meaning, agency and colonial history: Navosavakadua and the Tuka movement in Fiji
Abstract
How are we to understand the agency of “others” in colonial encounters? Analyses of indigenous history making and of colonial hegemony can be harmonized: in colonial societies multiple cultural articulations are formed, contested, and rou-tinized. This essay reconsiders Navosavakadua, a 19th-century Fijian oracle priest, and his Tuka movement, once considered a paradigmatic “cargo cult.” Navosa-vakadua's project contested a developing colonial orthodoxy; both were articulations of Fijian ritual-politics, colonial authority, and the Christian god. Colonizers try to routinize articulations that privilege them, but “others” also make history with their own powers to articulate. [history, colonialism, agency, ritual-politics, cargo cults, Fiji]
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