A Woman's Place
A Woman's Place

Author: Rachael F. Tatafu

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This thesis aims to provide a better understanding of the political positioning of women in Tonga today. In 1951 women were given the right to vote in the Kingdom of Tonga; however, it was not until 24 years later that a woman became a Member of Parliament. Since 1975 there have only been 9 women who have stood in parliament as a representative. To understand why women are under-represented in Tongan politics the thesis highlights the different roles and images Tongan women have in Tonga and how these impact on women’s participation in politics. Two significant perspectives are examined: the views of women who have participated in parliament and the views of women who have voted in the general elections. Both these perspectives are chosen because politics refers not only to direct participation in parliament but also to voter contribution. In exploring these two perspectives the thesis brings out and analyses the obstacles that women in Tonga face in their cultural context which are projected into the political arena thus reducing their participation in parliament. In examining the issue of voting, the thesis uncovers a distinction between ‘modernists’ and ‘traditionalists’, and attempts to characterise these two sides and their impacts on women’s participation in parliament. Since only a handful of women have stood in parliament since 2000, there is a concern whether issues and solutions regarding women are being discussed specifically by the government and in general. In conducting this research, I aim to introduce a new narrative for Tongan women, one that leads to their empowerment and hope for a better standing in society. This research is significant because it gives voice to the issue of the under-representation of women, analyses why this is happening and provides recommendations for ways forward.

Introduction to Tonga
Introduction to Tonga

Author: Gilad James, PhD

Publisher: Gilad James Mystery School

Published:

Total Pages: 97

ISBN-13: 2065004851

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Tonga is a Pacific Island nation located in the south of the Pacific Ocean, west of Fiji and north of New Zealand. It is made up of 169 islands, 36 of which are inhabited. The capital and largest island is Tongatapu, which is home to about two-thirds of the country's population. The Tongan culture is deeply rooted in tradition and is known for its hospitality, respect for elders, and the importance placed on family and community. Tonga is a constitutional monarchy with the King serving as the head of state. The country has a unicameral Parliament, which consists of 26 members: 17 elected by the people and 9 appointed by the King. The economy is largely based on agriculture and fishing, with tourism also playing an important role in recent years. The official language is Tongan, although English is widely spoken, especially in business settings. Despite its small size and limited resources, Tonga has a distinct place in the Pacific and is known for its unique culture, friendly people, and beautiful landscape.

Desire, Obligation, and Familial Love
Desire, Obligation, and Familial Love

Author: Makiko Nishitani

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2020-08-31

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0824883608

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among Tongan migrant mothers and adult daughters in Australia, anthropologist Makiko Nishitani provides a unique account of how gifts, money, and information flow along the connections of kin and kin-like relationships. Desire, Obligation, and Familial Love challenges the conventional discourse on migration, which typically characterizes intergenerational changes from tradition to modernity, from relational to individual, and from obligation to autonomy and freedom. Rather, through an intimate examination of Tongan women’s everyday engagement with kinship relationships, Nishitani highlights how migrant women and their daughters born outside Tonga together create a field of relationships with kin and kin-like people, and navigate between individualistic, personal desires and familial duties and obligations. Their negotiations are not limited to a local frame of reference, but encompass vast distances, including relationships with relatives in places like Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the “home” island nation. Tongan women manage these relationships across diverse modes of communication: face-to-face interactions in homes and at church, lengthy telephone conversations on fixed phone lines in kitchens, and interactions on social media accessed on living room computers shared between neighboring households. Relationships between migrant mothers and second-generation daughters are suffused with warmth and empathy, as well as tensions and misunderstandings. Nishitani’s work demonstrates the critical contemporary relevance of classical anthropological kinship studies and gift theories as tools that can help us to understand transnationalism in the “digital” age. Through reflections on feminist geography, social theory of technology, Bourdieu’s field theory, and media studies, Nishitani makes a convincing call for anthropologists to use relationships rather than geographical places as a site of anthropological fieldwork in order to understand the sociality of diasporic people. Filled with rich, intimate portrayals of diasporic women’s everyday lives and the everyday politics of familial relationships, Desire, Obligation, and Familial Love will appeal to students and scholars of the anthropology of migration, of communication technologies and social media, and of gender and familial relationships, as well as to those interested in fieldwork methodology, transnational and migration studies, and Pacific studies.

Women Empowerment and the Feminist Agenda in Africa
Women Empowerment and the Feminist Agenda in Africa

Author: Musingafi, Maxwell Constantine Chando

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2023-10-24

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1668497239

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book argues that African women's lived experiences are often spoken about authoritatively by people who are not included within this demographic, relegating these women to the role of spectators in their own stories. The dominant narratives of African womanhood, legitimized by intellectual discourse, are neither written by African women nor Africans in general. This book seeks to place feminism in Africa into its historical context by revisiting the experiences, practices, vision, and theories of feminism and gender in Africa. It is intended to serve as a comprehensive introduction to the field and provide a starting point for further and more advanced study of the nexus of feminism, gender, and development in Africa. Women Empowerment and the Feminist Agenda in Africa is designed to initiate post-graduate research and studies in the social sciences for directed and critical inquiry into the nature of feminist and gender politics and power relations in Africa. It is written for researchers, academics, and advanced tertiary studies, although professional gender and feminist organizations, especially those in Africa or focusing on Africa, will also find a wealth of information. The book is recommended for university libraries, post-graduate students and staff, the non-governmental community in Africa, women movement organizations in Africa, independent researchers and academics, and the African community at large.

Women and Business in the Pacific
Women and Business in the Pacific

Author: Vijaya Nagarajan

Publisher: Asian Development Bank

Published: 2018-08-01

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 9292612875

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a current and comprehensive analysis of the context in which Pacific women engage in the private sector, as well as a detailed list of strategies to increase their participation in business. Drawing on research and data from seven Pacific countries, it offers a diversity of innovative and pragmatic ways to empower women and enhance their economic opportunities. Jointly undertaken by the Asian Development Bank's Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative and the Government of Australia, this study is valuable for anyone seeking to support Pacific women and contribute to entrepreneurship, business development, and private sector growth.

Gender on the Edge
Gender on the Edge

Author: Niko Besnier

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 9888139274

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Transgender identities and other forms of gender and sexuality that transcend the normative pose important questions about society, culture, politics, and history. They force us to question, for example, the forces that divide humanity into two gender categories and render them necessary, inevitable, and natural. The transgender also exposes a host of dynamics that, at first glance, have little to do with gender or sex, such as processes of power and domination; the complex relationship among agency, subjectivity, and structure; and the mutual constitution of the global and the local. Particularly intriguing is the fact that gender and sexual diversity appear to be more prevalent in some regions of the world than in others. This edited volume is an exploration of the ways in which non-normative gendering and sexuality in one such region, the Pacific Islands, are implicated in a wide range of socio-cultural dynamics that are at once local and global, historical and contemporary. The authors recognize that different social configurations, cultural contexts, and historical trajectories generate diverse ways of being transgender across the societies of the region, but they also acknowledge that these differences are overlaid with commonalities and predictabilities. Rather than focus on the definition of identities, they engage with the fact that identities do things, that they are performed in everyday life, that they are transformed through events and movements, and that they are constantly negotiated. By addressing the complexities of these questions over time and space, this work provides a model for future endeavors that seek to embed dynamics of gender and sexuality in a broad field of theoretical import.