Indigenous enterprise on customary lands: Diverse economies of surplus

Abstract

This study examines Indigenous Fijian and Papua New Guinean enterprises on customary land. It explores the duality of merging Indigenous and Western principles of entrepreneurship and the ability to balance business and socio-cultural imperatives. A qualitative, ethnographic-case study approach is deployed, with talanoa/tok stori used to collect empirical materials. Two interrelated themes emerged from the study: the need for Indigenous enterprise models to contribute to a more holistic conception of well-being, and as a result, the requirement to rethink how surplus is distributed beyond mainstream shareholder ownership models. This study reveals a more nuanced approach to distributing surplus based on Indigenous conceptions of kinship. The specific theoretical contribution of this study is an Indigenous conception of surplus distribution that offers a challenge to traditional shareholder models.