Transnational Samoan chiefs: views of the faamatai (chiefly system)

Abstract

Sāmoans make up the largest Pacific population in New Zealand, the United States and Australia. Family networks remain strong between diasporic Sāmoans and their homeland, and through these networks social, political and economic links are maintained. While there is increasing global concern about the ‘erosion’ of the fa’amatai, there is a need for more evidence of how transnational matai experience and practise fa’amatai and their roles and obligations to aiga (families) and villages in their host nations and Samoa, to better understand both the potential and risks associated with the future of the fa’amatai.