The difference between the amount of time spent on communal work for the villages and the value placed on it, as compared with the situation as it was only ten years ago, is striking and points to the speed at which changes in the economic basis of Tokelau society have occurred. ‘Subsistence time’ and ‘office time’ activities are a case in point. ‘Subsistence-time’ includes those centred on production (including fishing and other food-gathering activities), distribution and consumption of food. ‘Office-time’ activities are those that involve working in the various departments of the Tokelau public service. The two systems conflict in several respects and there are many signs that they have opposing consequences with respect to social reproduction. In short, whereas subsistence-oriented activities are geared towards reproducing large extended families and a network of inter-family cooperation, monetary based activities tend to produce smaller, more independent units that do not contribute in the same way towards village cooperation. This trend is visible in the atoll landscape as a result of the so-called housing scheme, which has resulted in a near total replacement of the traditional, thatched, open-walled houses by two-storey, concrete-floored modern housing with water catchment roofs. These houses allow smaller family units than previously to live together, and not least important, the walls provide a previously non-existent sense of privacy.

The monetary sphere is also intimately connected with demands for more frequent inter-atoll and national cooperation on a formal, institutional level. The emergence of certain conflicts between different systems of production and reproduction is clearly attributable to the UN and the New Zealand administration’s project of establishing the local infrastructure deemed necessary for political independence. In other words, the contemporary rhythm of village life plays according to a different score from previously. Where in the 1960s, three months around Christmas were reserved for competitive games and festive activities, followed by more labour-intensive periods, now, work and leisure activities are more evenly distributed.

In addition, the past few decades have seen the rise of socio-economic divisions that have their basis in wage employment in the Tokelau public service. Whereas earlier there were differences between extended families in terms of the size of land areas they possessed, the ownership of land did not in itself make for prosperity. The prerogative to command able-bodied persons to gather and process food seems rather to have been the critical factor and this control was ultimately in the hands of the elders. In other words, through most of the period since the abolition of the kingship system in 1915, Tokelau has not experienced marked variation in the material status of its inhabitants. These days, such material differences are present, however, and socio-economic differences are easily detected when comparing the two-storey palagi houses containing satellite-discs, DVD or video players, freezers, microwave ovens and other consumer goods with other, more modest abodes with no such amenities. Thus, one may say that competing for honour has moved into new arenas.

Furthermore, and importantly for my discussion of possible factors that may influence emigration, there are signs indicating that the ‘rivalry’ or competition for honour that was an integral part of older political life in the atolls, have moved into the new arenas and institutions of the new administration, previously referred to as ‘the modern house of Tokelau’. A slight shift in the sites of political life, or rather, its expansion into new arenas, reproduces the traditional dynamic in the villages where one ‘house’ or encompassing group is pitted against other ‘houses’ or groups on a regular basis. The qualitative change lies in the fact that this rivalry now also occurs within the administrative institutions, and its associated arenas and media.

As mentioned above, local perceptions and opinions of the last decade’s exercise of governance have been varied. Most have been in agreement with the plan to relocate the previously Apia-based Tokelau administration to the atolls. The political rhetoric of the modern, or as it became in Tokelauan, the new (fou) house of Tokelau, was perceived by some as a bid for power by a particular group of public servants and elders, and it was challenged on those terms. This, in particular, was (and still is) done by one fraction of village leaders among those who have no or little previous background in public service positions. This faction prefers to play what may be called the ‘card of tradition’.

The main issue underlying the contemporary elections to political positions such as the faipule (minister of external relations) and pulenuku (village mayor), and in deciding issues during the General Fono is the question of whether people with allegiances beyond the atoll village (‘nationalists’) can be trusted at all, or whether people’s allegiances should be with those who have kept to one village and gradually built up their power base from their extended family and outwards (‘traditionalists’). As of today, the latter position seems to have ascendancy, as Tokelau, in its first national referendum (in February 2006) the vote against a treaty with New Zealand granting political self-determination in free association with New Zealand, fell just short of the required two thirds majority stipulated by the Genenal Fono. A second referendum was held in October 2007 and again although coming even closer to the two thirds majority, the result was still to remain what some may call a New Zealand colony.

Conflicting views as to how life should be lived in the communities, in Tokelau and also overseas, run deep. Underlying such stances, I have argued, is a common form of sociality or way of relating to a larger social body to which one feels a sense of belonging. This common form of sociality is expressed in the term alofa and other concepts of sharing and cooperation but also, according to my analysis, in ways of competing for ascendancy and control over local and extraneous resources.