Moments of Silence: Language Ideology in Fijian Christian Conversions

Moments of Silence: Language Ideology in Fijian Christian Conversions

Matt Tomlinson, Ph.D, Monash University Melbourne, Australia

3:00 pm, 3 April 2008, Saunders 345

This paper is an analysis of evangelical encounters in nineteenth-century Kadavu Island, Fiji, showing how Wesleyan Methodist authorities both muted and re-voiced a Fijian language ideology of effective speech. "Moments of silence" were both metaphorical, as chiefs found that their ability to speak with effectiveness was now denied, and also literal, as Fijian priests reported that the old gods had fallen mute in the face of the Christian challenge. Such silences call attention to the ways that conversion can be seen both as learning to speak a new language and learning how to think about new 
linguistic practices. The paper pays close attention to local 
dynamics in Kadavu, but is also part of a project to re-theorize mana broadly--a necessary task in Pacific anthropology, and one that can only be undertaken with full cognizance of the Christian cultural dynamics that have reshaped local notions of voice, authority, and power over the past century and a half.

Matt Tomlinson is a cultural anthropologist who has studied language and religion in Fiji since 1996, focusing on the political dynamics of the Methodist Church. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, and taught for three years at Bowdoin College in Maine. He is currently a lecturer in anthropology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His book on cultural-religious dynamics in Kadavu Island is currently in press, and he will be beginning a new project funded by the Australian Research Council this 
year on national religious institutions in Suva, Fiji's capital.

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Co-sponsored by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies For further information, please contact Anthropology at anthprog@hawaii.edu

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Anthropology Dept-UH/Manoa, Center for Pacific Islands Studies

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