Kadavu Island: adaptation and stagnation in the Fijian periphery

• Authors: Michael Sofer

Abstracts

EN

The outer island of Kadavu is representative of the Fijian periphery. This paper deals with its physical characteristics, infrastructural conditions, and village economic activities with the aim of understanding the changes it has gone through in recent years. A combination of micro-geographic studies in two villages and a meso-geographical analysis show that the pattern of development found in Kadavu in the early 1980s has not changed much. The current pattern of cash crop production and trade is almost entirely dependent on the kava beverage crop, infrastructure is underdeveloped, the island suffers from the peripheral penalty phenomenon, and government initiatives aimed at changing the trend are very limited. However, the current form of non-capitalist production and its derived benefit has forced villagers into a strategy of adaptation which might actually be preferable for them under the current conditions of peripheralization.

Keywords

EN

Fiji; Kadavu Island; outer islands; strategy of adaptation; kava

• Publisher: Wydział Geografii i Studiów Regionalnych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 14-20

Dates

published

2015

Contributors

author

Michael Sofer

• Department of Geography and Environment, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

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Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

1036016