Kanemasu, Yoko (2013) A national pride or a colonial construct? Touristic representation and the politics of Fijian identity construction. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 19 (1). pp. 71-89. ISSN 1350-4630
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Abstract
Identity research in the Pacific region has been dominated in the past by discussions of reconstruction and mobilisation of symbols of cultural tradition as a medium of anti-colonial resistance and nationalism. The present article proposes to widen the scope of this literature by exploring mass tourism as a contested field of collective identification. It outlines the historical making of the colonial and post-colonial imagery of indigenous Fijians and its subsequent reification and essentialisation in the context of twentieth-century mass tourism. It further highlights the implication of this process in colonial, anti-colonial and post-independence national politics, in which indigenous Fijians have been variously located: the imagery has been claimed by Western colonialism, transnational corporate capitalism, ethno-nationalism, and counter-hegemony. The article illustrates that collective identity construction is not political in a unidimensional manner but constitutes a dynamic arena of ongoing ‘cultural battle’ where multiple power relations unfold simultaneously.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | A General Works > AI Indexes (General) |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Yoko Kanemasu |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Sep 2014 03:21 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Jun 2016 23:26 |
| URI: | https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/7630 |
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