Can Pasifika Theologians Convert Neoliberal Cannibals?

Abstract

This article reinterprets the colonial trope of the “South Seas cannibal” to critique the dynamics of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. Nineteenth-century European explorers, missionaries, and travel writers frequently portrayed Pacific Islanders as “savage cannibals,” a colonial discourse that anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere calls “cannibal talk.” Such representations functioned ideologically to justify colonial expansion under the banner of the three Cs: Christianity, Commerce, and Civilisation. Drawing on historical and anthropological scholarship, the article argues that what has been described as “ritualised anthropophagy” in Pasifika societies was neither indiscriminate nor without limit but embedded within complex cosmological frameworks governed by concepts such as mana and tapu, where ritual consumption symbolised the regulated transfer of power and the restoration of relational balance. The article then reverses the mission by applying the metaphor of cannibalism to modern economic systems. Drawing on theorists such as John Elkington, David Harvey, and Nancy Fraser, neoliberalism is described as a form of “cannibal capitalism” that consumes, without limit, its own social, ecological, and political foundations. This extractive logic is further analysed through Nikotemo Sopepa’s critique of necropolitics in the Pacific context. In response, the article highlights emerging Pasifika theological and ecological frameworks, including Reweaving the Ecological Mat and Sopepa’s “mana ethic,” which propose relational, land-centred alternatives grounded in reciprocity, limit, and the flourishing of life.