Gossip And The Everyday Production Of Politics

NIKO BESNIER gossip AND THE EVERYDAY PRODUCTION OF POLITICS Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics Published with the support of the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i Gossip and Politics the Everyday Production of Niko Besnier University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu © 2009 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Besnier, Niko. Gossip and the everyday production of politics / Niko Besnier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3338-1 (hard cover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-8248-3357-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Communication and culture—Tuvalu—Nukulaelae. 2. Gossip—Tuvalu—Nukulaelae. 3. Political customs and rites—Tuvalu—Nukulaelae. 4. Nukulaelae (Tuvalu)— Politics and government. 5. Nukulaelae (Tuvalu)—Social life and customs. I. Title. GN671.T88B47 2009 302.2'242099682—dc22 2009000250 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press production staff Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group For Mahmoud abd-el-Wahed Contents Acknowledgments | ix Orthography and Transcription Conventions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gossip, Hegemony, Agency | | | 29 64 Morality and the Structure of Gossip The Twenty-Dollar Piglets The Two Widows | | Sorcery and Ambition | | 143 | 166 | 189 195 References | Index 241 | 94 120 Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics Notes xiii 1 The World from a Cooking Hut Hierarchy and Egalitarianism | 213 vii Acknowledgments In the early decades of the twentieth century, Marcel Mauss’ exploration of what a gift entails appeared, at the time and still today, to go against the grain of Western middle-class commonsense. In many societies, he argued, being the recipient of a gift makes the recipient beholden in crucial and often onerous ways, placing him or her in the difficult position of indebtedness, which in subsequent anthropological works came to be known as “the tyranny of the gift.” Working in a society where the gift figures so prominently in day-to-day experience gives an anthropologist more than a taste of this tyranny, of the feeling that whatever one does one will always disappoint. One can never adequately recognize the kindness and generosity, and match the effort and pain of food gathering, house building, speech making, traveling, becoming the target of anger and envy, all of which my relations on Nukulaelae Atoll experienced because of me. I cannot thank enough the late Faiva Tafia, Sina Tafia, Semolina Tafia, and Lamona Tafia for being my family on Nukulaelae, whom I have failed in so many ways. I cannot thank enough all the families, women, men, boys, and girls of the atoll and its growing expatriate communities on Funafuti, in Fiji, and in New Zealand, who shared their time, laughter, distresses, insights, meals, emotions, and material wealth with me. They all put up with my own quirks, opinions, and moods, meeting them with indulgence, edifying laughter, and the occasional justified impatience. I am indebted to field research assistants with whom I have worked over the decades, among whom I wish to single out Mele Alefaio. Mele and I have worked together since 1980. Her insights into the life of Tuvaluan people perched on the unpredictable edge of change color this en