Fijian Rugby wives and the gendering of globally mobile families

Abstract

Fijian rugby players see the possibilities of their careers as a source of national pride, for they show what they are capable of achieving on a global scale. Almost all prominent athletes are Indigenous Fijians or i-Taukei, and their success is regarded as part of the supposed naturalness of Indigenous Fijian moral and physical strength. To understand the global rugby industry, need to grasp how it combines with the social systems in which its athletes (and others) are enmeshed, in this case the Indigenous Fijian social structures, based on kinship, a variety of “traditional” and modern values, and the strong but changing influence of different Christian churches. Indigenous Fijian kinship systems are adapting to the possibilities and restrictions of modernity. Increasing numbers of Fijians live away from the close-knit hierarchical village communities and communal economies that are at the core of many Indigenous conceptions of kinship.