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Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire

This does not feel like a normal book review. I am writing this having attended Tracey Banivanua-Mar’s funeral just a few months ago along with many of our colleagues. I first met Tracey around the start of 2007, as I was about to start my Masters degree. In more recent years, we became friends, and tried to work together but the timing was not right with maternity leave and other factors. We connected in part through our love of Fiji, but also our Methodist networks. My PhD dissertation, now published as A Mission Divided (2015), was on the decolonisation of the Fijian Methodist Mission. Tracey’s uncle, the Reverend Dr Tevita Banivanua, is the President of what is now the long-independent Fijian Methodist Church, and I met him when undertaking archival research in Suva in 2010. Tracey was not particularly interested in covering anything to do with missions or churches in her own publications, but we would talk about Suva, the other intersections in our research and teaching, and motherhood. Many of our conversations were left suspended and unfinished. I saw her uncle and aunt briefly at Nausori airport not long after she passed, on their way to greet the traditional voyaging vessel, the Uto ni Yalo, at the outer Fijian islands Yasayasa Moala, part of the Lau archipelago. As I passed on my condolences, I was reminded of what linked Tracey and me, but also what set our work apart. Tracey’s book, Decolonisation and the Pacific, is a testament to individuals who challenged colonial rule through their intercolonial and global networks, and through international activism. Beautifully written, the book connects people and events of the past with ease, tracing the movement of significant individuals and their families across multiple decades. From the Cakobau family of Fiji to the Polynesia Panther Party, Decolonisation and the Pacific traverses multiple nodes across the Pacific region including New Guinea, Vanuatu, Aotearoa and Australia. It is an important intervention in the literature on Pacific decolonisation. As other scholars have noted, early studies of decolonisation often overlooked the Pacific and focused instead on states that achieved independence sooner. More recent studies, including work by Helen Gardner and Chris Waters, have filled in many gaps. Even so, individual experiences of decolonisation had yet to be comprehensively mapped, and this is where some of Tracey’s most inspirational stories lie. Through her studies on people rather than bureaucracy, Tracey was able to provide unique insight into multiple anti-colonial movements. The book is also unique for its scale and scope – she showed links between the far reaches of the Pacific, those classified as Polynesia as well as Melanesia and Micronesia. Most existing work is confined by colonial, national, or regional boundaries. Her examination of individuals and their political activity allowed her to theorise their impact on what might be defined as nation-building. Moreover, Tracey’s discussion about daily decolonisation, or the uncolonising of individuals, has pushed the study of decolonisation forward again. The analysis deftly points to trends in colonial projects throughout the region that spanned well over a century, including, for example, commentary on the continued efforts of colonisers to craft or impose identities on people, to ‘define the undefinable’ (80). This last comment is just one example of Tracey’s ability to identify deeply rooted issues that have lingering legacies, still heavily contested. Despite criticism of colonial efforts to label and categorise, Tracey also identified collective identities that emerged in response to the colonial project, such as the Tahupotiki Winemu Ratana in Aoetearoa, and the Samoan Mau movement, led by Ta’isi Olaf