Calling the Jungle Home: Students Journey to Fiji for Unforgettable Research Experience
Photos: Camilla Greenbach
Kathleen Palmer with Fijian research assistant, Asena, during a
fishing excursion on the Wainibuka River with a bilibili, a bamboo raft.
Melissa Anderson, with children from families
participating in the research project.
Camilla Greenbach and Kathleen Palmer learn how to make
traditional Fijian food.
Mikaela Vournas with Adi and Oliva, sisters from one of the
families participating in the research project.
The exciting, summer 2014 research expedition to Fiji
was funded by the CLA Circle of Giving and the Cal
Poly Extramural Funding Initiative. If you are interested
in supporting future research experiences like this one,
please visit the Cal Poly Giving website.
Even among seasoned travelers, very few people are offered the opportunity to spend a month in the wilderness, exchanging the familiarity of family, friends and one’s own culture for the sights, sounds and foods of a Fijian jungle village. But Cal Poly Anthropology Professor Dawn Neill has been making such trips to Fiji for years, and this past summer, she also took four students as research assistants.
The students — Melissa Anderson, Mikaela Vournas, Camilla Greenbach and Kathleen Palmer — are among the first Cal Poly undergraduates to participate in an international research project of this type. The experience was an unprecedented opportunity for them to truly understand the work of an anthropologist.
“I don’t think any of us really understood the full scope of what it would be like, but it was incredibly unique — to have this experience as an undergraduate and to be able to obtain the funding to do so is very rare,” Vournas said.
After landing in Nadi and then spending a few days in the city of Suva, a large truck transported Neill, Anderson, Vournas, Greenbach and Palmer to the village where the students would conduct their research in teams of two.
“We hopped on this truck and piled all of our stuff in it and just drove down a dirt road for two hours — straight into the jungle,” Vournas said.
Neill added, “It’s a deep, deep jungle, so even the experience of getting there is shocking to people that haven’t experienced it. You get onto the dirt road, and you start climbing up into the highlands, and it’s the second to last village on the road.”
The team spent their days interviewing members of the Fijian village about their daily food choices. They collected data for Neill’s research, which tracks the trends involved in the transition from traditional to urban diets.
“I’m interested in understanding how people make these food choices. So this project seeks to look at this area [Fiji] and examine over the next few years how the diets shift — how this transition happens,” Neill said.
Neill became interested in Fiji while in graduate school after reading a National Geographic article on the island nation, noting the complex social structure and unique position in world development.
“I was just overwhelmed by this place that was so interesting and such a little microcosm of all the little things that were going on in the world,” Neill said. “Fiji has two main ethnic groups: the indo-Fijians and the indigenous Pacific Islanders. Alongside these two cultural groups, the modern-day demographic transitions experienced all over the world were also happening in Fiji. So it seemed to me the perfect small place for my research. Now, 10 years later, I have the opportunity to share this experience with students.
For a month, the village served not only as a research site but as a home. To conduct their research, Neill and her students lived like Fijians, learning to respect and understand the local cultural traditions and habits.
Anderson and Vournas, and Greenbach and Palmer lived in pairs with Fijian host families, who also served as participants for data collection. Every day, beginning at 4 a.m., Neill and her students reviewed the dietary habits of the family. These inquiries probed their eating habits from the previous day as well as the choices motivating their food and consumption habits.
By the end of her month-long residence in Fiji, Vournas came to see the country as more than just a research site. Through this project, the four Cal Poly students gained valuable research experience on-site and formed unforgettable friendships.
“What stands out the most in my mind is the warmth of all the people and the way they welcomed us into their lives with open arms — it was pretty incredible,” Vournas said. “We’re from a different world, but they let us in, loved us, fed us, and shared their lives.”