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Sacred Cows of ‘Development’: the Ritual Incorporation of a Dairy Project in the Eastern Interior of Fiji (c.1980–1997)
Author(s) -
Abramson Allen
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1999.tb00373.x
Subject(s) - cornerstone , ethos , millenarianism , sacrifice , redistribution (election) , period (music) , geography , individualism , rural development , ethnology , history , sociology , political science , archaeology , art , law , aesthetics , politics , agriculture
In the same way that store‐goods once became the symbolic cornerstone of certain millenarian movements, features of development projects in rural areas of contemporary Oceania may become mythically and ritually re‐contextualised. This paper examines the ritual metamorphosis of a modernising dairy development scheme in the eastern interior of ‘Big Fiji’, a scheme which is also caught up in the collective processes of animal sacrifice and festive redistribution. The paper asks: what impact does ritual incorporation have upon the individualistic ethos and nucleated organisation of the project? A pattern commonly noticed by rural development workers in Fiji, but rarely acknowledged in the literature, is of an initial period of local activity and the promise of change which, in the longer term, slowly regresses to a slightly modified version of the old life.