'Emphatically not a white man's colony': settler colonialism and the construction of colonial Fiji

Consistent with an interpretive tradition identifying Fiji as a constituent site in the evolution of colonial forms, this article argues that Fiji’s colonial history provides a privileged point from which to explore the divide separating colonial and settler colonial phenomena. While suggestive more than conclusive, it has two reciprocally supporting aims: first, it argues that colonial development in Fiji should be contextualised within transcolonial debates regarding Indigenous-settler relations, and that the construction of Fiji’s colonial landscape resulted from a decisively anti-settler determination; and, second, that a reframed understanding of Fiji’s colonial history can contribute to a reappraisal of the evolution of wider traditions of colonial governance.