In this episode Familiar Stranger sat down with Fijian author and political analyst Edward Narain and Associate Professor Tarryn Philips from La Trobe University.


Together Edward and Tarryn published Sugar: An Ethnographic Novel which reveals the extent to which the lives, health, and opportunities of Fijians are still dramatically affected by the country’s colonial past and entrenched inequality.


Set in Suva, with a tropical cyclone looming, Sugar follows three strangers from different cultural backgrounds as they find themselves entwined in a brutal murder: revealing inconvenient truths about the darker side of global development in Fiji.


The story follows a naïve but well-intentioned Australian health volunteer, a jaded Indo-Fijian amateur historian, and a troubled Fijian (iTaukei) teen caring for his diabetic grandmother. The reader is immersed in each character’s world and slowly comes to understand the historical and structural reasons behind Fiji’s diabetes epidemic, exploitative labour and trade practices, and the role Australia and other nations play in both.

Head over to our website for a full list of Links and Citations!

Humours

Ep#107: Bittersweet Stories from Fiji with Dr Tarryn Phillips and Edward Narain

Vijayendra Rao, an economist with the World Bank, talks with anthropologist Ian Pollock about the theory and practice of development, anthropology’s relationship to development, and how ethnography might help the disenfranchised engage with powerful institutions and effect social change.

All the colors in the world

43. AnthroPod Crossover: The Familiar Strange with Vijayendra Rao

Sabilulungan, Mang Koko K vs DJ Knalpot

The Familiar Strange is a podcast about doing anthropology: that is, about listening, looking, trying out, and being with, in pursuit of uncommon knowledge about humans and culture. Find show notes, plus our blog about anthropology's role in the world, at https://www.thefamiliarstrange.com. Twitter: @tfsTweets. FB: facebook.com/thefamiliarstrange. Instagram: @thefamiliarstrange.

Brought to you by your familiar strangers: Ian Pollock, Jodie-Lee Trembath, Julia Brown, Simon Theobald, Kylie Wong Dolan; produced by Deanna Catto and Matthew Phung, and with support from the Australian Anthropological Society, the Australian National University’s Schools of Culture, History and Language and Archeology and Anthropology, and the Australian Centre for Public Awareness of Science, and produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association. 

We acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we record this podcast, and pay our respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, past, present, and emerging.

Ep#107: Bittersweet Stories from Fiji with Dr Tarryn Phillips and Edward Narain

The Familiar Strange

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