Transitions and Intersections between Communalism and Possessive Individualism in Rural Fiji: Repercussions for Responding to Climate Change

Abstract

Indigenous Fijian traditions that are embedded within rural traditions of the vakavanua and the moral economy are often cited as exemplars of social protection and social resilience by the wider climate adaptation community. Recent ethnographic studies have, however, highlighted tensions created by the capitalist cash economy, which promotes individualism over other forms of engagement in the market. Accordingly, this article aims to examine these tensions to identify the consequences for responses to ongoing climate change, arguing that there are other forms of capitalism that blend components of the moral economy with capitalist cash economies. I have referred to these forms of sociality, marketisation, and capitalism as possessive communalism in recognition of the prioritising of sociocentric values and rural traditions of social protection. I argue that it is important for aid organisations and governmental programmes to recognise and support these diverse forms of capitalism that retain traditional values and practises.

Keywords:

• Possessive Individualism
• Climate Change
• iTaukei Fijians
• Community Resilience
• Social Protection
• Capitalism

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the communities who have generously contributed their time and knowledge to this study. I also express my gratitude to the editors of TAPJA and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and informative comments. Finally, I convey my thanks to Dr Richard Martin, Professor Patrick Nunn, and Dr Kim deRijke for their helpful feedback during the course of developing this article.

Notes

1 In the Fijian context, sociocentric values underpinning sharing and caring protocols and practices are celebrated as the vakavanua, akin to ‘customary or the way of the land’, which include kinship based customary practices, protocols, beliefs and structures. Often vaka iTaukei literally translated as ‘the Fijian way’ is analogous with vakavanua (Overton 1999). Vakavanua or custom is often defined in opposition to ‘Western’ individualism, akin to idealising the communal or ‘dividual’ Fijian self over the individual self.

2 The sociocentric values of Melanesian culture that underpin social protection systems have been an area of interest for many researchers, particularly in defining the motives and characteristics of sociality and personhood (see Ravuvu 1983; Strathern 1998; Brison 2001; Brison 2003; Brison 2007; Tomlinson 2008). Sociocentrism in this context is often defined as antithetical to individuality, akin to prioritising the communal over the individual self. It describes how people see themselves as part of a social group or social order that provides identity and security.

3 I note that Indigenous Fijian communities are non-homogenous entities that are constantly adapting and responding to continual external and internal changes.

4 Bourdieu (2011) defines social capital as the actual or potential resources that are linked to the social connections of individuals and communities, and more recently for some scholars, has come to incorporate the application of social norms in modes of distribution and exchange (Chamlee-Wright & Storr 2011).

5 In 2001, several Pacific Island Christian Churches produced a collaborative publication, Island of Hope — The Pacific Churches’ Response on Alternatives to Economic Globalisation, to document their opposition to the adoption of neoliberal ideologies. They stated that these were inconsistent with their communities’ values. Given the almost complete Christianisation of the Pacific Islands, this document represented significant criticism of economic globalisation.

6 The youth is referring here to an agribusiness that he developed by producing food on his family’s land. He had been studying at the Agricultural College in Suva before returning to his vanua. The interview was conducted in English, with the interviewee’s choice of language possibly reflecting his engagement with donor (aid) organisations and English textbooks / learning materials.

7 Food security in this context relates to maintaining enough food to eat, or enough savings to purchase additional food when needed.

8 In the South Pacific, these are often referred to as cluster models.

9 ‘Alienable’ in this sense refers to commodities that can be transferred or traded as opposed to inalienable commodities or possessions that hold symbolic, cultural, or economic capital and so stay in the possession of their owners (Mills 2004).

10 As a multi-disciplinary, normative concept, the utility and expression of resilience has been reviewed and examined in several studies (Davidson et al. 2018; Moser et al. 2019). In this study, I have applied the concept in the broadest sense to include strategies of coping with and resistance to the negative impacts of climate change, whilst incorporating adaptation and transformative actions—all of which have been characterised under the resilience framework (Cutter, Ash, and Emrich 2014; Singh-Peterson & Underhill 2017; Moser et al. 2019).