Investigating the “Thief in the Night”: The Reproduction and Erosion of Indigenous Forms of Social Resilience in Rural Fiji

Abstract

AbstractAcross the Republic of Fiji, the combination of slow onset climate change and extreme weather events continues to wreak havoc. In addition to direct damages sustained from climate impacts, the uncertainties associated with changes to natural systems in combination with depletion of natural resources and declines in biodiversity provide substantial challenges for Indigenous cultures and rural semi-subsistence livelihoods. Consequently, the concept of social resilience in terms of peoples’ capacities to cope and adapt to social and ecological changes remains important. In this study, we examine local Indigenous systems of social resilience constructed in alignment with the traditional value of relationalism, and concomitant practices of solesolevaki (working together) and kerekere (requesting, gifting, sharing) to (i). understand how social resilience in this local setting is both reproduced and sustained, and (ii).to examine how moral conflicts and ambiguities arising between traditional modes of living and being, and newer, introduced ontologies attributed to late liberalism are affecting social resilience. We present an ethnographic sketch drawn from fieldwork observations and narratives undertaken in rural Fiji since 2016 and apply Robbins’ (2017) theorising of culture and values to examine how people reconcile competing value systems attached to two porous social orders that structure the practices and rhythms of daily life, which Merlan (2005) refers to as the intercultural.