Seminar Series: Abstract

1:00
May 18 2009
Seminar Room C

“Working in a different way now”: Women’s Responses to the current Political Crisis in Fiji
Nicole George

John Vincent Postdoctoral Fellow, International Relations, RSPAS

Academic analysis and media coverage of the ongoing political crisis taking place in Fiji over the past two years has been largely dominated by male voices. Conventionally it is male analysts, located both within and outside the country, who offer their perspectives on the rivalries that have contributed to Fiji’s current political instability, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the activities of Fiji’s male political protagonists that are the main focus of discussion.

There is no doubt that such analytical perspectives on Fiji’s most recent coups have been both informative, and highly influential. Nonetheless, they have also diverted attention away from understanding how more informal realms of political activity in Fiji have been shaped by this ongoing crisis. As such, they pay only scant attention to the ways that Fiji’s politically active women have responded to the current political scenario. In this seminar, I will examine the crisis unfolding in Fiji since mid 2005 in a way which highlights the voices of women activists. I will show that although deep divisions have emerged within Fiji’s women’s movement over the future political direction the country might take, the coups have also generated a more self-reflexive turn in gender advocacy circles. This has resulted in activists thinking critically about the impact of their work and inclined them to rethink how strategies for engagement on the local, regional and international stage might be formulated.

Nicole George is the John Vincent Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU. Her recent publications examine the transnational dimensions of Pacific women’s advocacy, contending discourses of masculinity in Fiji, and how shifting parameters of active citizenship impact upon the activity of the Pacific’s gender advocates. She is currently completing final revisions on her book manuscript which is destined for Stanford University Press and constructs a post-colonial history of women’s organising in Fiji.