Reframing Gender and Development in Law Reform: The Case of Fa’atama Advocates in Samoa

Abstract

Samoa is an independent state located in Oceania, with a bijural legal system comprised of customary law and state law. The overwhelming majority of the population identify as heterosexual, with significantly fewer identifying as fa’afafine and even fewer as fa’atama. This limited representation of fa’atama highlights their ongoing demographic and political invisibility, which continues to hinder their recognition within both customary law and state law frameworks. The Samoa Fa’afafine Association (SFA) and gender advocates on the ground have been pushing for the recognition of the third gender in all platforms. In this chapter, I draw on fa’atama advocates’ experience in Samoa law reform, to emphasise the effects of the dominant and longstanding gender and development narratives, as a way to reframe and address some of the critical ways that those perceptions have been embedded in contemporary donor discourses. I focus on the advancement of fa’atama advocacy in Samoa law reform, to highlight local efforts to reframe the gender and development narratives and practices in law reform; and to examine the role of Samoan customs and arts to challenge the prevailing gender and development ideology, while proposing alternative narratives to reframing law and gender discourse.