History and contemporary displacement in Suva's informal settlements

Urban areas are products of history. They have been created by processes, power structures and interests that have emerged over time. Access to and control over urban land are important issues in which conflicts reveal the interests of different stakeholders. In such contexts, urban land security for poorer sections of society is particularly crucial. Fiji’s land tenure systems have developed over the course of 3,000 years of human settlement. Land grabbing in the 1860s resulted in the restructuring of Indigenous land tenure. Today around 90 percent of the land in Fiji belongs to Indigenous Fijians. Yet Fiji’s capital Suva has only 10% of its land area classified as native land. This chapter provides a historical sketch of land ownership in Suva. It asks why and how land grabbing eliminated native land from this part of Fiji and considers how the historic evolution of the system has impacted Suva in more recent decades. The chapter focuses on those people who live in informal settlements, where housing expenses are low