Paper short abstract:

This paper explores a Fijian song-dance as a site for decolonizing social relations and accomplishing action in post-2006 coup Fiji. I focus on why and how sonic, rhythmic, and movement-based expressions—all implicated in shifting relations of power—are effective aspects of a decolonizing strategy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the traditional Fijian song-dance genre called meke as a site for decolonizing social relations and accomplishing action in post-2006 coup Fiji. Specifically, in a time of dramatic change, this paper explores iTaukei (original and native settlers of Fiji) resilience, inclusion, and efficacy in the chant, choreography, sounds, and rhythms of Meke ni Loloma (song-dance of kindly love) created by Damiano Logaivau that is inspired by the trans-local story of the loloma (kindly love) that was given to my mother by her iTaukei nanny, Anna Qumia, during British colonial rule. This chapter critically examines how loloma expressed in Meke ni Loloma as a "freely given gift" is verbally and non-verbally narrated as connected to Fijian mana (as a power of bringing-into-existence (Sahlins 1985), a source of agency in ritual performance (Tomlinson 2006), and a gift from God). In the chant and movement of this dance, loloma and mana migrate and connect Fiji with its Canadian diaspora in the form of a gift. I focus on why and how the trans-local migrations of gifts of the energy within danced expression opened up loloma and mana¬—both notions that have evolved with shifting relations of power, economics, politics, and religion—are active and effective aspects of Logaivau's decolonizing strategy. This meke, as a gift, involves a delayed reciprocity and long-term/long-distance exchange whereby danced expressions of spirit and energy are active aspects of extending the time and space of the social between Fiji and its diaspora.