Tongan coloniality: contesting the ‘never colonized’ narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Kingdom of Tonga is a modern nation-state monarchy with a dominant discourse and popular narrative that claims it was ‘never colonized’ or ‘not formally colonized’ by modern foreign powers. In this article the authors argue otherwise, that Tonga was and is colonized, albeit more appropriately expressed through the concepts of coloniality within western modernity’s global paradigm. This is evident through global hegemonic forces that are animated through a local gendered and capitalist Christian nationalism. Tonga’s status is obscured, however, because Tongans are not ‘dispossessed of their land’, and Tonga is a nation that is not dominantly occupied by foreign European invaders, which are central points of contention for globally visible Indigenous peoples within settler-colonial nations. The paper draws upon critical Tongan scholarship that challenges European cultural hegemony and heteropatriarchy in national Tongan sociality to support these claims. We contend that contrary to a popular sentiment of ‘never being colonized’, Tonga’s national formation is made possible and founded within a global context of coloniality that is enacted through locals. This contestation re-interprets Tonga through and beyond coloniality’s world system, which invites radical analyses with global implications, such as re-envisioning Indigeneity.