Tradition always encodes a relation between past and present, but that relation may be constituted as continuous or discontinuous (see Handler and Linnekin 1984). Pasts are related to presents in different ways at one extreme the past may be seen to flow effortlessly and continuously towards the present, at the other the past may be seen to be irrevocably separated from the present through a rupture, a break, which must be bridged through revival. Such differences in the construction of past-present relations are nowhere more apparent than in how the past is evoked in the politics of tradition in contemporary Pacific nations.1 Here I compare these processes in two independent states Vanuatu and Fiji. The terms kastom (custom or tradition in Bislama) and vakavanua ' the way of the land' in Fijian seem to be local variants of a pan-Pacific concept of tradition.2 What I suggest here is that these terms mark quite different articulations of past and present. Kastom is predicated on a sense of rupture and revival, vakavanua on a sense of continuity between past and present. Kastom tends more thoroughly to expunge European elements and is associated not just with a moral criticism of European ways but with more trenchant opposition towards foreigners in general and whites in particular. Vakavanua incorporates European elements Wesley an Methodism and British codifications of chiefly hierarchies and land tenure that are now seen as part of the way of the land This is in contrast to ' the way of money' , associated not only with foreigners, Europeans and Fiji-Indians, but also indigenous practitioners of the ' way of money' . In Vanuatu, Christianity and colonialism are seen much more as a rupture with a heathen past, in Fiji (at least from the viewpoint of the eastern confederacies) as flowing continuously from ancestral practices (Toren 1988). This contemporary contrast in the meanings of these terms, derives in part from a divergent experience of colonization and decolonization. In Fiji tradition was in large degree legitimated and codified by the colonial state; in Vanuatu, for the most part, it was not. In Fiji independence was attained without a struggle self-government was peacefully conferred by Britain in 1970. In Vanuatu independence was achieved after a protracted, complicated, and ultimately violent, struggle. Britain, which had long wanted to divest itself of this conj oint colony with France supported the nationalist movement from the early 1970s. But local and metropolitan French interests, American speculators and indigenous secessionists opposed independence, culminating in violent struggles on Santo and Tanna in the year of independence, 1980.3 Margaret Rodman suggests that in the colonization of Vanuatu (previously the New Hebrides/Nouvelles Hebrides) tradition was preserved in the service of metropolitan interests (1984:64). She argues, as many have done for Africa and Papua New Guinea, that preserving

Custom and the way of the land: past and present in vanuatu and fiji

Pillars and Shadows: Statebuilding as peacebuilding in Solomon Islands

This thesis argues that the colonial ruling class developed its first White Australia policy in 1888, creating most of the precedents for the federal legislation of 1901. White Australia was central to the making of the Australian working class, to the shaping of Australian nationalism, and the development of federal political institutions. It has long been understood as a product of labour movement mobilising, but this thesis rejects that approach, arguing that the labour movement lacked the power to impose such a fundamental national policy, and that the key decisions which led to White Australia were demonstrably not products of labour movement action. It finds three great ruling class agendas behind the decisions to exclude Chinese immigrants, and severely limit the use of indentured “coloured labour”. Chinese people were seen as a strategic threat to Anglo-Australian control of the continent, and this fear was sharpened in the mid-1880s when China was seen as a rising military power, and a necessary ally for Britain in its global rivalry with Russia. The second ruling class agenda was the building of a modern industrial economy, which might be threatened by industries resting on indentured labour in the north. The third agenda was the desire to construct an homogenous people, which was seen as necessary for containing social discontent and allowing “free institutions”, such as parliamentary democracy.

/pdf/the-making-of-white-australia-ruling-class-agendas-1876-1888-13nsik7ik7.pdf

The making of White Australia: Ruling class agendas, 1876-1888

Melanesian warfare: a theoretical history

Coerced and free labor: Property rights and the development of the labor force

/pdf/passage-port-and-plantation-a-history-of-solomon-islands-h8c5tqp6eh.pdf

Passage, port and plantation;: A history of Solomon Islands labour migration, 1870-1914

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Passage, port and plantation;: A history of Solomon Islands labour migration, 1870-1914