THE CULTURAL IDEOLOGY OF BODY IMAGE
AMONG FIJIAN WOMEN
by Erinn Gregg

Extended Table of Contents

Note on the Pronunciation of Fijian Words

Introduction

Methods

Cultivation of Self versus Community in Fijian Society

Chapter 2 - Literature Review of Body and Self

Theories about Eating Disorders in the West

Culture and Self

Chapter 3 - The Individual within the Fijian Community

Healing Practices

Economics

Religion

Childrearing

Kava Circles

Eating

Conclusion

Chapter 4 - The Views of Young and/or Unmarried Fijian Women

Ideas about Attractiveness among Young Fijians

Ideas about Attractiveness among Young Indo-Fijians

Chapter 5 - The Views of Older and/or Married Women

Chapter 6 - The Commitment to Community Versus the Self

Chapter 7 - The American Ideology of the Self

Conclusion

Works Cited

NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF FIJIAN WORDS

Fijian orthography generally follows an pattern that fits with an English speaker's intuitive understanding, but some distinctive devices have been used to render Fijian in a systematic way.

More conventional orthography:

"a" as in "father"
"e" as in "bed"
"i" as the "ee" in "beet"
"o" as in "hope" but with no diphthong
"u" as in "tube"

The unconventional features of Fijian orthography are as follows:

"b" refers to the sound "mb" as in "tomboy"
"d" refers to "nd" as in "find"
"c" is a voiced "th" as in "the"
"g" is the "ng" as in "singer"
"q" is the "ng" as in "finger"

INTRODUCTION

Prior to my departure for Fiji for a Union Anthropology term abroad I was given a magazine article from a close friend titled, "The Melrose Effect", in which Anne Becker (a Harvard anthropologist) was interviewed about her work dealing with women and body image in Fiji. Becker argued,

Traditional Fijians are expected to put their duties to their community above their personal aspirations, for example toward higher education or wealth. We Americans are brought up with ideals of individualism - to plot our lives, to build on training or experience, to generally improve ourselves. We see the body as something to be worked on, developed, controlled by the self. In our culture, thinness is a reflection of wealth and social prestige. (1999: 52)

Becker's argument about American's view of their bodies seemed correct in my mind as my experience in American culture has been one where young women and men diet regularly, and exercise has become an increasingly popular fad. Becker went on to say that while traditionally Fijians had been unconcerned with weight, Western mass media had led to a wave of eating disorders in Fiji as young Fijian women tried to emulate American stars like Heather Locklear of "Melrose Place." This article piqued my interest and I went to Fiji determined to study the effects of western mass media on Fijian body image. As I probed into local views of weight I did find that younger women were concerned with their weight, and many dieted and exercised to control their weight. However, many households in the villages where I conducted my research did not have televisions, only a few had radios and none had magazines from America or Europe. Thus the people with whom I talked seemed not to be very affected by the western mass media. Therefore it was necessary to refocus my thoughts which I turned towards the ideology of attractiveness among Fijian men and women. Becker argues that the Fijian focus on communal values encourages women and men to focus more on the cultivation of the group rather than the cultivation of their individual selves. Women and men are led away from dieting, according to Becker, because they are expected to express more concern for others within the group rather than their selves. I was interested in finding out if this was still true in Fiji or if there had been a shift among younger generations toward greater concern with themselves and with staying slim, as Becker suggested. The information that I collected began to form a pattern of contrast between two different groups of people: younger or unmarried women and older or married women. Because young women focused on losing weight more than the older women the research began to look more at the roles of individuals at different ages in their lives and the notion of self in relation to the community.

The main argument which I developed is that women in Fiji are not unconcerned with their body image but rather that the role which women play at different stages in their lives affects their view of the body in relation to the self. Among the younger and unmarried women dieting was common, as was a strong focus on appearance. With the older and married women there was less of a focus on their bodies and overall appearance. The explanation is that at a younger age the women are fulfilling their roles as more individuated persons within the community as they look for their husbands and consider the roles they will fulfill in the future. However, at an older age a women is expected to adopt a larger role within the community as a whole, and dieting which promotes cultivation of the individual does not fit well with this role. In this case, the notion that younger women are showing more of an interest in their body image may not be a direct result of Western media influence at all. Instead, at a younger age, women might not feel so embedded into the community that they have to devote all their energy to the cultivation of the group; therefore, they find it acceptable to diet because they are playing more of an individual role. The fact that young women who were married did not diet while older women who were married sometimes did diet suggested that stage of life influenced women more than age. I thus felt that there was no general shift toward more individualistic values and more dieting in Fiji.

There was some indication of a questioning of traditional women's roles, though this seemed to be confined to a few individuals who had not found satisfying places in the community. These women, because of their unhappy circumstances, questioned the communal ideology more generally and, going along with that, were more concerned with staying slim. Women are thus influenced to diet by their position in the community and the extent to which they are content with their role in the existing network of relationships that surrounds them. The relation of women to their bodies was also directly affected by the cultural ideology of self in Fijian society. The reality is that individuality is not promoted within a culture that involves a network of relationships and an emphasis on working to uphold communal traditions. Each individual is expected to show a great deal of respect for the community, and those who are more concerned with their individual selves are considerably weakening the ties of the community by diverging from the conventional ideology. Therefore, the research supports the understanding that the ideology of communalism is strong in Fijian society. However, for young women who have a less defined role within the community, there is more of an arena for individualism and consequently dieting occurs more frequently among these younger and unmarried women. For the older women who are more rooted in the community, dieting conflicts with the solidarity of the group and therefore they tend not to diet and lose weight. The ideology of communalism is a strong concept of Fijian culture but the impact that it has on the lives of women is dependent on their place within the society. Thus, overall I concluded that the cultural ideology emphasizing community over self was largely intact in Fiji. I thought it was unlikely that Fiji was on the verge of being swamped by a wave of eating disorders. Instead, I concluded that a concern with staying slim would be confined to a few short years in women's lives before they were married and switched to a role emphasizing nurturing others in the community and to those who had failed to find satisfying roles within the community and dieted as an expression of more general rebellion.

Methods

The research was conducted over a ten-week period in the fall of 1999. While on a term abroad in the country of Fiji I lived in the area of Rakiraki on the Fijian island of Viti Levu. The village where I resided was named Drana, which is where a good part of the research was conducted. In addition I spoke with women in the surrounding villages of Navutulevu, Vitawa, and Naivuvuni as well as a number of students at the local Penang Central High School. Most research was conducted through one-on-one interviews that were recorded and later transcribed.

Throughout the study, participant observation was a major tool for gathering research. Information was collected on a daily basis, and it was by interacting and observing that I first recognized the importance of community in Fijian society. One example was in the economic organization of the village of Drana. I became aware that not everyone in the village worked and that many people relied on other family members in the village for economic support. I concluded that regardless of the amount of income per household, all incomes were "leveled" as richer households shared resources with poorer neighbors. While some households acquired more money through work, they distributed more money to the community and thus were in the same economic bracket as other households. For example, a widow living in one household who had virtually no source of income was living in the nicest house in the village. In contrast, the village chief who had the highest income in the village was living in the smallest house. It was not difficult to conclude from this observation that the members of the community rely on one another for support and value individuals who contribute to a community.

The research began with interviews that were conducted to understand the characteristics that people found most attractive in males and females. I asked about individual preferences from a range of males and females. In addition the informants were asked to describe in their native language the various words for attractive or unattractive. Once this was discussed the men and women were asked to comment on their ideas regarding body image and weight in Fijian society. My interest was in determining the importance of weight and body image through a survey of how people commented on weight, how often they dieted, and how content they appeared to be with their present weight. I also wanted to give them a chance to talk about other things as attractive or unattractive before I focused their attention on body weight in order to evaluate how important body weight was to them overall.

A series of shorter interviews was conducted with young women at the local Penang Central High School. A group of six women was chosen at random by the high school librarian: this group included five Indian students and one Fijian student. Since about half of the population in Fiji is Indian I felt a good way to look at the influence of culture on dieting was to compare Fijians with Indians who had a very different culture. The Indian population is much more individualistic than the Fijian population so I wanted to understand their dieting habits in order to throw into relief the impact of a more communally oriented culture on Fijian women. Each woman was asked a series of ten short questions about satisfaction with their appearance, satisfaction with their bodies, diet and exercise. The information was reviewed to see if there were any notable differences between the young Indian women and the young Fijian women. The findings support the argument that while both young Fijian and young Indian women sometimes dieted, the two groups seemed to attach different meanings to staying slim. Because their culture encourages individualism, the Indian women turn more to dieting to prove themselves capable of success as an individual. On the other hand, Fijian women are attempting to express some level of individualism that distinguishes them from other women in Fijian society. Thus the Indian women focused on the success as an individual through the self-control of dieting, and the Fijian women are focused on dieting to express their attractiveness and attract husbands or distinguish themselves from other women in the village.

The interviews that I conducted next were focused on understanding the degree to which Fijian women of various ages had the sociocentric self, focusing on expressing the self through helping the community that Becker argues is typical of Fijians. A well-chosen set of five to eight scenarios was administered to a range of Fijian women in different villages. Each of the scenarios considered whether the woman would place her personal interests above the interests of the community in certain situations. The aim was to uncover what value individuals placed on the community versus their individual selves. I found that the women fell into two groups: younger and unmarried women had more individualistic values than older and married women. While this seemed to suggest that younger Fijians were questioning the values emphasizing community over individual, closer examination showed some telling exceptions to the rule. I found that young women who were happily married and well integrated into the community responded much like older women, while older women who were not happily married responded more like younger women. This suggested to me that there was not a general shift in values; rather, as I suggested above, women are influenced by their place in society with those who are married following communal expectations to value community over self and those who are not married following communal expectations that they think about themselves in order to make a good marriage. There was also some indication that those who were not happy were, not surprisingly, most inclined to question the dominant values.

Cultivation of Self versus Community in Fijian Society

The following chapters discuss the impact of cultural values on views of the body. The first chapter discusses the background literature that will be addressed throughout the thesis. This includes Anne Becker's book, Body, Self and Society: The View from Fiji and her argument about the differences between American and Fijian views of the self and the impact of these on ideas about by weight.

Chapter three examines in detail how the individual is embedded into the network of relationships in Fiji and how each individual plays his or her role within the system. The traditional values of respect for the community are illustrated through healing rituals as well as child rearing practices and kava drinking sessions (the traditional practice of drinking ground kava root mixed with water while sharing stories with other men and women of the community). The emphasis is on the public ideology that stresses that the good person is one who is more concerned with community than with self.

Chapter four focuses on the views of young and unmarried women about appearance as well as weight. A contrast between Fijian women and Indian women is presented to make the case that Indian women are more self-disciplined in their weight loss while the Fijian focus is more sociocentric, including concern with good grooming, display of respect for others and a proper demeanor.

Chapter five strengthens the argument that the sociocentric self which Becker mentions as a central influence for Fijian women not dieting is more important when women are playing more central roles within the community at an older age. Interviews with older and married women show that the focus on the community over the individual is influenced by the age of the women and their contentment with the role they are playing in the community. They are more interested in the community and therefore are less concerned with the exertion to stay thin.

Chapter six examines women's responses to a series of hypothetical scenarios designed to test the extent to which they placed communal demands over individual rights. Women of different ages who hold different positions within the community analyze situations where a decision must be made to act as an individual or to focus on the community. The responses demonstrate how the age of women and their role in the Fijian community affect their attitudes about the communal ideology.

Chapter seven looks at American values through analyzing American responses to a series of hypothetical scenarios, similar to the ones given to Fijian women. I thought it was possible that Becker had overstated the degree to which Americans had individualistic values and that it was also possible that older and married American women would be more concerned with caring for others than on displaying their disciplined selves through controlling their weight. My results, however, confirmed the idea that Americans of all ages are much less sociocentric than Fijians of all ages. This tends to confirm Becker's argument that dieting in America may be influenced by our individualistic values.

On to Chapter 2...