Development, French Neocolonialism, and the Structure of the Tubuai Economy

Abstract

The contemporary structure of the rapidly modernizing Tubuai economy (French Polynesia) is examined and it is argued that specific local structures, notably a strong subsistence‐oriented productive sector and a system of collective (familial) land holding, are not ‘traditional’ vestiges of the past, but are actively integrated components of the modern rural household economy. Their functions and utility to islanders are generated as external, neocolonial inputs and interact with local conditions and islanders' own goals and priorities. These internal structures play a significant role in negotiating islanders' particular adaptation to integration into the French/Territorial capitalist economy and to externally‐planned ‘welfare and subsidy‐oriented’ agricultural development programs.