An inquiry on racial, ethnic, and national identity among ‘mixed race’ persons of Indian and Fijian descent

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Dissertations, Media Archive, Oceania, Social Science on 2016-02-17 19:48Z by Steven

An inquiry on racial, ethnic, and national identity among ‘mixed race’ persons of Indian and Fijian descent

University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
February 2015
149 pages
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5141.7360

Rolando Alonzo Cocom

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the partial requirements for the completion of Master of Arts in Sociology

This explorative research provides an interpretive understanding of racial, ethnic, and national identity among ‘mixed race’ persons of Indian and Fijian descent in Suva, Fiji. This study was motivated by three research questions: (1) How do ‘mixed race’ Indian-Fijians identify themselves with an ethnic label or labels? (2) How do they identify with the term ‘Fijian’, given its recent institutionalization as a national identity construct? and (3) What do such experiences and views tell us about the racialization and politicization of identity in Fiji? Answers to these questions were interpreted from information generated during multiple individual and group interviews with ten ‘mixed race’ participants in Suva, who were accessed through the snowballing sampling method.

The study contributes to the discourse of identity in Fiji by presenting for the first time the experiences and opinions of being a ‘mixed race’ Indian-Fijian in a social context where political events and social structures have demarcated a set of dichotomized in-group and out-group relations and practices. It also contributes to the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) and to contemporary political debates in light of the underrepresentation of literature from the South Pacific region; the limited literature on ‘mixed race’ in Fiji; and the recent state policy to classify all citizens with the term ‘Fijian’. Based on the interviews conducted, this research demonstrates how the participants reinforced, resisted, and accommodated the social structures and discursive practices of identity in Fiji.

Read the entire thesis here.

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