ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the articulation of modes of production approach to analyze the evolution of Fiji society from the early nineteenth century to the present period. As this is a rather long period of time (some 180 years), the chapter only focuses on what are considered to be the most significant structural dimensions and most crucial changes in the different historical periods. The central argument of the chapter is that Fijian society had undergone very considerable and fundamental social changes, but because of the survival of neotraditional structures and ideology, it is not unusual for people to think that Fiji is caught up in the divergent pulls of tradition and modernization. In the interwar period a more or less permanent category of Fijian urban workers emerged. Unionised struggles in Fiji increased the during postwar period as the emergent working class organized and pitted itself against the capitalists.
