Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire

277 Pages·2016·1.558 MB·English

by  Tracey Banivanua Mar

Decolonisation and the Pacific
This book charts a previously untold story of decolonisation in the
oceanicworldofthePacific,AustraliaandNewZealand,presentingit
as both an indigenous and an international phenomenon. Tracey
Banivanua Mar reveals how the inherent limits of decolonisation
werelaidbarebythehistoricalpeculiaritiesofcolonialismintheregion
anddemonstratesthewayimperialpowersconfigureddecolonisation
as a new form of imperialism. She shows how Indigenous peoples
respondedtotheselimitsbydevelopingrichintellectual,politicaland
culturalnetworksthattranscendedcolonialandnationalborders,and
connectedlocalisedtraditionsofprotestanddialoguewiththeglobal
fermentofthetwentiethcentury.Theindividualstoriestoldhereshed
new light on the forces that shaped twentieth-century global history
andre-configurethehistoryofdecolonisation.Decolonisationispre-
sentednotasanhistoriceventbutasafragile,contingentandongoing
processthatcontinuedwellintothepostcolonialera.
tracey banivanua mar is an Australian Research Council Future
Fellow and Principal Research Fellow at La Trobe University,
Australia.ShehaspreviouslypublishedViolenceandColonialDialogue:
TheAustralian-PacificIndenturedLaborTrade(2007).
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CriticalPerspectivesonEmpire
Editors
ProfessorCatherineHall
UniversityCollegeLondon
ProfessorMrinaliniSinha
UniversityofMichigan
ProfessorKathleenWilson
StateUniversityofNewYork,StonyBrook
Critical Perspectives on Empire is a major series of ambitious, cross-disciplinary
worksintheemergingfieldofcriticalimperialstudies.Booksintheseriesexplore
the connections, exchanges and mediations at the heart of national and global
histories,the contributionsof localas wellasmetropolitan knowledge,and the
flowsofpeople,ideasandidentitiesfacilitatedbycolonialcontact.Tothatend,
the series not only offers a space for outstanding scholars working at the
intersectionofseveraldisciplinestobringtowiderattentiontheimpactoftheir
work; it also takes a leading role in reconfiguring contemporary historical and
criticalknowledgeofthepastandofourselves.
Afulllistoftitlespublishedintheseriescanbefoundat:
www.cambridge.org/cpempire
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fi
Decolonisation and the Paci c
Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire
Tracey Banivanua Mar
LaTrobeUniversity,Australia
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UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107037595
©TraceyBanivanuaMar2016
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2016
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc
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ISBN978-1-107-03759-5Hardback
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For Nisi and Jimmy
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Contents
Preface pageix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction:sailingthewindsofchange–decolonisation
andthePacific 1
1 Borders:thecolonisationofmobileworlds 22
2 Currents:thewellspringsofdecolonisation 48
3 Churn:restlessnessandworldgovernmentbetween
thewars 82
4 Saltwater:theseparationofpeopleandterritory 114
5 Flight:territorialintegrityanddependentdecolonisation 147
6 Black:internalisingdecolonisationandnetworksof
solidarity 183
Conclusion:proceduraldecolonisationandIndigenous
philosophiesofuncolonising 216
Bibliography 226
Index 258
vii
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Preface
BubuTakawasmygreataunt.ShewasaregalfigurewhenImetherin
Melbourne in the 1980s on her first trip out of Fiji. She was small, frail
and fierce with a shock of a white afro, a wicked sense of independence
andthesharptongueofamatriarchwhohadhelpedraisethreegenera-
tions.Shediedhavinglivedintwo,possiblythree,centuries.Noonewas
toosurehowoldshewasasshehadnobirthcertificate,butmostofthe
familyiscontenttosayshewaswellover100,oldenoughtoremember
whenwhitemenwerearumour.Notlongaftershedied,thefamilydug
up an old photo that was taken in the village on our island in the Lau
Group,Fiji.Itwasblurryandscratched,butithasbeenreproducedmany
times,asoneoftheonlyknownphotosofsomeofourdearestrelations.In
the foreground, seated at a table laden with glassware and food, and in
crisp white clothes, probably late Victorian or Edwardian, were a white
manandawomanandpresumablytheirchildren.Inthebackgroundand
standingweremyrelatives,mygreatgrandfatherinhisprimeandsmall
children, among them Bubu’s little sister Qalo. It is unclear who was
servingwho,orhowthetablesetting,theseating,theVictoriandelicacies
of the seated family and the clean white cotton were maintained in the
village setting. The trappings of empire, in this instance at least, were
conditional.
Whateverherexactage,BubuTakawasclearlyachildaroundtheturn
of the twentieth century. She grew up at a time when she would have
neededpermissionandapasstoleavethevillage,letalonetheisland.In
the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the Indigenous Fijian
populationappearedtobeinterminaldecline,aswasthecaseelsewhere
in the Pacific and Australia. In state-sponsored efforts, Indigenous
mothers everywhere and especially in Fiji were being taught by well-
meaning European women how to mother, how to clean and how to
think and behave like civilised women. This even as the kitchens and
nurseries of white families throughout the islands and many parts of
Australia were staffed by Indigenous houseboys and housegirls. These
were Bubu Taka’s formative years, when she and her community were
ix
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x Preface
being systematically recast as ‘natives’ in a period when colonialism
throughouttheworldhadreacheditszenith.Inthedecadesthatfollowed,
asdistantworldwarswerefoughtandthetwentiethcenturyunfolded,the
formalempirescrumbled–partlyself-inflicted,partlyimposedby‘native’
men and women sick of being infantilised by colonial governance. The
reverberationsoftheseglobalcurrentsreachedthePacificandtheislands,
touchingthebeachesandripplingawayagain,inherentlytransformedin
theprocess.
BubuTaka,probablybornagenerationafterFijiwasformallyannexed
byBritain,thereforelivedtoseeBritainhastilyleaveagainin1970.Ifshe
ever internalised the smallness of colonialism’s view of natives, by the
time I met her she had kicked against it. She was a global citizen then,
independentlyandseamlesslytraversingvillagelifeintheislands,urban
life in the Pacific’s capital centres and international travel to Australia.
Thisrelativefreedomofmovement,tohaveapassport,toliveindepen-
dentlyinthevillageorcityandeventowork,isthetangible,measurable
resultoftheeraofdecolonisation.Buthersenseofself,ofbeingsomeone
entitledtodothesethings–asanywhiteman–wastheproductofamore
complex, unevenand fragile process of unthinking and undoing coloni-
alism.Thisbooktellspartofthatstory.
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