Terminación de los contratos de trabajo – Causas

Before analysing Sphere 3, it is important to briefly visit the transitions that Samoa has made from a colonised nation to an independent nation. This will bring context to the nuanced tensions within the different spheres, especially with respect to freedom of mobile phone usage. Academic literature indicates that the mobile phone has changed the ways the world communicates, and this thesis specifically asks how it is changing the va. Here I

examine why, and in what circumstances, Samoans have embraced mobile technology. I explore how it is possible that the Samoan concept of va remains at the heart of fa’amatai in this modern age.

Despite her start as a colonised nation, Samoa has made significant progress from being colonised under Germany from 1899-1914 to becoming an independent nation in 1962. Her adopted parliamentary democracy is a variation

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of the Westminster system (Davidson, 1967, Iati, 2013) , and the Samoan fa’amatai socio-political system that exists alongside it is a picture of Western and Samoan ideals working side-by-side. Samoa’s transition to

modernisation has seen the nation try to maintain its culture while adapting to the Western or global economy. This has caused cultural clashes between fa’asamoa beliefs, especially the idea that cultural lands are at the heart of fa’asamoa, and neo-liberal economic policies advocating economic advancement through the sale of state- owned and cultural lands. Differing opinions on economic and cultural sustainability have caused tension between the indigenous and introduced political systems, with many many fearing a loss of cultural identity:

The Samoan capacity to be active agents in transforming their society has weakened due to the complex range of globalizing forces (the parallel processes of diversification of the economy and integration into the global political economy are significant here) and, because an increasingly plural Samoan society is less able (or willing?) to agree on how to manage these forces. As a result, those elements of Samoan social

organization which enabled it to manage external influences in the past are losing their resiliency. (pg125)

(Fairbairn-Dunlop and Macpherson, 2010)

The dichotomy of loyalty to tradition versus modernisation is reflected in the different ways that each village in Samoa is governed and their occasional conflicts with the Government (Iati, 2013). There are villages in Samoa that have chosen to move away from the fa’amatai system and are instead governed by local law enforcement, as in most Western societies. Generally , rural villages (Spheres 1-2) are more restrictive of mobile phone use (and technology), but in Sphere 3 (urban Samoa), the potential for transition of change to occur through the mobile phone (such as fa’amobile) is higher because the township (Apia) has been the most Westernised part of Samoa since colonisation (Davidson,1967). In the following section I describe Sphere 3 before discussing the position of the mobile phone in the va model.

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6.2.1 Sphere 3: Strong Western Influence

The third layer represents (figure 7) the town area where there is the strongest Western influence. The mobile phone is used relatively freely in comparison to Spheres 1 and 2. Due to my extended time in village Samoa, my research does not delve into this area as deeply as in Sphere 1 and 2, but I make a few comparisons based on the interviews I held and my observations during the last few weeks of my fieldwork in Samoa’s capital, Apia.

Figure 7 Sphere 3

In Apia, the majority of my interviewees were given a mobile phone before they turned thirteen years of age because of after school activities and the need for the parents to coordinate pick-up times or communicate any unexpected changes throughout the day. This is a contrast to Sila’s story, in which she did not receive a phone until she had ‘earned’ the right to own one by reaching university or being gainfully employed. In urban Samoa the non- compulsory attachment to the fa’amatai system of village Samoa means a more independent existence.The mobile phone becomes central to communication for urban families, which contrasts with the communicative

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ecologies of Island Breeze, in which indigenous communication is central. The next scenario illustrates the influence of the mobile phone in Sphere 3 and the potential of fa’amobile to occur there.

Sala is 18 years of age. She attends the National University of Samoa (NUS) and has lived in urban Samoa all her life. She says that her family are not heavily into the fa’asamoa, but when they visit relatives who live in the rural areas she is expected to know what to do. There are very few restrictions on the use of mobile phones in her home, and Sala has even introduced WhatsApp, the mobile messenger application, to her parents. They find more convenient than texting because they can have group ‘conversations’ with her sisters overseas. Here we see Matsuda’s (2005) notion of ‘full-time intimate community’ in practise. Matsuda’s research discusses how Japanese mobile users have a select group of people (often family or close friends) that they are in constant contact with, creating a full-time intimate community. Matsuda states that it is not so much the content that matters; rather, the members of this ‘full-time intimate community’ are aware of each other’s state of being (happy, sad, walking, eating, travelling, etc.), illustrating that intimacy is being communicated.

Sala’s main concern is that although WhatsApp is great for coordinating the family outside of the home, she finds that her family message one another even though they may be in the next room:

My father is an engineer and my mother is a medical officer. I am the third of four sisters, two of whom are in New Zealand at university. My younger sister is at high school. My family use WhatsApp to communicate to each other. Nobody I know uses text messaging in my circle of friends, it is so ancient. My sister and I introduced WhatsApp to my mum and dad because it doesn’t cost as much. I only spend $10 SAT per month on data because we have WiFi at home. I receive an allowance of $120.00 SAT per week but that’s mostly because I own a car. We don’t have any rules in our home in relation to using the mobile phone, well we used to not be allowed to have it when we went to bed but my parents gave up because we would keep

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using it late at night. I think the phones have changed how my family relate to one another because we even WhatsApp each other even though we’re in the same house or in the next room. I am concerned for my little sister because she is always on the phone and when we always argue over it when I mention it. I do talk to my mum about things but when things get out of hand dad gets involved and that’s when we listen. We don’t have fa’asamoa at home, only when we go to my dad’s family. We have to do the feaus (chores) wear an ie lava lava (sarong) and we are not allowed to be on our phones all the time. I usually check it when nobody is looking but we can’t be on our phones when the family are together because we will get told off. It is considered rude and antisocial. The only negative thing with mobile phones is that my family don’t

communicate as much face-to-face.

Looking at Sala’s family through the lens of va, I immediately see there are violations to the va fealoaloa’i between Sala and her parents, where Sala and her sister were not allowed to have their phones when they went to bed but their parents gave up when this rule was being disobeyed. The other violation is the va fealoaloa’i between Sala and her younger sister:

My younger sister sometimes sends angry messages to me when we’re fighting at home and then she blocks me on WhatsApp and she blocks me in person like not talking to me.

This va has been violated because Sala is the elder sister, and in fa’asamoa the eldest must be respected. When there are disputes between siblings, then both parties are required to teu le va (Nurture the space in-between). Sala alludes to this when she mentions that she spoke to her mother about an issue, and her mother then took the issue to the authority figure in the house: “but when things get out of hand dad gets involved and that’s when we listen.” Here the va was restored through their father, but the interesting thing is how these arguments and conversations occur within a family under one roof in their own silos.

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This is very un-Samoan, and Sala’s concern that her family use WhatsAapp to communicate more than speaking face-to-face is an example of how the mobile phone has impacted the va fealoaloa’i within this family. These scenarios depict the contrast between Spheres 2 and 3, as reflected in the va model. The lighter shade of red indicates a more Western-centric environment, with less emphasis on fa’amatai and indigenous rule.