On the nature of law in the Fiji Islands and the meaning and  source of the value of the vanua

Kieran Edmond James*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The aim of this article is to look at the Indigenous Fijian village system and its mythical link to the first Fijians who arrived in the islands at Vuda Point, Western Viti Levu, to explain the identity of the Indigenous Fijian as ‘villager’, an identity that is paramount over all others. I also compare European and Indigenous understandings of knowledge and of property law. Louis Althusser’s Marxist arguments might suggest that the village is cultural superstructure to the town’s economic base. Prodevelopment logic tries to put forward a view that moral/spiritual attitudes to land are no more valid than modern/pragmatic/economic attitudes. The Indigenous belief that the village system is spiritual tends to inadvertently play into this logic. The answer may lie in Foucault’s call to decenter the subject meaning being extremely flexible, adaptable and tricky so as to avoid easy categorization and marginalization. ‘Playing with’ Western categories and treating the town as a foreign country used for casual drinking sessions may well be part of this. This attitude allows for town-power to be subverted and village sanctity to be maintained in something of a win-win situation in the face of marginalization by corporate logic.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages20
JournalGriffith Law Review
Early online date3 Dec 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 3 Dec 2024

Keywords

  • Althusser’s theory of ideology
  • culture of Fiji
  • Fiji and development
  • Fiji and globalization
  • Fiji and modernization
  • Fiji village system
  • interpellation
  • property law notions in Fiji
  • sociology of Fiji
  • vanua
  • point landing

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