traditional knowledge conference 2008 te tatau pounamu

Indigenous Strategies for Self-Representation:The View from Preschools in FijiSusan DeweyDePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, USAAbstractColonial-era schools in Fiji were segregated as part of a divide-and-rule strategy that sought to separateindigenous Fijians from Indo-Fijian contract labourers. This pattern largely continued afterindependence as part of a stress on mother-tongue education that functioned to divide many members ofthe two major ethnic groups into different schools. Fiji has experienced four coups since 1987, mostrecently in December 2006, all of which were justified, at least in part, by the political manipulation ofpublic perceptions on differences between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians (Fijians of Indiandescent). The 2006 coup was staged on the premise that its interim military government would, as itspropaganda often announces, “move the nation forward to build a better Fiji for all”, although, ratherthan increased ethnic harmony, the results were rising inflation, suspension of foreign aid and increasedeconomic difficulties for most families. In the midst of this turmoil, indigenous families struggle withtensions between the need to survive in an institutional system that does not value traditional knowledgeand the desire to preserve indigenous childrearing styles that are perceived as necessary to claimauthentic membership in the indigenous Fijian community. This paper makes use of ethnographicresearch by a cultural anthropologist at two preschools in Suva, Fiji, to document how indigenous Fijianparents prepare their youngest children to negotiate an educational system in which they areconsistently the lowest performers, and yet simultaneously resist institutional systems that refuse torecognize many of the values (including community responsibility for children) that are most central toindigenous Fijian notions of proper childrearing.IntroductionIt is late November in Suva and a preschool class of 40 children between three and five years of age arepractising dances that will later be performed for their parents to celebrate the end of the school year.The Indo-Fijian teachers have tried to reflect the multicultural character of their classroom, which iscomposed of indigenous Fijian, Indo-Fijian and other Pacific Islander children in equal numbers. Thecultural pageant thus consists of a mélange of Bollywood film dances, Fijian meke (dance), and reggaemusic. The teachers begin to frown as five-year-old Ta‘afa begins to dance a particularly energeticmeke by rapidly thrusting his pelvis forward as he opens and closes his legs.“Ta‘afa!” the head teacher shouts over the music, “Ta‘afa, do the meke nicely.” Ta‘afa stopsdancing as the other children look at him. “This is meke,” he responds, a look of confusion on his face.“Ta‘afa,” the teacher intones, “you are dancing like a bad boy.” Ta‘afa looks both confused and defiantas he insists, “But this is our traditional culture.” Without pausing to think, the head teacher effectivelysilences him for the rest of the morning when she says, “Then do your traditional culture at home.You’re a big boy in school now; you do what we teachers tell you.”This small event reveals much about the issues faced by indigenous children and their families inthe formal educational system in Fiji. Meke performances recount stories from the past about significantmoments in the oral history of a people, and incorporation of meke into the cultural pageant wassupposed to form the “indigenous Fijian” element of the evening’s performances. The Indo-Fijian headteacher was unfamiliar with variations in indigenous dance forms and felt that Ta‘afa’s pelvic and legmovements were overly sexualized and thus inappropriate. She communicated to five-year-old Ta‘afa,who had been performing a completely appropriate meke with great pride, that his cultural traditionswere not welcome in their school pageant and that the meke should be performed on terms dictated byher alone.The central question my paper seeks to address is twofold: (a) what historical and socio-politicalforces combined to create a situation in which Ta‘afa was reprimanded for performing a traditional165