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Paper short abstract:

My paper looks into the value of time in Fiji, with a particular emphasis on the moral value of waiting

Paper long abstract:

There seems to be an increasing number of people with spare time on their hands around the world. Whilst some of the recent research on waiting - or even boredom - witnesses how little some people can actually do to utilise their abundant time resources, others display the ability to transform spare time into something of worth, ranging from sociability to time banking.

In Naloto village, Fiji, leisure and relaxing hold a positive connotation - even moral value - to the degree where the act of waiting, too, carries an air of dignity. This is evident in the way in which the high chiefdom of Verata is widely recognised for an emblematic ability in "wasting time", as the phrase solosolo vakaVerata is often translated. But the phenomenon extends beyond Verata to Fiji more generally, from religious imagery to national stereotypes, and from everyday rhythms and practices of rural life to what I have elsewhere labelled "levelling with time".

My paper is part of an ongoing research project that looks into time as a medium of value in Fiji. In this paper I want to draw particular attention to the phenomena of waiting and time wasting. I look into the positive moral evaluation of time wasted and the way in which such valuation relates to the idea of time as something oriented towards production.