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The Fijian LGBTQI+ movement has significantly grown, shaped around a more significant Pacific identity. The participation of queer activists from the Indo-Fijian community, which represents about 35% of Fiji’s population, is limited, and the struggles, needs, and aspirations of this LGBTQI+ community are mainly invisible. This invisibility is framed within Fiji’s political conflicts. However, there is also a form of self-censorship due to cultural and religious barriers, as well as to dynamics that speak about the trauma of the indentured system and postcolonial violence. Contemporaneously, non-political spaces provide avenues for visibility. While some Indo-Fijian religious contexts welcome gender and sexual diversity forms, these are becoming visible aided by popular social media platforms and Bollywood cinema’s influence. This project explores the dynamics of the Indo-Fijian queer community within Fiji and its broader LGBTQI+ movement, aiming to identify barriers specific to their community and strategies for recognition, visibility, and participation in advocacy and activism. The project is approached as activist research and includes interviews and group discussions with Indo-Fijians self-identifying LGBTQI+.

The results of the 1999 and 2001 general election seem to suggest that the Indo‐Fijian community in Fiji voted on the issues of poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunities amongst the Indo‐Fijian community. The Indo‐Fijian community, since the military coups of 1987 and more recently in May 2000, has increasingly felt marginalised by the Indigenous Fijian led governments. The expiry of land leases and the lack of opportunities for many of them in both the rural and urban areas are a source of increasing concern. Indian politicians are also raising these concerns in their struggle for political and economic rights for the community. Based on a national survey data this article examines some of these concerns. It analyses the extent of concern about poverty, unemployment and lack of basic facilities such as water, housing and electricity among the community and draws conclusion for the future of Indo‐Fijian political and economic rights.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the links between public pedagogy, ethics of care and storying as a methodology and method in Oceania.

This paper explores the role of extended families as First Teachers in iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood contexts in Fiji. Using storying as methodology, the authors, three Australian and four Fijian academics, present three portraits to make visible the pedagogical entanglements of public pedagogy research in diverse community contexts. These portraits reveal the intersection and integration of extended family with the authors' community–family–child–informed pedagogical approaches, and the advantages of culturally located standpoints when working with iTaukei and Indo-Fijian communities. This article's unique contribution lies in its demonstration of the importance of an ethics of care approach in site-specific and contextually emerging pedagogical encounters.

The findings demonstrate the traditional role of First Teachers and carers in iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood contexts in Fiji who use arts-based approaches to teaching and learning within a public pedagogical framework.

The implications of the research highlight the need to address policy interventions that disrupt the value of First Teachers in community context and their role in values formations for young people in community.

The implications of the research can be addressed at the policy and international level where considerations of educational arrangements need to be understood.

The social implications of this publication are the value of iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood educators in Fiji, and their voices being heard and understood via a published academic journal.

This work is original and is a collaborative paper written between Australian and iTaukei and Indo-Fijian Early Childhood educators.

The purpose of this paper is to articulate the etiology of ethnic conflict in Fiji that moves beyond polemical interpretations which routinely and often erroneously apportion blame.

A critical survey of ethnic conflict between in Indo‐ and indigenous Fijians is offered. The implication of British colonialism on the conflict is underscored.

The paper concludes that the first three coups that occurred in Fiji between 1987 and 2000 were, to varying degrees, the coupled result of the deterioration of indigenous paramountcy in Fijian politics on the one hand and the lack of their improvement in socio‐economic status on the other. In contrast, the 2006 coup is the product of intra‐ethnic discord amongst indigenous Fijians, which ultimately sidelines the question of indigenous paramountcy.

Unlike previous arguments that have largely ignored economic determinants in creating and perpetuating ethnic conflict in Fiji, this paper illustrates how such factors are crucial to conceptualize an understanding of discord between Indo‐ and indigenous Fijians.

Measures of inequality determine the effectiveness of social and economic policies aimed at reducing inequality and to design effective intervention policies. The purpose of this paper is to focus on poverty reduction and welfare improving impacts of reducing income inequality in the case of Fiji. Using Fiji's Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2002‐2003, a comprehensive analysis is used to measure the level of inequality by household income, quintile income distribution, decomposition of inequality by ethnicity and regional groups, and the household income inequality by source of income.

Several statistical techniques have been applied to investigate the degree of inequality in the household income. These include the Gini coefficient, the Nelson ratio, the concentration index and the Atkinson index. An evaluation by ethnicity, regions and household income sources reflects the level of inequality, and concerns for policies and governance.

The results show that urban households, in particular, experience greater inequalities, in both positive and normative terms. The Indo‐Fijian households experience greater income inequalities than the Fijian households. Decomposition results for the separate factor income components also indicate major sources of inequality. These findings clearly establish that Fiji still has a long way to go in reducing the income gaps between the rich and the poor in both rural and urban households.

The paper is a first study that estimates various measures of inequality in the case of Fiji. The implication of the empirical findings suggests that Fiji is unlikely to achieve its Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty rate by 2015 due to the large income differentials by ethnicity and in the urban‐rural areas.

Teachers are a key to success for school-based sex health education programmes; however, they may not be able to consistently implement it due to a myriad of reasons. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of teachers regarding the delivery of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education in secondary schools in Fiji.

A qualitative study design was used to collect the data from SRH education teachers in Suva, Fiji between July and August 2018. This study included teachers who taught sex education for at least two years. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were run using a semi-structure questionnaire among groups stratified by gender. Data collected were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed.

The study findings reveal that implementation of SRH education is vague, not mandatory and not comprehensive. Teachers acknowledged that SRH was not adequately covered in homes and underscored its importance for young people. Teachers viewed schools as ideal place for delivering sex education, however, could not consistently implement due to a lack of adequate information and skills, feared negative parental reaction, felt uncomfortable delivering sensitive topics and in most cases felt apprehensive to discuss sexuality issues in light of lack of training and resources.

To improve SRH education delivery, there need to be a focus on strengthening capacity building of teachers through pre-service and in-service health education, improved monitoring, evaluation and context–specific resource development and allocation.

This introduction by the volume editors discusses the multiple ways in which visibility and erasure of gender are manifested in social life. Following that discussion, the 12 chapters included in this volume are grouped in ways that demonstrate the relationships among them and are briefly summarized.

Education is highly regarded as having a central influence on individuals' understanding and backing of democracy, but whether this occurs in young and small democratic states remain unknown. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether schooling and education have a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji, whose democratic system has been subject to three coups since independence in 1970.

To achieve the goal of this paper, the ordered probit probability model is used. The ordered probit model serves as a better framework for statistical analysis whenever field survey responses are ordinal as distinct from numerical.

The results from an ordered probit model reveal that the education level does not affect an individual's democratic values. However, it is found that gender, age, and ethnicity do have an influence on individuals' endorsement of democracy.

Democracy has more than once proved to be an elusive dream in Fiji. This paper aims to provide the answer whether education can be the facilitating factor in transition towards a more democratic state.

This is the first study which comprehensively explores whether schooling and education has a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji.

As ethnic diversity is regarded as a determinant of growth, this study engages in an analysis of diversity as the forte behind better economic performance and where social stability of a nation is necessary to achieve growth. While these factors alone may not be sufficient to achieve growth and maintain social harmony, domestic institutions and good governance are regarded as vital factors.

Differential performances of diverse ethnic groups are most influential contributions of social capital and its growth impact. In this framework there is a larger role of aid to provide security to a nation to achieve its development objectives. An evaluation of ethnic diversity and land issues in Fiji is undertaken with concerns of a market economy, policies and governance.

An examination of the opposing nature of ethnic diversity and land issues in Fiji provides an insight not only of ethnic conflict, but also of the role of aid to solve conflict. A discussion on ethnicity and being equal in the market relates to the reason for equality before identity. The analysis indicates the role foreign aid can play to achieve stability and avoid ethnic conflict for growth in Fiji.

The paper indicates the global issues of inequality and conflict and policy implications for Fiji and the nations facing such problems and aid donors’ role for growth and development.

Violent geo-political conflicts are on the rise across the globe, particularly within fragile states. Using path-dependency theory, this paper aims to explore Fiji in the context of its public administrative history examining the legacies of history that have contributed to its ongoing conflicts.

An archival document analysis along with a theoretical thematic analysis was used to collect and assess data. Themes were identified that explain how and when the conflict became path-dependent.

Analysing conflict as path-dependent demonstrates how indirect rule while Fiji was under colonial rule, and the short time it has taken for the nation to transition from a colony to an independent State contributed to the eruption of conflicts in Fiji.

The research makes two key contributions, namely, it develops a theoretical understanding of conflict using path-dependency theory and it uncovers legacies of colonialism that have shaped conflict in Fiji.