{"title":"A Political History of the Subject: Brij V. Lal on Leadership","authors":"Jack Corbett","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2271126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2271126","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTBrij V. Lal was the most prolific writer on post-colonial politics in Fiji. Many of these writings concerned political leaders and the nature of political leadership. Biographies of A.D. Patel and Jai Ram Reddy stand out, but Lal's other writings on politics nevertheless foregrounded people, and the way their personalities shaped, and were shaped by, the times in which they lived. In this article I consider how this biographer’s sensibility implicitly invokes a theory of political leadership and re-read Lal’s contribution to the study of politics in Fiji from this standpoint. I argue that his ‘political history of the subject’ offers both a justification for, and approach to, studying leadership in a person-centred way.Key words: Brij V. LalFijileadershipbiographyPacific history Notes1 Barbara Kellerman and Scott W. Webster, ‘The Recent Literature on Public Leadership Reviewed and Considered’, Leadership Quarterly 12, no. 4 (2001): 490.2 Lal in Jack Corbett, ‘Curtain Call’ [interview with Brij V. Lal], Bearing Witness: Essays in Honour of Brij V. Lal. ed. Doug Munro and Jack Corbett (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017), 57.3 Brij V. Lal, Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the Twentieth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1992), xvii.4 Another is that the study of political leadership is nowhere near as global in its coverage as it should be.5 Jack Corbett, ‘Meetings with the Three Lals: That’s Brij Lal, Professor Lal and Brij V. Lal’, in Munro and Corbett, Bearing Witness, 289.6 Brij V. Lal, ‘End of a Phase of History: Writing the Life of a Reluctant Fiji Politician’, in Political Life Writing in the Pacific: Reflections on Practice, ed. Jack Corbett and Brij V. Lal (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 71.7 E.g., John Boswell, Jack Corbett, and R.A.W. Rhodes, The Art and Craft of Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Jack Corbett, ‘Where do Leaders come From? A Leader-Centred Approach’, Developmental Leadership Program Foundational Paper, 1 Sept. 2019, https://www.dlprog.org/publications/foundational-papers/where-do-leaders-come-from (accessed 29 Sept. 2023).8 Chris Gregory, ‘History as Concealed Autobiography? Brij Lal’s Historical Dictionary of Fiji’, Journal of Pacific History (hereinafter JPH) 52, no. 1 (2017): 109.9 Brij V. Lal, A Vision for Change: A.D. Patel and the Politics of Fiji (Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, 1997). Lal provides the background to the dramatis personae in his Historical Dictionary of Fiji (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2105), where his biographer’s sensibility is on display. Also useful is an earlier dictionary of Fiji biography: Stewart Firth and Daryl Tarte, eds, 20th Century Fiji: People who Shaped this Nation (Suva: USP Solutions, 2001).10 Published in Pacific Studies 18, no. 1 (1994): 31–77. Sitiveni Rabuka (b. 1948) was the public face of the coup in 1987. He subsequently served as prime minister (1992–9) and again from Dec","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134991586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editors’ Introduction: Brij V. Lal and the Contemporary Politics of Fiji","authors":"Doug Munro, Jon Fraenkel","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2254715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2254715","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis special issue of the Journal of Pacific History brings together several scholars, who were close to Professor Brij Lal, to write on the contemporary politics of Fiji. Brij died on 25 December 2021.Key words: Brij V. LalFiji politicsconstitution-makingforeign policyelections AcknowledgementWe thank Satyendra Peerthum for his assistance.Notes1 Brij V. Lal, Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians (Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1983); Clem Seecharan, ‘Foreword: Girmitiyas and my Discovery of India’, in Lal, ed., Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians, 2nd ed. (Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2004), 1–26; Lance Brennan and Ralph Shlomowitz, ‘Reflections on Brij Lal’s Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians’, in Bearing Witness: Essays in Honour of Brij V. Lal, ed. Doug Munro and Jack Corbett (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017), 117–26; Goolam Vahed, ‘Rooting for History’, in Munro and Corbett, eds, Bearing Witness, 65–85; Ashutosh Kumar, Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 6–8.2 Doug Munro, ‘Bibliography of Brij V. Lal’s Academic Writings’, in Bearing Witness, ed. Munro and Corbett, 307–30. Eighteen of Brij’s books were written for or reissued by ANU Press and are available as free downloads: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/authors-editors/brij-v-lal.3 E.g., History Professor Brij Lal: His Life and Legacies, 16 Jan. 2022, https://indocaribbeanpublications.com/2022/01/29/video-recording-history-professor-brij-lal-his-life-and-legacies-by-staff-reporter/ (accessed 21 Aug. 2023); Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre, ‘Celebrating Early Indian Intellectuals of the Diaspora’, YouTube video, 2:35:59, 1 May 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU-ydkDHCVs&ab_channel=Indo-CaribbeanCulturalCentre (accessed 21 Aug. 2023). Both Zoom public meetings were jointly hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre, Trinidad and Tobago; Ameena Gafoor Institute, London; and 1860 Heritage Centre, Greyville, KwaZulu-Natal. There were also keynote lectures and tribute sessions on Brij at ‘Celebrating Girmitiya Lives’ (Fourth Global Girmit Institute Conference, University of the South Pacific, Suva, 12–13 May 2023); ‘Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour 3 Conference’ (Anton de Korn University of Suriname, 6–10 June 2023); ‘Colloque: Dire l’engagisme dans l’ocean Indien: histoire, circulations, pluralitès’ (Le Centre des arts et de culture, Saint-Denis, Réunion, 2–4 Aug. 2023).4 For a biographical study of Brij, see Doug Munro, The Ivory Tower and Beyond: Participant Historians of the Pacific (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 243–309.5 Most of this corpus is gathered together in Brij V. Lal, Chalo Jahaji: On a Journey through Indenture in Fiji (Canberra: Division of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University; Suva: Fiji Museum, 2000).6 Brij V. Lal, ed., Politics in Fiji: Studies in Contemporary History (Sydn","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":" 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135291457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa <i>Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa</i> . By Holger Droessler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2022. 304 pp, illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780674263338(hbk). US$41.00.","authors":"Victoria Stead","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2273000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2273000","url":null,"abstract":"\"Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa.\" The Journal of Pacific History, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":" 28","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135341438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Anatomy of Frank Bainimarama’s Defeat at the Fiji December 2022 Election","authors":"Jon Fraenkel","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2255358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2255358","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"32 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136069495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eight Months in the Cook Islands","authors":"Tim Jones","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2231685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2231685","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"16 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136158131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reframing Suffrage Narratives: Pacific Women, Political Voice, and Collective Empowerment","authors":"Sonia Palmieri, Elise Howard, Kerryn Baker","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2247348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2247348","url":null,"abstract":"Dominant narratives of women’s suffrage have been shaped in ways that marginalize Pacific women’s experiences. Such narratives have emphasized the struggles of Global North women to achieve individualized political empowerment, primarily through the right to vote, from the late 19th century. By measures of struggle, individual empowerment and temporality, Pacific women have been characterized as passive recipients of the vote in the late 20th century. In this article, we contest these narratives through foregrounding Pacific women’s political contributions, and reconsidering how suffrage is defined in Global South contexts. By revisiting the Pacific women’s suffrage story and highlighting activism that mirrors and extends the strategies adopted by suffragists around the world to claim political voice, we put forward a more comprehensive picture of women’s franchise in the Pacific. In doing so, we uncover tensions between collective conceptualizations of political empowerment and the individual rights-centred approach favoured by dominant suffrage narratives.","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"154 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135219387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Two Different Personalities from Old Rapa Nui: Personal Effects of ‘ <i>ariki mau</i> Nga‘ara (? – ca. 1859) and ‘Prophetess’ María Angata Veri Tahi (ca. 1853–1914) – Part II: Angata’s Bible","authors":"Tomi S. Melka, Robert M. Schoch","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2215725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2215725","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTIn Part I of this article, we discussed an English caplock pistol that reportedly belonged to the Easter Island (Rapa Nui) King Nga‘ara (? – ca. 1859) and the birdmen motif found on the pistol grip, comparing the pistol’s birdmen figures to similar figures found carved on boulders and rock surfaces on Easter Island. In Part II we turn to a consideration of another seminal individual in the history of the island, María Angata Veri Tahi – the Rapanui ‘Prophetess’ and chief organizer of the 1914 rebellion against the Compañía Explotadora de la Isla de Pascua. Thanks to the generosity of the current owner, we have been allowed to study a nineteenth-century artefact that was once in the possession of Angata – an 1849 English Holy Bible. This Bible is of note as (1) in contrast to Angata’s conversion to Roman Catholic beliefs, it is a Protestant Bible, and (2) it features a short inscription in vernacular Rapanui on the inside of its back cover which may have been penned by Angata herself or by another Rapanui under her direction. The present analysis of the Bible (and other associated objects) suggests a number of hypotheses regarding the historical context in which Angata lived and operated, while shedding light on various aspects of the prophetess’s life and activities. Whether raising the spirits of her Rapanui followers against foreign institutions and shifting powers or fuelling a new brand of syncretic religion on the island, Angata’s historical importance merits the attention of modern scholarship.Key words: Bible, bead-/‘button’-like objectscatechistCompañía Explotadora de la Isla de Pascua (CEDIP)María Angata (Aŋata)mother-of-pearl crossRapanui revolt/rebellion of 1914rosary SUPPLEMENTAL DATA AND ILLUSTRATIONSSupplement accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2215725.AcknowledgementsIn Part II, we acknowledge the interesting discussions with Gordon Berthin, Roberto Weber Ch., Nancy Thiesen de Weber, Ewan Maidment, Grant McCall, Bernard Hausdorf, Philippe Bouchet, Ellen Strong, Bret K. Raines, and Paulus-Jan A. Kieviet concerning various aspects of the history, ethnography, language, malacology, and bibliography of Rapa Nui. Under this vein, we are most grateful for their input. Any possible lapse along the suggested hypotheses is ours.Notes1 Tomi S. Melka and Robert M. Schoch, ‘On Two Different Personalities from Old Rapa Nui: Personal Effects of ‘ariki mau Nga‘ara (? – ca. 1859) and ‘Prophetess’ María Angata Veri Tahi (ca. 1853–1914) – Part I: The Pistol of Nga‘ara’, The Journal of Pacific History 58, no. 3 (2023).2 We must respect the desire of various dealers, collectors, and owners to remain anonymous; otherwise, we would not be allowed access to their collections for purposes of scholarly study.3 It should be highlighted that the current owner’s interest in the artefact is of a non-religious nature and, certainly, s/he does not practise any form of witchcraft.4 The Holy Bible, The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and Ne","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135252082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Troubles and Puzzles: The 2022 General Elections in Papua New Guinea","authors":"Terence Wood, Maholopa Laveil, Michael Kabuni","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2248008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2248008","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on the 2022 general elections in Papua New Guinea, covering both electoral quality and election outcomes. Overall, the 2022 elections were very troubled. In parts of the country, serious violence and electoral fraud were major issues. In other parts of the country, polling was less fraught. However, some problems, such as the roll, were serious almost everywhere. In terms of election outcomes, one outcome – only two women won seats – was predictable. However, the election brought puzzling results too: in particular, incumbents were re-elected at the highest rate ever. And the largest party won a larger share of seats than has been the case in any election since 1982. Neither of the latter two results appear to have been a direct product of electoral fraud. Rather, the party outcome stems from a turn-of-the-millennium rule change. High incumbent re-election rates remain a genuine puzzle.","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"314 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135924311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Polynesian Agency and the Establishment of the French Centre for Pacific Tests","authors":"Renaud Meltz, Alexis Vrignon","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2227103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2227103","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTSince the 1960s, the installation of the Centre for Pacific Tests (Centre d’expérimentation du Pacifique or CEP) in French Polynesia has given rise to important debates concerning the agency of the populations in relationship to a decision on which they were not consulted. Until now, these debates have often focused on the reactions of the political class. In this article, we propose another approach to these issues by focusing on economic and social questions, with particular attention paid to the multiple strategies implemented by Polynesian workers. As this article demonstrates, while local actors had no say in the decision to set up the CEP in French Polynesia, the actual process of infrastructure construction, the interactions induced by these activities and the transformation of local power relations constituted opportunities for Islanders to develop their own strategies based on their interests and desires, their opinions, and the constraints that weighed unequally on them.Key words: French Polynesianuclear testsagencycolonial situationsocial change Notes1 Vincent Jauvert, ‘Essais nucléaires: Les archives interdites de l’armée’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 5 Feb. 1998; Sébastien Philippe and Thomas Statius, Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires en Polynésie française (Paris: PUF, 2021).2 The programme is funded by the French Polynesian government through the Delegation for Monitoring the Consequences of Nuclear Tests (2018–21).3 In English, the Atomic Energy Commission – Directorate for Military Applications.4 The testimonies gathered within our research programme complement those collected by Bruno Barrillot and others. See Bruno Barrillot, Les polynésiens et les essais nucléaires. Indépendance nationale et dépendance polynésienne, Commission d’enquête sur les conséquences des essais nucléaires (Pape‘ete, Assemblée de la Polynésie française, 2006); Bruno Barrillot, Témoins de la bombe: mémoires de 30 ans d’essais nucléaires en Polynésie française (Pape‘ete: Editions Univers Polynésiens, 2017).5 Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson, Moruroa, notre bombe coloniale (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993). First published in French in 1974 as Morurua, mon amour, the revised English language version is Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Thérèse Danielsson, Moruroa mon amour: The French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific (London: Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977).6 J.W. Davidson, ‘French Polynesia and the French Nuclear Tests: The Submission of John Teariki’, Journal of Pacific History 2 (1967): 149–54.7 Jean-Marc Regnault, ‘Tahiti, avec et sans la bombe’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire 53, no. 1 (1997): 55–67.8 Recent examples include Arthur Asseraf, Le désinformateur: Sur les traces de Messaoud Djebari, un Algérien dans le monde colonial (Paris: Fayard, 2022) and, for the Pacific, Christophe Granger, Joseph Kabris ou les possibilités d’une vie: 1780–1822 (Paris: Flammarion, 2022).9 Bernard Dumortier, Les atolls de l’atome (Rennes: Marines éditions, 200","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135924152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Suva Stories: A History of the Capital of Fiji","authors":"Clive Moore","doi":"10.1080/00223344.2023.2185474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223344.2023.2185474","url":null,"abstract":"\"Suva Stories: A History of the Capital of Fiji.\" The Journal of Pacific History, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2","PeriodicalId":45229,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136340085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}