ABSTRACT
In the Fijian context, that undeniably means engaging with the overarching discourse about ‘race’, in particular the relationship between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians and how this has come to be articulated in legal, political and cultural terms. The salient moment to start any inquiry into constructions of gendered subject identities lies within the social relations where gender is actually performed and played out, to look at gender as an everyday practice intrinsically linked to other social factors. The deed of cession, when Cakobau ceded power over the Fijian kingdom to the British crown in 1874, emphasized an equal amount of loyalty to the Chiefly system, God, and the Crown of England. Social life among most indigenous Fijians is arguably marked by an extensive set of codes on how to acknowledge authority, show respect and signify social ranking which both reflects and reinforces a hierarchical social structure.
