The Hau of Other Peoples' Gifts: Land Owning and Taking in Turn-of-the-Millennium Fiji

Arguing for historicity in the study of globalization, this article juxtaposes an account of the 2000 takeover of the Fiji water bottling plant with an account of post-coups Fiji government proposals to spend national revenues (Fiji citizens' taxes) to purchase shares to be owned by ethnic Fijians. These recent events, involving a corporation purveying a global commodity and investment practices once colonially imported to Fiji, have been carried out with much objectification of the local, of indigenous ownership,and of place belonging as a basis for rights. The article finds ironies and inequities in takeover and shareholding practices as tactics for the establishment of rights, social justice, or reconciliation in the nation-state of Fiji.