rethinking resistance: dialogics of “disaffection” in colonial Fiji

Abstract

In a colonial society of indigenous Fijian Pacific islanders, colonizing British, and indentured South Asian “coolies,” the terms “loyalty” and “disaffection” were a crucial locus of debate. This article examines important moments of dialogue in Fiji's colonial history, not to reveal the unified logic of an enduring British hegemony, nor to find the agency of the colonized in “resistance,” but to discover the relations of domination actually made and contested. Contests for power in postcolonial Fiji continue a dialogue about chiefship and custom, labor and profit, citizenship, and, above all, loyalty and disaffection, [colonialism, dialogics, Fiji Islands, hegemony, resistance, Overseas Indians]