"

5.4 Tongan collectives

Tongans originate from the Kingdom of Tonga, an archipelago in the South Pacific region in close proximity to Pacific rim countries like Aotearoa NZ and Australia (Figure 6). Tongan individuals migrating to Australia, often through Aotearoa NZ, are part of a collective of families (famili) – kainga.[1] Multigenerational family groups that exist in Tongan collectives across diaspora and Pacific homelands are what help to maintain intergenerational connections, both face to face and online.[2]

A map displaying Australia on the left, New Zealand at the bottom right, and Tonga circled at the top right, with arrows indicating travel directions between these locations.
Figure 6: Map showing circular migration of Tongans between their Pacific homelands and diaspora collectives in Australia and Aotearoa NZ . Source: Adapted from Australasia and South Pacific locator map by John Tann from Wikimiedia Commons used under CC BY 4.0.

There are salient links between diaspora and Pacific homelands.[3] Material culture reveals connections that are ongoing and circulatory.[4] Traditional materials used in Australia are often brought by family members from Tonga when attending celebrations and bereavements.[5] Figure 7 captures a moment of serious discussion amongst Tongan women deciphering which mats should be gifted to whom at a Pasifika PhD graduation celebration attended by prestigious community leaders and University of Queensland affiliates.

Three people examine traditional woven mats in a room with large windows. One holds up a mat with geometric and floral patterns, while others closely observe the detailed designs and fringes.
Figure 7: Kie Tonga (fine mats) and ngatu (tapa cloth) being folded in preparation for the gifting of cake and koloa faka-Tonga (Tongan wealth) to special guests at a family graduation celebration in Brisbane (2016) – photograph taken by author and later posted on Facebook (12 December 2016).

The migratory pattern of movement of Tongan people in search of better opportunities and resources is a natural inclination that has been happening for centuries.[6] The phenomena of Tongans migrating en masse during the 1950s to 1990s from their Pacific homelands to Aotearoa NZ, Australia and the US has been well documented.[7] There is evidence that there are more Tongans living abroad than there are living in Tonga.[8] What is interesting is that the connections through material culture, circular migration and e-talanoa have increased, especially since COVID-19, which revived intergenerational knowledge sharing online.[9]

An example of knowledge sharing in action was the proliferation of Tongan women’s coffee and prayer groups alongside cultural crafts, cultural dance and language groups during the 2020–2021 lockdowns.[10] Post pandemic, these groups have continued online and boosted numbers attending church and community events across Tongan collectives. This has been observed in Australia, Aotearoa NZ, the US and Tonga.[11]

  1. Ruth Faleolo, “Understanding Pacific Island Well-Being Perspectives Through Samoan and Tongan Material Cultural Adaptations and Spatial Behaviour in Auckland and Brisbane.” Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies 16, no. 2 (2019a): 37–76; Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Wellbeing Perspectives, Conceptualisations of Work and Labour Mobility Experiences of Pasifika Trans-Tasman Migrants in Brisbane,” in Labour Lines and Colonial Power: Indigenous and Pacific Islander Labour Mobility in Australia, eds V. Stead and J. Altman (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019b): 185–206. ↵
  2. Dion Enari and Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Pasifika Collective Well-being During the COVID-19 Crisis: Samoans and Tongans in Brisbane,” Journal of Indigenous Social Development 9, no. 3 (2020): 110–126; Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Tongan Collective Mobilities: Familial Intergenerational Connections Before, During, and Post COVID‐19,” Oceania 90 (2020a): 128–138. ↵
  3. Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Pasifika Well-Being and Trans-Tasman Migration: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Samoan and Tongan Well-being Perspectives and Experiences in Auckland and Brisbane” (PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2020b); Faleolo, “Wellbeing Perspectives, Conceptualisations of Work and Labour Mobility Experiences of Pasifika Trans-Tasman Migrants in Brisbane.” ↵
  4. Faleolo, “Understanding Pacific Island Well-Being Perspectives”; Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Pasifika Diaspora Connectivity and Continuity with Pacific Homelands: Material Culture and Spatial Behaviour in Brisbane,” TAJA: The Australian Journal of Anthropology 31, no. 1 (2020c): 66–84. ↵
  5. Faleolo, “Understanding Pacific Island Well-Being Perspectives”; Faleolo, “Pasifika Diaspora Connectivity and Continuity with Pacific Homelands”; Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Mobility Justice: Tongan Elders Engaging in Temporal Trans-Tasman Migration for Caregiving Duties,” Australian Geographer 54, no. 4 (2023b): 533–544. ↵
  6. Epeli Hau’ofa, “Our Sea of Islands,” The Contemporary Pacific 6, no.1 (1994): 147–61. ↵
  7. Manuhuia Barcham, Regina Scheyvens, and John Overton, “New Polynesian Triangle: Rethinking Polynesian Migration and Development in the Pacific,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 50, no. 3 (2009): 322–337; Leulu F. Va’a, “Saili Matagi: Samoan Migrants in Australia” (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific & Apia: National University of Sāmoa, 2001); Tēvita O. Kaʻili, “Marking Indigeneity: The Tongan Art of Sociospatial Relations” (University of Arizona Press, 2017). ↵
  8. Niko Besnier, On the Edge of the Global: Modern Anxieties in a Pacific Island Nation (Stanford University Press, 2011). ↵
  9. Faleolo, “Mobility Justice”; Ruth (Lute) Faleolo, “Trans-Tasman Mobilities in and Through Aotearoa New Zealand: Extending Family, Home, and Work Across the Tasman,” Transforming the Politics of Mobility and Migration in Aotearoa New Zealand (2023c): 87–99; Faleolo, “Our Search for Intergenerational Rhythms”; Enari and Faleolo, “Pasifika Collective Well-being During the COVID-19 Crisis.” ↵
  10. Faleolo, “Trans-Tasman Mobilities in and Through Aotearoa New Zealand.” ↵
  11. Faleolo, “Talanoa moe vā”; Faleolo, “Trans-Tasman Mobilities in and Through Aotearoa New Zealand.” ↵

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