The milieu of reporting of Nacamaki and Nabuna villages of Koro Island

This paper seeks to examine the milieu of reporting in two villages operating on Koro Island, Republic of Fiji Islands. It aims to analyse how both western‐narrow and traditional reporting offers rural villages extensive opportunities to discharge responsibilities of stewardship, accountability and accounts of the activities of farmers and stores in an agrarian setting, whether the activities are subsistence‐ or cash‐based.

Fieldwork was conducted in two villages of Koro Island, Nacamaki and Nabuna, to ascertain the milieu of reporting, and open‐ended interviews were conducted with villagers from both villages. The “view from the centre” is adopted here, rather than the “view from the periphery”.

The study shows that people of both Nacamaki and Nabuna villages have adapted their specific reporting styles according to the circumstances facing them. Despite being only 5 km apart, two sharply contrasting village reporting milieux emerge. One relies greatly on the use of both Traditional oral and Western‐narrow hand‐written reports to fulfil accounts of entities (co‐operative and individual farmers) operating in the village. The other prefers oral communication to any form of written communication to raise accounts of villagers' collectivist and independently charged, agrarian‐based activities.

The study raises three sets of policy issues that are central to the development of reporting in Eastern Fijian villages. Numerous resources are unnecessary in presenting a western‐narrow account of transactions when the accounts are supplemented by a traditional reporting mien. Western‐narrow reporting appears to be well received by co‐operative members and individually oriented farmers. In the absence of Western‐narrow reporting, Traditional reporting seems to serve the needs of both communally oriented and individualistically inclined villagers. The results of the study underlie both the complexity of village life in determining systems of reporting and the fragility of written reporting in Eastern Fijian outer island villages.

The study shows the way in which Eastern Fijian villages resolve subsistence and cash exchanges at the social level, taking into account local conventions, customs, laws, rituals and values.

The originality of the paper rests in considering villagers' own reporting through internal points of reference, providing space for interrelations between traditional Fijian values, the island landscape and the cultural geography.