes in difference and the place of the individual and their everyday lived space in the Indo-Fijian diaspora. Modes of identity and representation in its various modes, literary, non-literary narratives and in the production, expression and consumption of popular culture is examined in this thesis towards a construct of a diaspora, of a people, beyond convenient reductive homogeneous constructs.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

While studies in masculinities and globalization are a rapidly growing field, few studies address the role of marriage in shaping masculinities. This project explores the emerging pattern of young, urban Fijian men who marry non-Fijian women and in doing so, challenge neo-traditional marriage formations and gender roles. In this particular project, I investigate how Fijian men experience these types of marriages with non-Fijian women and how they negotiate their masculinity within their marriages. I also explore how the confluence of colonial experiences, current globalization trends, and culture affect how these men understand their masculinity. I employ several methodologies including multiple interviews, participant observations, and visual anthropology methods. Through these methods, I explore how the relationship between Fijian men and non-Fijian women alters men’s experiences of masculinity and identity at the individual level. Results illustrate the importance of work in defining manhood, according to these men. As well, results suggest that the wives play a powerful role in influencing their husbands’ values with regards to work ethics and the general acceptance of global values. These relationships show the intersection and complexities that emerge between evolving ideas regarding masculinities and marriage, Fiji’s colonial experience and current global values.