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Book and Media Reviews 475 Jamon Halvaksz * book and media reviews 475 by Pamela J Stewart and Andrew tions, the collection provides a useful Strathern nicely frame the discussion resource for breaking up our tendency of landscapes with additional ethno- toward regionalism. It is applicable graphic material and a useful theoreti- for students of political ecology and cal overview, allowing them to stand postcolonial studies, and would be a alone as pedagogically useful chap- useful text for upper-level undergrad- ters. One minor concern is the stated uate and graduate courses on those focus on landscapes, history, and subjects. memory. While landscapes certainly jamon halvaksz provoke discussion of history and Macmillan Brown Centre memory, the latter is not uniformly for Pacific Studies, sustained throughout the volume. Memory is implied by the idea of University of Canterbury landscapes, as relating humanity to pasts, provoking and cajoling histo- *** ries into the present. It is, therefore, Bittersweet: The Indo-Fijian implicit in each of the case studies. Experience, edited by Brij V Lal. However, the work of memory is Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2004. rarely problematized. Half of the arti- isbn 1-74076-1170; viii (unnum- cles do discuss the role of memory in bered) + 407 pages, photographs, creating place (Guo, Harper, O’Han- notes, in English and Indo-Fijian lon and Frankland, Smith, and languages. Paper, a$40.91. Strang), though even here the meaning of memory is often assumed. At times, Indo-Fijians of the second girmit history and memory seem like glosses (labor migration from India) diaspora, for one another, and not distinct ana- now twice-migrants, have ensured that lytical tools. In the introduction to the the histories, cultures, and futures of volume as well, landscape is the over- Indians in Fiji are well known, and whelming focus of the theoretical Brij V Lal, the editor and contributor overview, while the work of memory of a prologue and five chapters to is given a much shorter discussion. Bittersweet, has been most responsi- The introduction and contributions to ble for the considerable depth of this volume are not any less significant research and publication on the Indo- because of the fact that the volume Fijian experience. Bittersweet adds an does not really live up to the billing important body of literature to our of landscape, memory, and history. understanding of the individual and Landscapes, Memory and History: collective memories of Fiji’s Indo- Anthropological Perspectives would Fijian population. Although many of be a useful volume for cultural geog- Bittersweet’s authors live outside Fiji, raphers, anthropologists, and histori- reminiscences of mostly rural life in ans interested in landscapes. The arti- Fiji in the mid and late twentieth cles are quite accessible and provide century form the central link among evocative and important case studies. all the essays. More importantly, by providing a Surprisingly, as many authors note, broad range of ethnographic loca- a consistent feature of these stories is 476 the contemporary pacific • 17:2 (2005) the close and diverse relationships that Fijians and Indo-Fijians and between existed between indigenous Fijians Indo-Fijians and the European colo- and Indo-Fijians. In this sense Bitter- nial enclave that administered the sweet adds as much to the general colony and ran csr (the Colonial history of Fiji as it does specifically to Sugar Refinery). But overwhelmingly the Indo-Fijian community’s part in and repeatedly Bittersweet is a rose- that history. As individual memories colored story of schoolmates, friends, of this era are fading, and collective fellow soccer players, former teachers, memory has been muddled by con- revered religious leaders, and the scious political social memory, a wide annual cycle of Indo-Fijian religious audience can now be grateful that and community life. It distinguishes those who lived in or carried out between Hindu and Muslim Fiji but research in Fiji in this era have found more so between life experiences as in Bittersweet a platform to tell of they were lived differently in Dilku- their experiences. Not all Bittersweet’s sha, Dreketi, Flagstaff, Nausori, and authors are of Indo-Fijian descent, but Votualevu. all have a story to tell about Fiji. The twenty-four chapters (one in There are many fascinating and Fiji Hindi) are arranged randomly, illuminating insights in Bittersweet. and personal reminiscences are inter- Seemingly offhand comments and mixed with straight historical pieces short analytical asides are scattered like those by Jacqui Leckie on the among longer pieces. These one-line Qawa epidemic, Mohit Prasad on the references to people and events, inci- early popularity of multiethnic soccer, dental comments on trends, and occa- Christine Weir on schooling, John sional summative statements remind Kelly on Indo-Fijian festivals as a form the reader that Fiji has changed dra- of colonial protest, John Connell and matically in the thirty years since the Sushma Raj on migrating Indo-Fijians colonial era ended. Memories of in Sydney, as well as Brij Lal’s excel- school days, marriages, rites of pas- lent opening essay, which succinctly sage, festivals, girmit, coups, and com- surveys the girmit period. The Indo- munity events are contextualized by Fijian diaspora in Australia, the the post-independence struggles of Fiji United States, and New Zealand is as a nation, and more so by post-coup also covered in three essays. Vijay competitiveness and ethnic divisions Naidu’s essay “Searching” (chapter in the last fifteen years. Bittersweet’s 23) comments on recent events and authors are aware of national politics should have been placed after Lal’s and major historical events, but the opening survey as a guide to the stories consistently privilege the per- themes tackled personally by the sonal and local above the national. following authors. They do challenge established histo- In between these useful academic ries of Fiji’s recent past by stressing accounts, Bittersweet offers its real how ordinary rural life was character- gems—Vijay Mishra’s account of the ized by varying levels of intimate and elusive community of “Dilkusha,” dependent relationships between Praveen and Saras Chandra’s quest book and media reviews 477 for the truth behind their great-grand- living, studying, mourning, playing, father’s criminal conviction in 1913, and praying together. This message is Brij Lal’s search for stories about his not blazoned in subtitles or subhead- former teacher Mr Sita Ram, Ahmed ings but is subtly revealed through the Ali’s reflections on the arrival and ordinary language of personal recol- survival of Muslims in Fiji, Fiji Times lection and reminiscence. It offers a editor Vijendra Kumar’s coup experi- salutary lesson to readers that for ences, and Annie Sutton’s tales of much of the twentieth century there schoolgirl life at St John’s in Levuka was a duality in Fiji, difference not in the 1980s. between Fijians and Indo-Fijians, but The other half of Fiji is revealed in between the politicized modernity of these essays and I say that purpose- Suva and the accommodation and fully. Through the essay on his experi- respect of rural Fiji. The coups of ences as an ophthalmic surgeon work- 1987 and 2000 emphasized the for- ing on diabetes-induced blindness in mer and took conflict to rural areas, Fiji, Malcolm Tester reminds us that and this change in Fiji is revealed in visitors to (and readers about) Fiji most essayists’ memories of days usually see only through a narrow gone by. window, with Indo-Fijians as laborers There is much to gain by reading in fields, in hotel lobbies, and behind Bittersweet as an academic history of duty-free-store counters. My first visit the Indo-Fijian experience, but it may was in 1971 and I have continued to also be read purely to enjoy the stories visit regularly across the last thirty of individuals not often allowed onto years, in addition to leading five the pages of scholarly works. There undergraduate university fieldwork are many insights. Mohit Prasad excursions to Fiji. I am guilty of the suggests a fascinating link between narrow definition of Fiji that Tester schooling, family identities, the build- refers to, of ignoring the multiethnic ing of soccer pitches, soccer competi- composition of Fiji. It was not until tions, and the drinking of yagona 2003 that the fieldwork learning (Fijian ceremonial drink, also known experience, which claimed to intro- as kava, made from the pepper plant). duce Australian students to the full Brij Lal suggests in “Masterji” that spectrum of Fijian life, included the Indo-Fijian emphasis on education extended homestays with Indo-Fijian was not driven by desire to enter into families. the cash economy but sought as a The 2003 undergraduate fieldwork refuge from the grim reality and I led highlighted two Fijis, but also poverty of rural life. Susanna Trnka the fact that outside Suva there is argues that defining villages or settle- more harmony and accommodation ments (goan) with a geographic or than tension and competitiveness. political boundary is a limiting con- What Bittersweet does brilliantly is ceptualization, and she suggests that reveal the normality of mid-century Indo-Fijians had strong, even fiercely multiethnic life in Fiji, with many defended community identities even Indo-Fijians and Fijians working, when physically it appeared they were 478 the contemporary pacific • 17:2 (2005) located in dispersed dwellings and latest, trendy access path to under- lacked a nodal point or central “offi- standing the past. cial” leadership. Padma Lal notes the max quanchi hard labor and anger of widowed Queensland University of women cane farmers and predicts Technology, Brisbane, Australia Indo-Fijian leaseholders in the sugar industry face a dismal and uncertain future. These aspects of contemporary *** Fiji need further research. Pacific Places, Pacific Histories: Essays The prologue promises to analyze in Honor of Robert C Kiste, edited by “memory,” but this historiographical Brij V Lal.
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