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Moods behind the silences

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway, solrun.williksen{at}svt.ntnu.no

This article reflects on encounters that took place while doing fieldwork in Fiji. The writer thinks back on moods and acts that were, and still are, only partly understood. The writer has in earlier works discussed how Fijian people adhere to strict rules for body comportment and social intercourse, not least in their elaborate ceremonies that seem to continue unabated even in the urban areas. These rules are related to the status hierarchy of the chiefly system where communal values of kinship and social obligations reign supreme. Togetherness and a constant adjustment to others' expectations are the norms. A person seems hardly ever to be alone or free from obligations or duties to perform in one way or the other. This article, however, is a more personal account of people who became friends of the writer during fieldwork and yet in certain aspects, as the writer thinks back, remain riddles.

Key Words: silence • moods • solitude • sorrow • sleep

Ethnography, Vol. 10, No. 1, 115-127 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1466138108099592


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