Table of Contents
Kinship frames Samoan social organisation and Samoan transnationalism. It defines the matrix within which people, capital, ideas and technologies move between the nodes of ‘transnational Samoa’. This matrix of relationships was the foundation of transnational Samoa: it provided the potential for a transnational Samoa, and the practices gave it form. Commitment to kin, expressed in visits and participation in ceremonials, gifts and exchanges, creates, maintains and reflects an active transnationalism. Without these regular and affirming exchanges there is no active transnationalism.
If kinship is, in effect, the foundation of transnational Samoa, then anything that transforms the character of kinship has the potential to reconfigure Samoan transnationalism. Anything that weakens kinship bonds between origin and overseas communities, which are the ‘nodes’ of transnational Samoa, has the potential to undermine it. Conversely, anything that strengthens those bonds ensures the survival of an active Samoan transnationalism. Therefore, any attempt to explain the condition of Samoan transnationalism must focus first on the conditions of kinship and the factors affecting it in any given node. This chapter argues that commitment to kinship is shifting in Samoan migrant enclaves as kin relationships are modified to meet the changing needs and circumstances of the migrants and their descendants (Macpherson and Macpherson 1999). These changes are transforming Samoan transnationalism.
This chapter outlines the role that kinship played in the establishment and maintenance of transnational Samoa, and the ways in which the transformation of kinship within migrant enclaves in New Zealand is now affecting the contours of Samoan transnationalism. First, we examine the connections between kinship and social organisation which evolved on small islands and their transformation in urban, industrial environments. Using material from a longitudinal study, we outline the form and significance of kin-based activity among new Samoan migrants in New Zealand in the 1950s. Then, we trace the expansion of kin-based activity in the 1950s and 1960s, its elaboration in the 1970s and early 1980s, and its contraction from the mid–1980s. We identify factors that have produced these shifts and conclude that the latest changes will weaken the commitment to kinship and may have profound consequences for transnational Samoa which it underpins.