70
F. Gelves-Gómez and S. Brincat
shown has a more pro-environmental stance in comparison to other Christian derivations such as Baptist or Mormons (Hand and Van Liere 1984)—may provide a counterweight to this. At the most basic level, the importance of Christian metaphysics
to existing iTaukei society would suggest the need to have churches included in the
formation of climate policy and its communication/dissemination (Luetz and Nunn
2020; Nunn 2013). For example, having the Assembly of Christian Churches in
Fiji (ACCF) (which covers about around 50% of the population) support could be
a significant driver for adaptation messaging. Regardless of such opportunities, the
issue highlights that a survey of religious attitudes to the environment and climate
change in Fiji needs to be undertaken to understand this linkage more precisely. Nunn
and colleagues’ (2016) study offers a primer for this, showing that the majority of
church attendees across the Pacific have spiritual values that explain their feelings
of connectedness to Nature. How these views differ between each denomination and
iTaukei community, how these relate to other faith-based systems across Fiji, and
how they differ across environmental issues, all need to be determined.
Vanua must also be read in the context of land ownership (which is its literal translation), with all the historical antecedents, both traditional and colonial, and the metaphysical contestations of property, territory, community (etc.) as well. This is even
more relevant considering that almost 80% of land in Fiji is currently owned under
communal titles (Iati 2009) and managed under customary principles of governance
(Scheyvens and Russell 2012) that, in effect, directly impact peoples’ capacities to
respond to climate changes (see for example Gharbaoui and Blocher 2016). As we
have seen, ancestral spirits are concerned primarily with the prosperity and continuity of the yavusa which includes agricultural land, forest land, and fishing areas
owned communally by those people descended from a recognised common ancestor
(Parke 2014). But this was not necessarily the traditional view. This system, like the
hybridisation of the metaphysics related to spirit, was a result of contestation between
Fijian traditions, the chiefly elite, and the new colonial power emerging in the 19th
Century. It is important to note that along with the spiritual and religious shifts in
Fiji at this time came also the entanglements of economic and political ambitions
not just of the European missionaries but the commercial interests of the planters,
and, the concerns of the Crown’s administration (Sutton 2005). With them came the
notions of property, land tenure, and the market that have their own metaphysical
basis that were essentially Lockean and stadial at the time (and remain so). The
Lockean view of property held that land had to worked to be alienable was clearly a
key assumption behind The Native Lands Commission and lay behind the interests
of the planters too. This conception of land was far removed from notions of ancestry
and spirit that had no bearing on ownership in terms of this metaphysic of land and
its alienability. Indeed, traditions had to be created and reintegrated back into this
system by Governor Gordon and the chiefs to ensure some land was left for the
Fijians (France 1966). Gordon’s stadial view of history held that Fijians remained at
a pre-feudal level of development and had reached the stage when the inalienability
of land was deemed an essential feature of its progress (if not for their very survival).
Gordon therefore made “traditional inalienability” central to his theory of Fijian land
tenure (France 1966, p. 236). This was based, not only on the insistence of the chiefs
F. Gelves-Gómez and S. Brincat
shown has a more pro-environmental stance in comparison to other Christian derivations such as Baptist or Mormons (Hand and Van Liere 1984)—may provide a counterweight to this. At the most basic level, the importance of Christian metaphysics
to existing iTaukei society would suggest the need to have churches included in the
formation of climate policy and its communication/dissemination (Luetz and Nunn
2020; Nunn 2013). For example, having the Assembly of Christian Churches in
Fiji (ACCF) (which covers about around 50% of the population) support could be
a significant driver for adaptation messaging. Regardless of such opportunities, the
issue highlights that a survey of religious attitudes to the environment and climate
change in Fiji needs to be undertaken to understand this linkage more precisely. Nunn
and colleagues’ (2016) study offers a primer for this, showing that the majority of
church attendees across the Pacific have spiritual values that explain their feelings
of connectedness to Nature. How these views differ between each denomination and
iTaukei community, how these relate to other faith-based systems across Fiji, and
how they differ across environmental issues, all need to be determined.
Vanua must also be read in the context of land ownership (which is its literal translation), with all the historical antecedents, both traditional and colonial, and the metaphysical contestations of property, territory, community (etc.) as well. This is even
more relevant considering that almost 80% of land in Fiji is currently owned under
communal titles (Iati 2009) and managed under customary principles of governance
(Scheyvens and Russell 2012) that, in effect, directly impact peoples’ capacities to
respond to climate changes (see for example Gharbaoui and Blocher 2016). As we
have seen, ancestral spirits are concerned primarily with the prosperity and continuity of the yavusa which includes agricultural land, forest land, and fishing areas
owned communally by those people descended from a recognised common ancestor
(Parke 2014). But this was not necessarily the traditional view. This system, like the
hybridisation of the metaphysics related to spirit, was a result of contestation between
Fijian traditions, the chiefly elite, and the new colonial power emerging in the 19th
Century. It is important to note that along with the spiritual and religious shifts in
Fiji at this time came also the entanglements of economic and political ambitions
not just of the European missionaries but the commercial interests of the planters,
and, the concerns of the Crown’s administration (Sutton 2005). With them came the
notions of property, land tenure, and the market that have their own metaphysical
basis that were essentially Lockean and stadial at the time (and remain so). The
Lockean view of property held that land had to worked to be alienable was clearly a
key assumption behind The Native Lands Commission and lay behind the interests
of the planters too. This conception of land was far removed from notions of ancestry
and spirit that had no bearing on ownership in terms of this metaphysic of land and
its alienability. Indeed, traditions had to be created and reintegrated back into this
system by Governor Gordon and the chiefs to ensure some land was left for the
Fijians (France 1966). Gordon’s stadial view of history held that Fijians remained at
a pre-feudal level of development and had reached the stage when the inalienability
of land was deemed an essential feature of its progress (if not for their very survival).
Gordon therefore made “traditional inalienability” central to his theory of Fijian land
tenure (France 1966, p. 236). This was based, not only on the insistence of the chiefs