Week 4 - Economics Surveys

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WEEK 4 - ECONOMICS SURVEYS

This week you should gather information on the economics of village life. You will write your findings up as a chapter in your ethnography, due at the end of NEXT week (i.e. Oct. 11). Your information gathered here should be included as a part of your field notes to be handed in as usual at the end of this week (Oct. 4).

What you are interested in here is an assessment of the kinds of economic activities engaged, the sources of income, and how money is spent. By the end of the project next week we will want you to have conducted six interviews with different people on this subject. Try to do three at least this week. This would also be a good time to try out your tape recorders.

People in Fiji (in the villages at least) do not have the same reluctance to talk about financial matters as we do back home. We have had no trouble asking people about these subjects. So put aside your own worries about this and go ahead and ask. You can explain that it is an assignment from me. Tape recorders also seem not to be a problem.

Here is a list of topics you should cover in these economic interviews:

For both husband and wife in the household, HOW DO THEY SPEND THEIR DAYS? You can ask them to go through the past week, day by day, to get a better sense of what they actually do, and of course ask them if this is a usual weekly pattern or if their usual pattern is different and how so.

What are their SOURCES OF INCOME? How much from each? Here are some possibilities to look out for:

jobs
selling small things from the house
remittances (money sent back home from relatives working elsewhere)
income from land leases
selling in the market, along the road, etc.
pensions

draw up readable diagrams of both genealogies

put at least four (4) examples of the use of name avoidance and circumlocutions in your field notes, with a few sentences explaining why the person was avoiding and whey they used the term they did.

write as an organized paper a summary of your findings from the genealogy study (figure that some version of this will be integrated into your final ethnography). It should include your findings on namesakes and various formal relationships. Aim for something on the order of 1000-1500 words. Obviously at this point in the term this will be somewhat rough with incomplete information. Do not let this deter you. Just be as thorough as you can at this point. We'll save the presentation of your census information for next week.

The land lease issue is a complicated one. The land is jointly owned by the mataqalis, and there are usually lease payments every six months. Individual households may not see any of this money if, as for example in our mataqali, there is an outstanding loan for something like house construction. In addition, I believe there is a separate payment that comes to the head of the mataqali for him to use as he likes. He may distribute this money to the mataqali or he may keep it. I am myself not too sure about all this, so check it out in your situation.

In dealing with small stores, etc. avoid asking hard questions like "how much profit do you get?" Instead ask what they pay for the goods wholesale, what they sell them for, and how much they tend to sell in a day or week. From that, you can calculate their profits for yourselves.

With jobs, as with us, there is a gross pay and a take-home pay, with money pulled out for taxes, pensions, insurance, health care, etc. People will have the best sense of how much they actually have to spend.

What are their DEBTS? Are there mortgages on the homes? Payments to BP or Courts for household appliances? Payments on boats? Bank loans?

What are their EXPENSES? How much do they spend on:

food
household (clothing, household goods etc.)
school
electricity & water bills
other bills
yaqona and beer, etc.?
donations (church, ceremonies, mataqali functions, etc.)

Some of this is hard for people to tell you (do you know how much you yourself spend on clothes, for example?). So just try your best with this. Often these will just be estimates, and try to ask your questions simply, such as, how much do you tend to spend at the supermarket when you go? How often do you go? Etc.

What are their ATTITUDES about economic issues? Here are some topics you might want to discuss, and try as well to think of some on your own:

How burdensome are all the payments you have to make to various organizations or relatives for ceremonies, etc. (Here I am thinking of those articles we read last week). Are these burdens higher than they used to be? Lower? What kinds of things do they end up donating the most money to?

To what extent are social activities such as yaqona drinking and beer drinking drains on income? Are these a source of tension in the household? Do people fight over money?

How important is making money to people? Do they dream of being rich? Do they make choices that involve sacrificing money for family? In our village, Lagi the army guy refused a lucrative tour of duty on the Sinai peninsula because he wanted to be closer to his kids. These are the kinds of things I'm thinking of, to get a sense of the role money plays in their lives generally.

How do people feel about requests for money? Would they happily request money from certain types of relatives? Do they mind being asked themselves? Are there some relatives that cannot be refused? Are there strategies for protecting money from requests by others?

Your overall aim here is to get a broad sense of the economic life of your village so that you can write a chapter on the subject in your ethnography. The best you can, you want to know what rough proportions of people have jobs, work on subsistence mainly, or whatever. You want to know roughly how much money they make, where they get it, and how they spend it

Summary of Week 4's Assignments:

Do half of your economics surveys, putting the notes in your field notes.
Write the draft of your social organization chapter .
Write your project proposal
Turn in your usual field notes.
Do the following reading for discussion:

finish Ravuvu and Nest in the Wind
read to page 24 in Tradition and Change in the Fijian Village
two short articles to be distributed

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