Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies

This article explores the shifts and negotiations of racial, ethnic, and national identity for persons of mixed Indo-Fijian and Indigenous Fijian descent. The study provides a detailed historical overview of the racialization of politics and identity in Fiji and the subsequent politicization of mixed race. Drawing on narratives of identity and belonging gathered from multiple individual and group interviews with ten participants in Fiji, the article juxtaposes this historical framework with the lived reality of mixedness in contemporary Fiji. Framed within the field of critical mixed race studies, this research identifies and interrogates how identity constructions are challenged, accommodated, and reinforced through the participants’ lived experiences of mixedness and how this relates to Indigenous identity. The article seeks to provide a new layer of analysis at a time when identity politics remain critical in Fijian society. Drawing on models of mixed identity developed in the West, it explores how mixed identities in Fiji converge with and diverge from experiences elsewhere. By moving away from studies of colonizer/colonized mixedness, this research enriches mixed-race scholarship with a unique study of mixing, migration, and Indigeneity in an understudied region of the world.