Constructing Transnational Polynesian Identities: Soldiers, Sportsmen and Illegitimate Masculinities

For the small Polynesian island states of Tonga and Independent Samoa, their biggest export is labour – their people. Six out of ten Tongans and Samoans are born outside their home countries.  In a climate of transmigration and globalization Polynesian men are sought out as sportsmen, heavy manual workers and standover men. They also have the highest over-representation of any racial group in the US military. This paper argues that contemporary Polynesian masculinity has been externally constructed through the physicality of Warrior in a colonial and post-colonial context and questions whether internalization of this representation as a “regime of truth” leads to an embodiment of race, class and cultural identity that is inherently informed by the physical. Through this lens of heightened and exaggerated physicality, acceptable expressions of Polynesian masculinity are readily acknowledged through work and sport.  However, its illegitimate expression - as gang member - is less understood. Polynesian gangs have an extremely high profile in New Zealand and are now the fastest growing ethnically-identified gang population in the United States.  Proportionally, this population group is progressively over-represented in the penal systems of destination countries. This paper will explore how this narrow range of acceptable masculinities, when combined with increasing socio-economic marginality, contributes to low civic engagement and greater interface with agencies of law and order. As conventional employment opportunities are reduced for unskilled labour, more young Polynesian men are at risk of being drawn into gangs and are likely to engage in other forms of criminal behaviour. This paper will therefore discuss how popular perceptions of Polynesian strength and aggression, so valuable as sporting commodities, are regarded as threatening and violent outside of sporting domains. Interviews were conducted with 48 Polynesian men aged 18-60 in two studies.