Life after Rugby: Issues of Being an ‘Ex’ in Fiji Rugby

Rugby has given Fiji international recognition and reputation. Not only is rugby a source of national pride but it has also become a valuable export, with an estimated 500 Fijian players currently in foreign leagues in, for instance, New Zealand, Australia, France, England and Japan. The economic and sociocultural gains from rugby migration are often considerable, and consequently, many players in Fiji aspire to secure foreign club contracts as their personal and professional goal. However, little is known about the realities and challenges of the players' lives after their active playing career, the burden of which falls largely upon informal, community-/family-based support networks. Such informal structures are increasingly under strain especially in urban areas and, faced with a lack of formal structural support mechanisms, many retired athletes experience a number of socio-economic and emotional problems. Some negotiate their post-rugby life successfully, while many struggle with becoming and being an ‘ex’. Based on semi-structured interviews, the present paper explores these athletes' experiences of ‘life after rugby’ and illuminates the local and international neoliberal power dynamics that intersects Fiji rugby.     

Veivosaki-yaga: a culturally appropriate Indigenous research method in Fiji

This article reports on the development of a new culturally sensitive approach to collecting group discussion data in the Pacific: veivosaki-yaga. The new approach was developed during a project on Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) in multicultural Fiji. One challenge was to gain understanding from villages of parental attitudes towards TVET. While focus groups proved to answer the purpose for Indian Fijian parents, they were deemed culturally inappropriate for Indigenous Fijian parents. As a ‘de-colonising’ Pacific methodology, veivosaki-yaga was judged to offer a culturally appropriate framework. Arising from strategic communication conventions in Indigenous Fijian culture, veivosaki-yaga means ‘worthwhile discussion’ – of serious topics. It differs from the now well-known Pacific methodology approach of talanoa, which is based on much more informal and free-flowing discussion. This paper does not engage the findings of the original project as such, but seeks to convey the value of a culturally appropriate methodological approach devised therein. It contributes to the currently evolving literature on Pacific methodologies in the field of qualitative educational research.     

The preparation of Fijian school leaders: a framework for principal preparation in a South Pacific context

ABSTRACT

Increased school autonomy and a greater focus on achieving school effectiveness and improvement has made it essential to reconsider the role of school leaders (OECD 2009, Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS. Paris: OECD Publishing). This recommends that leadership development in this rapidly changing world deserves significant consideration compared to the past. With the increasing interest entrusted to school leadership, this article reports on how school leaders are currently prepared by the higher education programmes offered in two out of three universities in Fiji. Through an extensive literature review as well as through programme documents and policy reviews, this article focuses on current educational leadership post-graduate courses offered at these Fijian universities and highlight areas of strengths as well as suggests recommendations for improvement that are in line with identified needs for effective principal preparation in a Fijian context with key connections made to the larger South Pacific region.     

Maternal infanticides in Fiji

OBJECTIVE: This essay contributes to the cross-cultural literature on childhood homicides by examining 16 infanticidal homicides that occurred in Fiji over an 11-year period. The results are compared with infanticide studies conducted in other societies. METHOD: Official police data recorded in a Homicide and Manslaughter register are analyzed. These are supplemented by newspaper reports of infanticides and semi-structured interviews conducted with key criminal justice and medical personnel intimately associated with infanticide cases. RESULTS: The findings show that most infanticide defendants were young, poor, Fijian, with little formal education, living with nonparental kin at the time of the crime. The infanticides were precipitated by unwanted pregnancies brought on by nonmarital and extramarital sex. Pregnancy is carried to full gestation without knowledge of family, friends and neighbors of offenders and the infant is killed immediately following birth. CONCLUSIONS: The current findings demonstrate that the patterns of maternal infant killings in Fiji are congruous in many significant ways with those in advanced industrialized societies. It is concluded that additional research in non-Western, nonindustrialized nations is imperative to contribute to the development of sound conclusions about, and remedies for infanticide.     

Researching teachers working with young adolescents: implications for ethnographic research

Several societies throughout the global North and South are now witnessing unprecedented patterns of marginally higher female academic performance and educational attainment. But the processes that have generated such patterns and responses to their development have not been uniform across or within these societies. In multiracial Fiji, statistics reveal higher secondary school enrolment and lower attrition rates for Fijian females compared with Fijian males, and while national examination scores are not aggregated by sex, Fijian girls are widely viewed as relatively ‘higher achievers’. Drawing from participant observation in a working-class, co-educational, predominantly Fijian secondary school and a selective Fijian girls’ secondary school, this article explores how the intersections of social class, culture and sex structure in schools mediate the interpretation of, response to, and assessment of Fijian female academic achievement.     

Indigenous Fijian female pupils and career choice: explaining generational gender reproduction

This paper examines aspects of the school-to-work transition process for high-achieving indigenous Fijian young women using selective data from a wider study of school-to-work transitions conducted in 2005. It appears that traditional and colonial understandings of the role of Fijian women still shape even high-achieving girls' career and life options; these are expressed through their subject choices at school and their narrow career aspirations. While the social reproduction mechanisms of schools are evident, families and communities are also implicated. High-achieving girls still tend to emulate the career choices of older women in their families and communities, even in the current context of a marked lessening of labour market opportunities for the time-honoured “white-collar” occupations of teaching, nursing and public service work. Some provisional interpretations, looking towards productive interventions at school, community and church level, of this phenomenon are offered.     

Sport Migration and Sociocultural Transformation: The Case of Fijian Rugby Union Players in Japan

Since the 1990s several Fijians have entered rugby union competitions in Japan, attracted predominantly by the financial incentives offered by large corporations who dominate Japanese rugby. In Japan, Fijians face numerous economic, demographic and sociocultural experiences that challenge the vaka i taukei (the ‘traditional’ Fijian way of life). Migration thus becomes a lens through which Fijians review their identity and place in the world. This paper discusses the sociocultural complexities that underpin critical migrant perspectives on the communal patterns that dominate the Fijian way of life. Based on research conducted in Fiji and Japan, this contribution provides an anthropological perspective on transnational Pacific Islander rugby mobility. It pays particular attention to aspects of sociocultural transformation – a theme previously neglected in scholarship on Pacific Islanders in professional rugby.     

‘It's good to teach them,but … they should also know when to apply it’: parents’ views and attitudes towards Fiji's Family Life Education curriculum

A Family Life Education (FLE) curriculum was introduced in Fiji schools in 2010 in response to concern about increasing teenage pregnancies and young people's vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections and other health and social problems. However, conservative and suspicious parental attitudes towards FLE have been an obstacle. The need for an educational programme for parents to complement the FLE curriculum taught in schools is now urgent. This study examines parents' views on the sex and sexuality component of the FLE curriculum. Data were collected from 474 individuals using questionnaires, focus groups and face-to-face interviews. Participants represented different ethnic groups with Indigenous Fijians, women and Christians in the majority. The influence of the Christian religion on negative attitudes towards homosexuality and the use of protection is strong, as is parents' resistance to discussing sex education with their children. The paper concludes with suggestions on how to counter parents’ resistance to what they negatively perceive as Western or unbiblical ideas.     

Early Care,Education, and Family Life in Rural Fiji: Experiences and Reflections

As a member of a delegation of educators, physicians, and lay people to rural Fiji the author shares her experiences and reflections of early care, education, and family life on a small, remote island. She discusses her visits to the village and boarding school, and her interactions with teachers, children, and parents in the early childhood classroom and community. Her understanding of teacher education and preparation, the primary educational system, and curriculum goals and revisions of the country are highlighted.     

The role of sport in reflecting and shaping group dynamics: The “intergroup relations continuum” and its application to Fijian rugby and soccer

A significant body of knowledge exists around the role of intergroup relations in sport for development and peace (SFDP). However, while numerous SFDP researchers have investigated overt conflict, scholars have typically overlooked the varied nature of intergroup relations in comparatively stable SFDP environments. In addressing that issue, the authors explore intergroup relations in the context of Fiji, a country which in recent years has moved from a society characterized by the politics of coup d'état to democratic government and relatively peaceful social relations. That said, Fiji has long been shaped by a fundamental cultural divide between Indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) and Fijians of Indian ancestry (Indo-Fijians): this is reflected in the de facto separatism between these groups in relation to their role in rugby union and Association football (soccer). The authors present a qualitative framework—the Intergroup Relations Continuum (IRC)—by which to map intergroup relations as they apply in Fiji according to identity, ethnicity and sport. While the IRC is applied here in a Fijian context, the model is intended to be generalizable, aiming to provide a practical instrument for researchers, sport managers, policymakers and local stakeholders. The goal is to allow them to visually illustrate group affinities, rivalries, and sensibilities in terms of collective relationships that characterize sport and society.