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

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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 categorisation and marginalisation. ‘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 marginalisation by corporate logic.