Pacific Series. Canberra: ANU Press, 2022. xlii, 477 pp. (Tables, figures, maps, B&W photos, coloured photos.), free ebook. ISBN 9781760465339.
Suva Stories is, as the subtitle suggests, a history of Fiji’s capital Suva, and a long overdue book which will be appreciated by the academic community and beyond. Nicholas Halter, the editor, brought together a wide range of Fijian and other authors from various disciplines who are located in and beyond Fiji. The collection provides an elaborate, detailed, and multifaceted read of scholarly and personal narratives of Suva’s long durée from precolonial and colonial to postcolonial times. The stories on which the chapters build are framed by the seminal intersections of land, labour, class, and politics as well as dispossession and ecologies that have long marked Fiji’s history.
The volume consists of three sections: precolonial and colonial settlement histories, colonial institutions and the making of the colonial city, and stories that connect personal memories to the city’s history and urban geography. The book’s overall aim is well-framed by Halter’s introduction that describes the book as “an attempt to document the rapid transformation and expansion of Suva from an indigenous village, to a colonial hub, to bustling metropolis” (3). Expanding on this the authors ponder: “What shaped the development of Suva from a colonial town to a multicultural city?” (20).
Section 1 explores precolonial and colonial settlement histories. Paul Geraghty takes us into the prehistory of Suva. This chapter will be of interest not only to historians but also to Fiji Islanders interested in genealogies of itaukei (Indigenous Fijians) who lived in the area on which Fiji’s future capital was established prior to European settlement. Chapter 2 by Max Quanchi focuses on the European settlers coming with the Polynesian Company and reminds us that the history of Suva as a city began with European economic interests, settler dreams, and Indigenous dispossession. Especially interesting in this regard are the two chapters written by Robert Nicole as they reveal the entangled histories of the colonizers, the Indigenous colonized, and indentured labourers from South Asia and other Melanesian islands. Reading the archives against the colonial grain, Nicole zooms into the everyday lives of people of different classes and ethnic backgrounds and highlights the city’s development impact on nature and ecology. In doing so, he unearths previously untold histories of the city from below. In addition, section 1 is complemented by Simione Sevudredre’s explorations of serenicumu songs as an Indigenous musical mnemonic practice related to the early Indigenous inter-island migration towards Suva. The first section finishes with “scraps of history” extracted from the archives of the Fiji Times. Anurag Subramani juxtaposes the stories of Thomas Le Clair De Francoeur, a European businessman and Dwarka the so-called Prince of Thieves, a young Indian boy who conducted several robberies in Suva. Both sparked urban discourses and imaginations at the beginning of the twentieth century to be found in articles and letters of the Fiji Times.
The second section of the book (chapters 7–12) focuses on colonial institutions of the judiciary, punishment, mental health, and education—all areas where British concepts, ideas, and models travelled to Suva, the administrative centre of the crown colony. The establishment of both the prison and St. Giles (an “asylum”) marked the city as a colonial town, where panoptic practices and total institutions were hitherto unknown. Those interned in these institutions mirrored Suva’s diverse population. Kate Stevens explores colonial records of the supreme court and shows how women and children were subjected to violence in Suva’s streets and homes. Christine Weir’s chapter on education vividly illustrates the entanglement of missionaries and the church with the colonial administration in the establishment of formal education in Fiji—an alliance that continues, albeit in altered forms (church and state), today. Jacqueline Leckie focuses on the history of the University of the South Pacific and reveals the meaning of Suva as a regional hub and intellectual centre in the Pacific. Formal education also provided the ground for alliances among Suva’s heterogeneous population that were built on class rather than ethnicity, as Robert Norton’s chapter on the emergence of Suva’s middle class shows.
Section 3 (chapter 13–19) focuses on the individual and collective memories of Suva people, which are a pleasure to read. The contributions weave together the personal with the socio-political and are written from different positionalities in Suva’s social and political fabric. Kaliopate Tavola’s memories reveal the ecological transformation of the city where the former landmark of the ivi tree fell victim to the making of Suva’s waterfront; Daryl Tarte takes the reader back to Suva as a colonial European town; and Kantilal Jinna’s memories of his childhood and youth in Suva unveil Indo-Fijian urban spaces. Anawaite Matadradra brings to the fore the often-forgotten histories of Fiji’s Melanesian communities which build on descendants of nineteenth century indentured labourers who now dwell in settlements throughout Suva. Larry Thomas’ personal memories of acting and directing theatre at Suva’s playhouse depict the early period of post-independence Suva as a space of social mobility and personal possibilities. But Fiji’s postcolonial history is also marked by violent conflict, instability, and military coups. Vijay Naidu opens these political memoryscapes in which he recalls his personal, often violent, experiences and memories of the coups and political crises in Fiji and highlights Suva and its civil society as surprisingly resilient in all these violent upheavals. The book ends with a chapter by the late Brij Lal. Lal, in fictional writing based on factual events, takes us to the everyday struggles of people in Wailea, an informal settlement in Suva. He highlights the vulnerability and resilience of women and young people in these informal living arrangements.
While the entangled histories of race, class, land, and labour are discussed in detail throughout Suva Stories, gender, unfortunately has received little attention. Consequently, gendered narratives and personal gendered perspectives that make the intersectionality of gender with other social categories visible remain, with a few exceptions, by and large absent. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Suva Stories. I was fascinated by the colonial photography which accompanies the chapters and takes us into Suva’s past. Because Suva Stories includes these rich images and the chapters build on different registers from academic articles to forms of storytelling this edited volume will speak to a wide audience. The fact that the publication is open access makes it widely accessible to people in Oceania in general and in Fiji in particular.
Sina Emde
Leipzig University, Leipzig