Sikh Practices and Gurdwara in Australia

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Transnationalism and the Indo-Fijian diaspora: the relationship of Indo-Fijians to India and its people - special issue on "Indian diaspora in transnational context"

This paper investigates the relationships of Indo-Fijians to their ancestral homeland, both in Fiji and following their secondary migration to Australia. Most Indo-Fijians are descendants of indentured labourers to Fiji. The majority have long ago lost all personal contacts with India. During their stay in Fiji, their social, cultural and religious practices have undergone many changes. Their experiences with subcontinental Indians are limited and their views of India and of subcontinental Indians largely based on ignorance, indifference and stereotypes. Recent efforts of the Indian government at fostering relations with its 20 million strong diaspora are primarily aimed at wealthy Indian migrants in the West and descendants of indentured Indians have attracted comparatively little interest in India. Many Indo-Fijians have left Fiji and resettled in the developed Pacific Rim countries, especially Australia. In the wake of this secondary migration, Indo-Fijians have realised that their social and cultural distance from subcontinental Indians is too great to be narrowed by a shared ethnicity. In the process, they have developed a Pacific identity and have constructed a transnational space around Fiji as the new centre largely excluding the cultural hearth India

Migration patterns and transnational families in Fiji: comparing two ethnic groups

In the past two decades, international migration patterns out of Fiji have undergone changes with important implications for the formation of transnational families. The focus of this paper is on a comparison between the formation of Indo-Fijian transnational extended families and indigenous Fijian transnational nuclear families. These are discussed within the framework of “transnational corporations of kin. For several decades, Indo-Fijians have permanently migrated to the Pacific Rim as a consequence of the economic and political situation in Fiji. They have resettled in complete nuclear family units and have subsequently attempted to sponsor the migration of their extended family members. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of indigenous Fijians migrating temporarily for work. In contrast to Indo-Fijians, indigenous Fijian migrate as individuals, leaving their spouses and children behind in Fiji. Women migrate autonomously as caregivers and nurses while men find employment as soldiers and security officers. The main purpose of their mostly temporary migration is to send remittances. However, these economic benefits have to be contrasted with the social and psychological costs associated with the separation of nuclear families. The paper also discusses policy implications arising from the comparative analysis, especially in the light of the current situation in Fiji which is characterised by a lack of policies addressing the implications of migration

Sikh History and Migration

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Fijian teachers on the move: Causes, implications and policies

Education has increasingly come to be seen as a potent development tool, not least because the quality of the education system today affects a country's development for decades to come. The migration of teachers - both internationally by way of emigration and internally within countries - may adversely affect the quality of education especially in a country like Fiji with a limited human resource capacity. The emigration of workers, particularly of highly skilled workers who are endowed with high levels of human capital, has severe implications for a small country like Fiji. The emigration of teachers who are the largest professional group of migrants has led to the filling of vacancies by less experienced and junior teachers and is widely believed to have led to falling educational standards. In addition to international migration, there is substantial internal migration of teachers, mostly away from remote schools to urban areas. Rural schools find it particularly difficult to recruit and keep qualified and experienced personnel. In the process, rural areas have been drained of some of their best human resources. This article provides an overview of the scale of migration of secondary teachers from Fiji, raises development issues connected to the international and internal migration of teachers, describes policy responses that this migration has elicited and identifies areas requiring further research with a view to making policy recommendations as well as contributing to the literature on skilled migration in the Pacific