Engaging with Capitalism : Cases from Oceania 9781781905425, 9781781905418

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ENGAGING WITH CAPITALISM: CASES FROM OCEANIA

RESEARCH IN ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY Series Editor: Donald C. Wood Recent Volumes: Volume 20:

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Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology – Edited by M. Alvard

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Markets and Market Liberalization: Ethnographic Reflections – Edited by N. Dannhaeuser & C. Werner

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Choice in Economic Contexts: Ethnographic and Theoretical Enquiries – Edited by D. Wood

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Dimension of Ritual Economy – Edited by P. McAnany & E. C. Wells

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Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption and Corporate Social Responsibility – Edited by Donald Wood, Jeffrey Pratt, Peter Luetchford, Geert De Neve

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Economic Development, Integration, and Morality in Asia and the Americas – Edited by Donald C. Wood

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Political Economy, Neoliberalism, and the Prehistoric Economies of Latin America – Edited by Donald C. Wood and Ty Matejowsky

RESEARCH IN ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 33

ENGAGING WITH CAPITALISM: CASES FROM OCEANIA EDITED BY

FIONA MCCORMACK Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato

KATE BARCLAY Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2013 Copyright r 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78190-541-8 ISSN: 0190-1281 (Series)

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CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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PREFACE

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INSIGHTS ON CAPITALISM FROM OCEANIA Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay

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OWNERSHIP AND DISTRIBUTION IN THE SETTLEMENT OF MAORI GRIEVANCES: BALANCING HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE BETWEEN CLASSES Toon van Meijl

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COMMODITIES AND GIFTS IN NEW ZEALAND AND HAWAIIAN FISHERIES Fiona McCormack

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TIVAIVAI AND THE MANAGING OF ‘‘COMMUNITY’’ FUNDING IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Jane Horan

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LOCAL CAPITALISMS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN COASTAL FISHERIES: CASES FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND SOLOMON ISLANDS Kate Barclay and Jeff Kinch

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‘‘MY LAND, MY WORK’’: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND LARGE-SCALE MINING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA Nicholas A. Bainton and Martha Macintyre

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CONTENTS

DIVIDUALS, INDIVIDUALS, OR POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALS?: RECENT TRANSFORMATIONS OF NORTH MEKEO COMMODITIZATION, PERSONHOOD, AND SOCIALITY Mark S. Mosko

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ENVY, DESIRE, AND ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT AMONG THE BUGKALOT (ILONGOT) OF NORTHERN LUZON, PHILIPPINES Shu-Yuan Yang

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BAIAS, BISNIS, AND BETEL NUT: THE PLACE OF TRADERS IN THE MAKING OF A MELANESIAN MARKET Timothy L. M. Sharp

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CAPITALISM AMONG THE ME? Anton Ploeg

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THE POLITICS OF REMITTANCE AND THE ROLE OF RETURNING MIGRANTS: LOCALIZING CAPITALISM IN MANUS PROVINCE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA Steffen Dalsgaard

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CREATING AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY IN RURAL PAPUA NEW GUINEA: THE IRAKIA AWA CASE David J. Boyd

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DEVELOPMENT IMPLICATIONS OF THE ENGAGEMENT WITH CAPITALISM: IMPROVING THE SOCIAL RETURNS OF DEVELOPMENT George N. Curry and Gina Koczberski

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Nicholas A. Bainton

Newcrest Mining Ltd, Lihir gold mine, Papua New Guinea, and Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, and School of Social Sciences, The University of Queensland, Australia

Kate Barclay

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

David J. Boyd

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

George N. Curry

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Steffen Dalsgaard

Demtech Project, The IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Jane Horan

Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Jeff Kinch

National Fisheries College, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea

Gina Koczberski

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

Martha Macintyre

Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Fiona McCormack

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Mark S. Mosko

Department of Anthropology, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

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Anton Ploeg

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Timothy L. M. Sharp College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Toon van Meijl

Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Shu-Yuan Yang

Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

PREFACE This project emerged from a conversation on the e-mail listserv of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO). Kate Barclay and several other participants on the list were debating about the role of business in contemporary Pacific Islander societies, and wondering about people who have managed to make their engagements with capitalism work for them while also managing to retain the material and cultural benefits of their noncapitalist social lives. How might people manage to gain some of what they want from capitalism – greater wealth, access to health and education services, and wider life opportunities – without losing the valued aspects of their culture and social relationships? Fiona McCormack galvanized Kate into proposing the topic for a working session at the next ASAO conference, at Honolulu in early 2011. The large room was full of people interested in the topic, some of whom then committed to produce papers for a joint publication. The discussion was wide ranging and intense, covering topics from development and the complexities of making projects work, to notions of personhood and sociality, and how these change in the presence of capitalism. We worked on our papers for a year and came together again with drafts at the 2012 ASAO meeting in Portland, Oregon. This time the discussion was even more penetrating as we worked through the ideas in more depth, and by the end of the day the participants were much in need of some of the excellent local beer and oysters. Once we had the drafts together Donald Wood, the Research in Economic Anthropology series editor for Emerald, came on board and we started working toward this publication. The question of how people may get what they want from capitalism, without losing the vibrancy and importance of other ways of being in society is of pressing importance. Not just for the peoples of Oceania and others around the world grappling with ‘development’, but for all of us as we struggle with accommodating the capitalism that has delivered for some of us great material bounty, but marginalized others, poisoned some of our social relations, and is causing major ecological damage. We are very

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grateful to the ASAO for providing the forum for coming together to work on this project, and to Emerald for providing the platform to disseminate the work. Fiona McCormack Kate Barclay Editors

INSIGHTS ON CAPITALISM FROM OCEANIA Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay ABSTRACT Purpose – The authors introduce the chapters of Engaging with Capitalism with a discussion of anthropological and other social theory about peoples’ approaches to capitalism, especially peoples with vibrant noncapitalist social systems, such as are found in Oceania. Approach – The introduction is in the form of a review of anthropological and other social theory about interactions between capitalism and noncapitalist social systems. Findings – The theoretical literature has tended to dichotomize capitalist and noncapitalist societies. While heuristically it is useful to contrast capitalist and noncapitalist social systems, in practice once societies come into the orbit of capitalism people adapt elements of capitalism to suit their aims. Furthermore, societies generally considered thoroughly capitalist also include noncapitalist features. So it is more accurate to think of societies as involving a mix of capitalism and noncapitalism, and the nature of that mix is part of what makes each society distinct. Social implications – The theoretical dichotomization of societies as capitalist or not, with capitalism understood as being universal, and noncapitalism understood in general terms such as gift economy, is Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 1–27 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033003

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prevalent in public imaginaries. Domestic social policy and international development assistance are often based on this dualistic understanding. Such programs could work better if they were based instead on an understanding that each group of people has a dynamic economic system, which includes capitalist and noncapitalist elements that interact in ways influenced by their history and locality. Value of paper – The chapter provides a conceptual scaffold for thinking about the ways people engage with capitalism. Keywords: Capitalism; economic anthropology; anthropological theory; dualisms

The nature of capitalism is an enduring topic for debate. As a social and economic system capitalism has been very effective in generating wealth and technological innovation, but has also been associated with great social inequity and environmental damage. Capitalism’s position as ‘‘the’’ way to do social and economic organization was consolidated with the end of the Cold War, even as its inherent flaws have been highlighted by the escalation of ecological problems arising from growth-oriented capitalism and economic crises such as the ‘‘dot com bust’’ of 2000, widespread food riots in 2007–2008 and the global financial crisis starting in 2008. Understandings of the nature of capitalism have shifted over time. Early analyses by Marx and Weber were added to in the second half of the twentieth century when the question of ‘‘development’’ arose for newly independent former colonies and less wealthy parts of the world (e.g., Rostow, 1960). Universal and totalizing theories of the spread of capitalism through modernization were superseded by more nuanced theories such as those of Barrington Moore (1966). Policies for facilitating capitalism have also shifted over time, with Keynesianism and dependencia gradually losing ground to neoliberalism over the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., World Bank, 1981). By the 1990s it became clear that several decades of development assistance had not resulted in flourishing capitalist economies in most target countries. The idea of post development gained attention, in which development was viewed as self-congratulatory and self-seeking on the part of donors, and as disempowering and demeaning for recipients, by positioning them as lacking economic capacity and denying the possibility that there might be valid ways to organize society other than the dominant capitalist model (Sachs, 1991).

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Nevertheless, people want material improvements in their lives, and in the absence of another viable economic system, have no choice but to continue to seek these through some kind of capitalist development. Persistent difficulties with prevailing development practices as well as the obvious dysfunctions of global financial markets leading to the crisis in 2008, and increasing concern about climate change not being effectively addressed by governments unwilling to tackle economic-nationalist imperatives in the context of world capitalist pressures for growth, has lead to debate about changes to capitalism in the global media, academia and policy circles. Alternatives to measuring social progress in the conventional manner of growth in Gross Domestic Product that have been around for some time, such as the Gross National Happiness Index, and the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, have received renewed attention. New approaches have also been proposed, such as Measuring and Fostering Well-Being and Progress: The OECD Roadmap (OECD, 2009) and the Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009). Tim Jackson’s (2009) Prosperity without Growth is another high profile entreaty to policy makers to reorganize the way capitalism is administered to address the social and ecological dysfunction that can be caused by it. Thomas Friedman, a journalist and popular author on globalization has proposed change in his assessment of the future world as being Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008). On the academic side some of the prominent scholars working in the area include ecological economist Herman E. Daly (2009) and sociologist of capitalist globalization Leslie Sklair (2002). Anthropology has always been one of the core disciplines informing understandings of capitalism, and many of the theoretical debates within anthropology have been entwined with broader shifts in understanding about the nature of capitalism and economic development. In the anthropological record seminal work by Malinowski (1922) in Melanesia and Firth (1929) in Polynesia provided an early challenge to the notion that ‘‘primitive’’ economic behavior is irrational and critiqued the supposed universal homoeconomicus model of humanity. More recent work by David Graeber and Keith Hart, among others, initiated as a response to the 2008 crisis, draws empirical attention to the existence of a plurality of economic forms in any society as against a singular notion of the economy as ‘‘capitalism.’’ Several of these economic forms are universally distributed across history even if their combination is coloured by the existence of a dominant organizational form in a particular time and space (Hart, 2008, 2009). This work proposes a model of economic improvement that is not

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predicated on the overthrow of an economy monolithically conceived as capitalism to something which is its antithesis, rather to pay attention to what people are already doing, to alternative economic practices and the combination of different practices, and to give these more emphasis in forging a new direction in economic change (see also Gibson-Graham, 2008). Anthropology of the peoples of Oceania has particularly interesting perspectives on capitalism and the forms it takes. Noncapitalist social and economic institutions play a large role in the lives of many of the peoples of Oceania, but at the same time the desire for development is strong. For several decades people have been grappling with how to manage this – to retain the material safety and cultural richness of indigenous noncapitalist societies and economies and to also gain the health, wealth, education and life opportunities the modern capitalist world offers. It is not an easy task, not least because the power of the capitalist discourse is such that noncapitalist social and economic practices may be derided, rendered invisible, or assumed indeed to be capitalist (because that is all one can imagine). Other difficulties arise due to incompatibilities between capitalist and noncapitalist practices and institutions.

DEFINING CAPITALISM One of the things the authors have collectively grappled with through this project is how to define capitalism. Is it a mode of production based on class stratification, with the bourgeoisie owning the means of production and labor exploited for profit and alienated from the commodities they produce? Is it a mode of international trade based on histories of colonialism whereby the former colonizers have set themselves up to be able to extract surpluses from former colonies, or otherwise protect their own economic position of privilege at the expense of the rest of the world?1 Is capitalism a mind-set by which people approach economic activity with the aim of accumulating profits, which may then be reinvested in the activity to accumulate greater profits? Is capitalism defined by the existence of competitive markets for goods and services with prices set by demand relative to supply? Yes. We have found in our case studies that capitalism may be all of these things, with some of these aspects more or less pertinent in given situations. What we have found, furthermore, is that the practices of particular groups of people cannot be defined as either purely capitalist or thoroughly

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noncapitalist. The empirical material we present in this volume demonstrates that elements of capitalism and noncapitalism coexist in social groups, even though they may well be incommensurable. For example, several of the papers detail frictions in societies where demand sharing is prevalent, but where people are also trying to accumulate material goods. Explicating this coexistence is tricky, not only because the actual practices may be incompatible, but also because the conceptual frameworks for discussing capitalist worldviews and practices vis-a`-vis noncapitalist ones tend to dichotomize. Societies may be described as being based on gift or commodity economies. For Melanesianists the question is whether people have become possessive individuals (capitalist) or remain relational dividuals in their owning and transferring of things. This tendency to dichotomize societies as one or the other may be traced back to the formalist-substantivist debate in anthropology, which reached its hiatus in the 1960s and by the 1970s ended unresolved. Each side of the debate had a fundamentally different perception of human nature. For the inherently anticapitalist substantivists (see Dalton, 1969; Polyani, 1944; Sahlins, 1972) economic systems of the noncapitalist peoples of the world were governed essentially by principles of reciprocity, redistribution and gift exchange, where people did not always make choices nor act out of selfinterest. In this view there was no possibility of a universal homo economicus and western-derived models of economics were not seen as cross-culturally applicable. Conversely, formalism, with its impetus in creating a modern scientific anthropology, emphasized the ethnological utility of western analytical tools as, in the strongest formalist formulation, the economic rationality of the maximizing individual is everywhere ubiquitous. In this debate, however, both schools avoided addressing the most enigmatic issue: the assumption that economic rationality and communal reciprocal exchange are mutually exclusive (Wilk & Cliggett, 1996). The dichotomization of societies as capitalist or not breaks down when looking at the empirical material in these chapters, each chapter in the book describes the persistence of noncapitalist social features even in the midst of engaging with capitalism. Material accumulation, emerging class stratification based on property ownership, competitive market activities, and the treating of things as commodities coexist intimately with material egalitarianism, nonclass based social relations, the inalienability of land and other property, ongoing gift economies, an emphasis on social reproduction and so on. One challenge, then, is to understand these societies in Oceania, which are demonstrably noncapitalist in many ways, as also involving elements of capitalism.

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A related challenge in writing about the coexistence of capitalist and noncapitalist elements in society is avoid falling uncritically into a conceptualization of engaging with capitalism as a process by which ‘‘tradition’’ will be progressively replaced with ‘‘modernity.’’ In early forms of modernization theory it was imagined that capitalism would, because it was a superior form of social organization, overtake noncapitalist forms of social organization all over the world. It has been convincingly argued, however, that capitalism always exists within and is shaped by social frameworks including noncapitalist features. Marx himself acknowledged this, with the idea being more recently expanded on by Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000). Where people have a material basis for their noncapitalist social lives, such as that offered by customary tenure in many of the countries of Oceania, the fact of the coexistence of capitalism and noncapitalism is highlighted. Many commentators still see such societies within the universalizing modernization framework and argue that noncapitalist havens of production must be dismantled, to bring people wholly into the material sphere of capitalism (Gosarevski, Hughes, & Windybank, 2004). One of the important insights that post development scholars and activists highlighted is that people do not necessarily see the wholesale adoption of capitalism, and the abandonment of noncapitalist ways of organizing their economic life as a good idea (Sachs, 1991). Even when people take on certain elements of capitalism because they see these elements as beneficial to enabling them to achieve their socioeconomic ends, they often do so in ways that strengthen their noncapitalist activities, they continue to prioritize those activities highly, even if they are incompatible with the capitalist activities and stymie them. For example, George Curry has found that the quintessentially capitalist activity of shop keeping has in some parts of Papua New Guinea been harnessed to the noncapitalist prestige economy, with the result that most of the shops eventually become insolvent (Curry, 1999, 2007). Chapters in this volume by Mark Mosko, Shu-Yuan Yang, and Tim Sharp detail the adoption of capitalist practices by groups of people in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, but within arguably noncapitalist worldviews and organization of social relations. Societies are not static, and engaging with capitalism is one sure route to social change. The chapters in this book show that in many cases there is more capitalism than there was in the past, but the noncapitalist element remains strong. It is important not to just assume that social change will result in conversion to a completely or mostly capitalist system, but to question what kind of change is occurring, and whether what might appear to be the adoption of capitalist mindsets

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and practices similar to those in other countries, is upon closer inspection something still quite different. A fruitful way of conceptualizing the entanglement of noncapitalist and capitalist economies under modern conditions is to draw on Mauss’s idea of the human propensity for merging both self-reliance and social connectedness in a multitude of complex social relationships. For Mauss, the two prerequisites for being human are to be self-reliant to a high degree and to belong to others, merging our identities in a bewildering variety of social relationships (in Hart, 2008). Thus, the coexistence of individualistic and communal economic practices, or interestedness and disinterestedness, while often marked by incommensurability, is nonetheless a human trait. Tim Sharp’s discussion (2013) of the simultaneity of competition and cooperation in the Mt Hagen betel nut trade draws attention to this seemingly paradoxical coexistence. This is not to say that because all societies have elements of capitalism and noncapitalism they are all the same, that there is nothing to worry about in the social change going on around engagements with capitalism, or that the dualisms used to conceptualize economic activities as capitalist or not are of no explanatory use. Rather, we find that particular engagements with capitalism are defined by the ways that certain elements of capitalism and noncapitalism coexist, which are contingent on the cultures, histories, and geographies of the people involved, and the power differentiations in the context within which they operate. Defining capitalism in this book, therefore, is about explaining how specific groups of people engage with capitalism in combination with other social processes, and the social effects of those engagements.

DUALISMS IN THINKING ABOUT CAPITALISM The history of anthropological theory is replete with the construction and defense of grand paradigms that dichotomize capitalist and noncapitalist social features. We have already stated that conceptualizing societies as either capitalist or noncapitalist in their entirety does not match the social realities we see in the cases in this volume. These dualistic models, however, have heuristic value for helping explain the particularities of societies, as long as we recognize they are only ideal types, and that actually existing societies include interactions between both capitalist and noncapitalist mindsets and practices. Here we consider some of the main theoretical

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constructs of capitalism and noncapitalism relevant for the engagements covered in this book.

Old and New Property Regimes Property issues are central to the ways people engage with capitalism. Anthropological accounts of property have long attempted to link complex property forms with economic activities, political arrangements, ecological considerations and social identity (see Harris, 1968; Lowie, 1921; Malinowski, 1935; White, 1959). Given this analysis, property can be conceived of as a nexus of social struggle (Hann, 1998). This is particularly the case when property regimes are in the process of changing. In the Pacific three main property transformations are discernible. First, old systems of resource ownership have been abrogated as a result of the dissemination of the liberal notion of private property through colonialism. Second, where customary tenure still persists it does so in a much altered way. Third, new models of ownership, ideas of personhood and forms of exchange have been created. The chapters in this volume are largely concerned with the last two of these possibilities. Customary tenure is a key theme for property in Oceania and centrally affects engagements with capitalism. For example, having access to land for growing food and building shelter makes for a particular kind of labor, not the landless labor imagined in conventional Marxism, or indeed in many liberal versions of capitalism. Customary resources owners also engage with capitalism in particular ways, for example as rentiers in the case of owners of land used for mining or logging. Also, crucially, it can offer a safety net from the vagaries of capitalism. Certainly when cash-earning activities dry up major problems result, but in the absence of state welfare things would be even worse for many people in Oceania without customary tenure. Yet it is important to recognize that customary tenure is itself reconfigured in the process of capitalist engagement. Negotiations between customary landowners and capitalist enterprises that want access to their land and/or the resources embedded in the land shifts notions and effects of property, even when the national social political and legal frameworks protect customary tenure and all parties intend to operate in good faith within its principles (rather than intending to subvert it). Mining, which is a mainstay of the economy in Papua New Guinea, has required the use of customary land for commercial purposes, and this form of engaging with capitalism has lead to changes in the way customary tenure is imagined and

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operationalized (Golub, 2007; Macintyre & Foale, 2007). The work of George Curry and Koczberski (2009) shows how growing demand for land for agricultural development in Papua New Guinea has led to customary owners gifting and selling land. While on the surface this might appear to be an alienation of the land from customary tenure to a marketable commodity, their analysis shows that the rights to use of the land remain tied within social relationships, and thus the land is not fully commoditized or alienated. New models of ownership have also emerged. For instance, the neoliberal emphasis on commodification, which has resulted in a proliferation of newly propertised things, has simultaneously created a space in which new claims to property are constituted. This possibility is discussed in this volume in chapters by Fiona McCormack and Toon van Meijl in the context of indigenous claims and the reparation of Maori resources. In this process property itself becomes differently modeled and a new class of owners has emerged. In the case of Maori fisheries new forms of private property and customary tenure introduced in the process of the settlement of indigenous claims to fisheries has had far reaching social consequences. The privatization of fishing rights in the form of trade able quotas has created new possibilities for wealth generation in the commercial fishing sector whereas in the customary sector the possibility of producing fish for exchange has been made illegal by the adoption of a nonreciprocal model of gifting. This new form of customary tenure is a very different construct to that which exists in Papua New Guinea. There customary land can be used as a safety net against the vagaries of capitalism, because people can subsist from it. In New Zealand living off the land alone is much more difficult, and the way customary marine tenure has been handled in the fisheries settlement actually brings one sector of Maori society (the corporate tribal sector) further into capitalism. We prefer to consider property in a dynamic manner rather than through the more rigid categories of property rights and legal constructs. Some of the issues raised in the chapters such as quotas in fisheries and questions about the meaning of ownership and transferring of certain kinds of things do not fit comfortably under a rights based property model and in fact might normally be discussed as being about ‘‘gifts/commodities.’’ We take as a starting point that property is a form of sociality that expresses relationships between persons and things and between persons with respect to things. Yet this relationship is also mutable as the relationship between things and persons is not always clearly demarcated and is subject to change. Property is also a process. For instance, how do people own, hold on to and claim

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new (or reclaim old) things? What power dynamics are at work and how are people, things and social relations reconstituted in this process? Clearly the exchange of things is implicated in these dynamics. New ways of valuing and transacting objects may emerge which might dispossess former owners, create new opportunities for owning or in many other ways have social consequences. Toon van Meijl’s chapter offers an interesting analysis of the radically changing role of property. He argues that in modern economies the idea of exchanging property in markets, foundational for capitalist economies, is now becoming an anachronism. Although property continues to exist, it is much less likely to be exchanged, which in turn forces suppliers to hold on to property and to seek different ways to generate income from their assets. The modern market system is thus characterized by short-term access agreements between servers and clients operating in network relationships and economic success is increasingly determined by access to resources. We also concur with the recent body of work that has mounted a critique of the simplistic ‘‘private property as a western form of ownership’’ thesis (e.g., Hann, 1998; Quiggan, 1988; Von Benda-Beckmann, Von BendaBeckmann, & Wiber, 2006). These authors point to the existence of private property in precapitalist societies and methods of property transferability that are characteristically similar to those employed in modern market economies. Objects possessed in such a manner ‘‘can be transacted in the market, without moral evaluation’’ (Hann, 1998, p. 6). As the chapters in this volume show, in any one society configurations of ownership may include a complex amalgamation of private, public, and communal characteristics. In Melanesianist circles a key debate about capitalism is whether prevailing notions of personhood have come to be marked by possessive individualism whereby people have full ownership of the things they buy, and all connections to former owners are severed in the transaction, or people are still imagined to be dividuals with ongoing social connections through the producing, owning and transferring of things. The chapter in this book by Mark S. Mosko shows that, although the North Mekeo people engage with money and commodities, their personhood cannot be usefully analyzed by employing the concepts of individualism, particularly possessive individualism. Rather, North Mekeo villagers continue to qualify as composite dividuals with respect to the totality of their persons and this is at least partly a consequence of the fact that the alienated products of people’s labors, but not the labors themselves, and the money and goods they receive in exchange for them, are viewed as

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potent aspects of persons, analogous to indigenous wealth and ritual paraphernalia. Dalsgaard (2013) addresses possessive individualism as a matter of ideals that people adhere to and will use against each other as ways of acting in a social ‘‘game’’ with different positions tied to different resources. In his chapter this game is exemplified by the migrant leaders, such as Sitapai, who evoke double standards when they claim to be individualists and preach self-reliance to village kin, yet rely on their kin as automatic wantok-support if they return to contest the election. In Dalsgaard’s analysis town dwellers more or less act as neoliberal possessive individuals while village residents act more or less as social dividuals. Yet both positions are entangled with elements of the other.

Commodities and Gifts Engagements with capitalism in Oceania have often been understood in terms of the indigenous economy being a gift economy, with a commodity economy involving capitalist mind-sets and practices having been introduced by colonizers and traders. Chris Gregory, for example, draws on the conceptual framework of gift exchange developed by Mauss and later Sahlins where the gift is viewed as a total social phenomenon and social obligation is centralized. In his earlier work (1982) Gregory emphasizes the incommensurability of gift and commodity economies with the former directed toward the qualitative maintenance of social relations and the latter deemphasizing all social aspects. What both systems have in common, however, is the drive toward maximization. In gift economies participants give extensively in order to maximize social relations while in commodity economies people maximize material goods and wealth. In Gregory’s later work (1997) he reverses his earlier (1982) somewhat impermeable distinction between gift and commodity economies, and argues that in any one society there are different contexts within which people operate with one or the other system in mind. This conception allowing for the coexistence of both types within societies is pertinent to our understanding of the way in which Pacific peoples negotiate capitalism. In the chapters in this book, however, we question the usefulness of conceptualizing gift and commodity exchanges as inhabiting distinct social spheres and instead focus on the simultaneity of both individualist and communal exchanges in ethnographic and historical contexts. Anton Ploeg’s description (2013), for instance, of the precolonial and early colonial way of life of the Me people in the western part of the New Guinea Highlands importantly lays to rest the notion that precapitalist

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economies can be characterized in terms of a pure type of disinterested gifting. Rather Ploeg shows that a desire for material gain and wealth accumulation coexisted with noncapitalist features such as an interest in social reproduction. Further, we point to the social damage that can be done by applying the idea of societies being ‘‘gift’’ or ‘‘economy’’ in an ill-informed way in policy. The creation of Maori fisheries, for instance, as either purely about gifting or exclusively concerned with capital gain as legislated for in Maori Customary Fisheries and Maori Commercial Fisheries regulations has made antithetical the realm of ‘‘culture’’ and the realm of the ‘‘economy.’’ Here the reality of their coexistence is denied by the regulations; an idealized unnatural dichotomous vision is imposed, which is having negative social impacts (McCormack, 2013). Of course, this coexistence can be quite disruptive, because the norms and practices of gift systems and those of capitalism can be in direct conflict. Chapters by Yang, Sharp, Bainton and Macintyre, Ploeg, Barclay and Kinch, and Dalsgaard detail situations where demand sharing frustrates attempts to accumulate wealth. People trying to accumulate may be perceived as contravening fundamental social values, while people demanding to share may be seen as inhibiting social progress. The coexistence of capitalism and noncapitalism, therefore, involves constant negotiation. Bainton and Macintyre’s chapter show that some entrepreneurs manage the disjuncture by distancing their business activities or even their whole social lives from relatives who may demand to share their wealth. Dalsgaard’s chapter also shows this kind of strategy, but also another strategy whereby men who have accumulated a lot of wealth, if they are also capable leaders in village society, may through social and political leadership share some of their wealth while still keeping most for themselves, and being valued participants in village life. Chapters by Mosko and Bainton and Macintyre demonstrate the social dysfunction that may arise from disjunctures between the two kinds of economic system. Arjun Appadurai’s (1986) work on the value of an object raises important questions about gift economies and their interactions with capitalism. By directing our attention to the object of exchange, Appadurai (1986) highlights the fluidity of the categories of gifts and commodities as an object inheres different value throughout its life as it journeys through diverse social relationships. The value of an object, according to Appadurai, is negotiated and is determined by what participants to the exchange are willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it. Hann, however, argues that this analysis does not go far enough, that value cannot be an end in itself, ‘‘it

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must lead on to an analysis of the political and social conditions which determine access to scarce goods – in other words to the analysis of distribution and property relations’’ (1998, p. 32). This larger concern resonates with the chapters in this volume. For instance van Meijl’s analysis of the settlement of Maori indigenous claims shows how the redistribution of settlement assets has heightened socioeconomic disparities and led to a new class system within Maori society. Barclay and Kinch’s chapter, dealing with fisheries development in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, argues that capitalist development needs to be explained not just in terms of the economic practices and material desires of local cultures, but also national political and economic contexts, transnational development assistance frameworks, and nature.

Moral Economies versus Capitalism The ‘‘communitarian’’ analysis of economies, which informs the moral economy school, also theorizes differences between capitalist and noncapitalist worldviews and practices. Katz (1997) identifies the origins of the communitarian analysis in Aristotle’s normative economic school, which maintains that production for gain corrodes the moral fabric of society. Aristotle’s analysis of the classical system suggests that a moral economy and a commodity economy can coexist as two different emphases. Aristotle went on to make a distinction between Economic (procuring those articles that are necessary to existence) and Chrematistic (the art of making money) economic transactions and the subsequent false fusion between the two to illustrate the unnatural association of ‘‘money exchanged for money (M-M)’’ rather than money being used for the purpose for which it was invented, the exchange of commodities (M-C-M) (Marx, 2007 [1867]). The essential feature of the moral economy as described by Scott (building on the work of writers such as Chayanov, 1925; Polyani, 1944 [2001]; Thompson, 1963; Wolf, 1982) in his analysis of peasant society is the moral content of the subsistence ethic. Briefly, Scott argues that peasants are typically people living close to the margins of survival and this ongoing shortage of necessities gave rise to a ‘‘subsistence’’ ethic resulting in social arrangements such as ‘‘y patterns of reciprocity, forced generosity, communal land and work-sharing (which) helped to even out the inevitable troughs in a family’s resources which might otherwise have thrown them below subsistence’’ (1976, p. 3). The end result of these social arrangements was to ensure that all within the community were entitled to a living from

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the available resources. Thus the desire for subsistence security arises out of the peasant economic system and was experienced socially as a conglomeration of moral rights or expectations. In Scott’s formulation in the moral economy exchange is intertwined with kinship, religion and political spheres, and is based solely on activities to ensure subsistence, whereas in capitalism the economy is an abstracted domain that directs exchange toward individual maximization of returns or profit. Although this dichotomization of a moral economy and a capitalist economy is likely overstated in Scott’s work, he does usefully draw attention to the frictions that may arise when capitalism is being negotiated. When the moral standard is threatened or ignored, resentment and resistance can be expected. Peasant economies are encompassed by broader social institutions, including capitalism, with quite different moralities. Capitalist processes and effects, therefore, are experienced as morally wrong and exploitative. The consciousness of a profound moral loss in interacting with capitalism triggers the revitalization of traditional economic practices in resistance. For instance, Thompson argues that the food riots in late 18th century England signified ‘‘a last desperate effort to reimpose the old paternalist moral economy as against the economy of the free market’’ (1991, p. 337). Similarly, Gregory’s (1982, 1997) research highlights the ways in which ceremonial exchange is exaggerated in the context of market expansion. This expansion is also echoed in Wolf’s account of potlatch ceremonies, which proliferated simultaneous with the encroachment of market relations and national legislation developed to stop it (1999). The tension arising from capitalist economic practices in Oceanic societies with strong moral economies, the moral denunciation of those practices, the economic rationality of subsistence security, and the efflorescence of gift exchanges as a response to engaging with capitalism all resonate with the cases in this book (see chapters by Boyd, Ploeg, and Bainton and Macintyre).

Socially Embedded Economies Karl Polanyi’s (1944) work on the laissez faire capitalism practiced particularly by Britain in the decades preceding World War I as being an economic form disembedded from social relationships has led some to assume that capitalism in general is disembedded, as opposed to societies such as those in Oceania where the economy is socially embedded. However, Polanyi’s assertion was actually that all economies tend toward

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embeddedness, even very capitalist ones. The period of laissez faire was a momentary disembedding that was ultimately unsustainable politically because the inequities it caused threatened to contribute to the spread of communism. Polanyi found that land, labor and money cannot be permanently disembedded from society because if they were to be treated in a completely market manner this would cause economic and social breakdown. Labor must be protected by state regulation to prevent dysfunctional levels of exploitation. Farmers must be protected with some form of income stability to encourage them to stay on the land and produce food at feasible prices. Central banks are necessary to protect the money supply from instabilities in financial markets. ‘‘In other words, for the [capitalist] economy to function, it must be embedded in law, politics and morality’’ (Curry, 2003, p. 409). The collapse of communism as a serious threat to capitalism over 20 years ago has possibly enabled another disembedding in the form of neoliberalism, and it may turn out that the global financial crisis and ecological imperatives will cause a reembedding of capitalism this time. Another key idea from Polanyi’s (1944) work is that economic activities are not socially neutral; even capitalist actors are not motivated solely by the desire to maximize their economic return but also by a range of other concerns. Economic decision-making is profoundly affected by social context, for example, transaction costs may be reduced by certain kinds of social network (Polanyi as paraphrased in Curry, 2003; see also Bair, 2008; Granovetter, 1985; Swedberg, 1994; Swedberg & Granovetter, 2001 on social embeddedness). This helps build a conceptual framework that accounts for the coexistence of capitalist and noncapitalist social features, while acknowledging the differences between them, and enables comparing and contrasting between societies in terms of the interaction between capitalism and noncapitalism within them. Helgason and Palsson (1997) show how even in Iceland, a country that has implemented neoliberal policies more thoroughly than most and thus regulated for socially unencumbered economic activity, the social still impinges on economic activity. They use a spatial topographical metaphor to conceptualize the process of resource commoditization, focussing on ‘‘the pathways, spheres and boundaries that guide the exchange of social things and the discursive environment within which transactions are negotiated’’ (1997, p. 451). The authors point out that Icelandic fishers, who seemingly inhabit a world dominated by utilitarian principles and unimpeded by social relations and obligations, nevertheless evoke a moral economy to resist the fictitious commoditization of their fishing rights. Similarly, Prattis (1982)

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argues that constraints on transactional modes are situational rather than systematic; that nonmaximizing strategies are observable in all societies and conversely, that the universality of rational choice and utility maximization cannot be assumed cross-culturally. Salazar (1996) too shows that while farmers in western Ireland participate in the individualistic and profit-maximizing ethos characteristic of capitalism, there is still a substantial sphere in which the moral economy and noncommodity transactions take place. Salazar argues that these noncommodity transactions, or gift exchanges, cannot be subsumed to an individualistic profit-maximizing rationality as to extrapolate an investment logic characteristic of market exchanges undermines the distinctive social framework that incorporates these transactions and simplifies human experience. Conversely, neither can they be subsumed to a collective normative logic as the moral feeling that pervades such social exchanges between neighbors and kin has a very apparent material dimension. In order to transcend this dualism Salazar proposes a conception of generalized reciprocity as a continuum, with at one extreme ‘‘pure’’ contractual relationships, including both monetary exchanges and barter, and at the other extreme, ‘‘pure’’ moral links’ (1996, p. 131). One of the insights enabled by viewing economies as socially embedded is that the particularities of local conditions give rise to local variations in capitalism. The notion that capitalism is a universalizing force that takes over noncapitalist societies and reshapes them in a cookie-cutter fashion has been challenged by scholars of globalization. Critiquing the idea that globalization equals the homogenization of culture and economy; they frame capitalism and modernity as phenomena that become hybridized as they are taken up in diverse social contexts. This has been described as ‘‘post traditionalism,’’ whereby precolonial values and institutions persist in postcolonial societies, albeit in much altered form as they have evolved within local forms of modernity (Curry, 2003). In addition to capitalism varying because of its hybridization in diverse cultural contexts, capitalism also varies in terms of institutional regimes. The types of regimes usually considered in the Varieties of Capitalism literature are liberal market, coordinated market, and statist forms of capitalism (Boyer, 2000; Boyer, 2005; Hall & Soskice, 2001; Schmidt, 2003). Ronald Dore (2000) applies another typology and notes there is a difference between the ‘‘stock market’’ capitalism of the Anglo-Saxon countries (mostly the United Kingdom and United States, but also other English speaking countries such as Australian and New Zealand) as opposed to versions of capitalism in which social welfare is centrally valued by all stakeholders, such as those that emerged in Japan and Germany.

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The Varieties of Capitalism literature, however, tends to focus on the national level. Dealing as they do with peoples of Oceania, and mostly being written by anthropologists, the chapters in this book deal with smaller varieties of capitalism. One of the significant things to note about subnational economic systems, especially those associated with groups of people deemed ‘‘primitive,’’ is that these kinds of local economic systems are frequently misunderstood, meaning that the social policies aimed to promote development generally fail (Curry, 2003). The chapter by Barclay and Kinch shows how capitalism as it is practiced in the context of development projects in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea involves clientelist mindsets quite divergent from the independent entrepreneurial mindsets assumed in project design. The chapter by Shu-Yuan Yang chapter details misunderstandings of the Bugkalot local economy by development planners and settlers in the Philippines. Fiona McCormack writes of the indigenous economies of New Zealand and Hawai’i having adapted and changed as a result of encompassment by a wider capitalist society. New Zealand policy makers for fisheries and social reparations to Maori, however, have misunderstood the indigenous economy, with the result that policy contexts are creating negative social impacts for Maori. One significant insight from micro level analyses of varieties of capitalism is to think about ‘‘business’’ as one among many livelihood strategies, as opposed to the full time accumulation model of enterprise assumed by the development project designers and policy makers in these chapters. Like customary tenure, in the countries of Oceania that lack government funded welfare safety nets, multiple income strategies offer much needed diversification to protect against the ebbs and flows of capitalist markets. Eric Wolf (1982) is a seminal thinker about complex interactions between capitalism and local populations. Wolf showed that in syncretic systems with capitalist and noncapitalist modes of production indigenous social forms may be retained, and indeed local people may creatively adapt the capitalist forms confronting them to suit their needs. The multiple income strategies deployed by many households in Oceania may be seen as a way to engage with capitalism and also preserve noncapitalist local social and economic institutions. It could also be argued that having strong noncapitalist spheres underpinned by noncapitalist economic systems coexisting with capitalism could enable forms of development that are more locally appropriate and less socially and ecologically destructive than capitalist development has often been. On the other hand, as Wolf and others have pointed out, the continuing

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existence of noncapitalist places, often called ‘‘the village’’ in Oceania, within wider capitalist structures has often enabled capitalists to avoid having to pay for the full life cycle and reproduction of their workers (Curry, 2003, p. 408).

CLASS IN OCEANIA A number of anthropologists have pointed to the emergence of class in the Pacific implying a new form of hierarchy (see, e.g., Gewertz & Errington, 1999). This emergence, however, does not signify that class exists in a universal form in either a classic Marxian or Weberian sense. Besnier (2009) points out that although there is now a visible Tongan upper, middle and lower class, these are distinctively Tongan phenomena. Class has not replaced the traditional ranking system, rather it ‘‘piggy-backs’’ on it. For Tongan entrepreneurs, who are often drawn from the ranks of the traditional elite, the line between kin obligations and business is becoming increasingly drawn. Yet for the poor, structures of reciprocity and obligation continue to dominate and may in fact be the only reliable source of wealth. Steffen Dalsgaard’s chapter (2013) discusses this tension in relation to the remittance obligations village kin in Manus, Papua New Guinea, place on their urban-based relatives and the mitigating strategies used by these migrants. He finds that rather than capitalism supplanting the village economy, or the village economy having the upper hand and utilizing capitalism to its own ends, the situation is best understood as the articulation of two different systems, with hierarchies of wealth and power being implied quite differently in each. People successful in one sphere are not necessarily able to translate that success into the other sphere. In the early 2000s controversy was raised by economist Helen Hughes and a group of her colleagues when they called for the abolition of customary tenure in Melanesia (Gosarevski et al., 2004). Such calls are concerned to make land more available for capitalist development, but they also have resonance for labor. The enclosure of the commons in Europe had the effect of creating a pool of labor available for capitalists. People who had previously been able to hunt, forage or grow what they needed became dependent on a wage. For some of the countries of Oceania, the limited access to schooling means that many people are only able to engage with capitalism from a most disadvantageous position, often as casual unskilled labor. David Boyd’s chapter shows that Irakia Awa people of Papua New Guinea, after several decades of attempts to improve their life opportunities

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through wage labor migration, found that their relegation to the ‘‘bottom of the heap’’ resulted in them turning their back on the wage economy and returning to their village to engage with capitalism differently. Without customary tenure that would not be possible, the Irakia Awa and people like them would become totally dependent on the very low wages prevailing in the Papua New Guinean economy, on which it is a struggle to cover the costs of housing, food and education for children such that they might have better life opportunities (Barclay, 2012). The chapter by Bainton and Macintyre about mining on the island of Lihir in Papua New Guinea shows that people engage with the opportunities brought by mining in a range of ways consonant with class analysis. Some people are waged workers, others are employed more advantageously in technically skilled, administrative or managerial roles, yet others start businesses to service and supply the mine. But the most desired role is as rentiers; recognized owners of land that serendipitously ended up being of central importance to the mine, some of whom are shareholders in the mine and become very wealthy. McCormack’s and van Meijl’s chapters also show how the people recognized as the legitimate trustees of customary land in New Zealand have thus entrenched their positions of wealth and power, with little benefit flowing to the rest of their communities. All three of these chapters find that engagement with capitalism is exacerbating social divisions and entrenching inequalities along class lines. The nature of the entrepreneurialism revealed in these chapters, however, shows the limits of attempting to understand class relations in different locations as being essentially the same. The kind of capitalism emerging among Maori with control over customary resources has emerged as a result of the unique set of circumstances in New Zealand that have shaped the settlement to indigenous people based on the Treaty of Waitangi. Here capitalism based on landholdings is thriving, but the business activities emerging from this capital are not necessarily run by Maori or employing Maori, especially in the case of fishing (chapters by van Meijl & McCormack, 2013). In Papua New Guinea there is another unique institutional framework, in which large scale capitalist investors such as mining companies must preferentially foster businesses from local landowner groups. Bainton and MacIntyre show that the lack of experience in doing business, in conjunction with systems of sociality that in many ways run counter to sustaining a business in the medium to long term, mean that most of the attempts to develop business have ended in frustration. The kinds of entrepreneurialism visible in the chapter by Barclay and Kinch

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constitute yet another variation, with development projects being predicated on expectations of people approaching their business as fulltime, accumulative, independent operators, whereas the political economy of project development encourages them to act as dependent clients, and the prevailing economic realities for coastal fishers means investing fulltime in a fishing business would be a most irrational thing to do.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY The chapters in this volume bring together examples of attempts to forge locally appropriate versions of modernity from around Oceania, to develop ideas that may be used to help with working out development that suits the aspirations and circumstances of particular groups of people. The chapters variously deal with the following questions: How has the market economy been negotiated by groups who also have other systems through which they organize their social and economic life? What has worked for local people in these engagements and what has not, and why? The first two chapters (van Meijl and McCormack) illustrate that the ways Maori engage with capitalism in New Zealand is tied up with the settlement of indigenous claims. The resolution of settlements has resulted in the return of resources now restructured in a highly commoditized form. In terms of engaging with the market economy this has ‘‘worked’’ for a particular corporatized elite section of Maori society while it has disenfranchised others. Yet, this is not a finished process. Kinship links and obligations continue to criss-cross emerging class divisions. And as van Meijl suggests, the new role property has assumed globally in capitalist markets will challenge traditional forms of wealth accumulation. The third chapter by Jane Horan argues that for a specific group of New Zealand Cook Islands women engaging with capitalism, in the form of accessing governmental social and economic development funding (analyzed as a type of third way neoliberalism), is a sophisticated means through which to sustain the traditional production of valuable tivaivai (textiles). This successful negotiation enhanced the women’s mana (authority/power/ prestige) and ultimately was enabled by the position of a key Cook Island woman and simultaneous textile group member within the Ministerial department responsible for administering the grant. This straddling facilitated a knowledge of the praxis needed in order to secure a successful grant

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application, including a neoliberal conception of ‘‘community,’’ and the decidedly different understanding of community, valuables and exchange held by Cook Island New Zealanders. The following two chapters focus on instances of capitalism brought from outside, fisheries development projects in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (Barclay & Kinch, 2013), and a mining company in Papua New Guinea (Bainton & Macintyre, 2013). These two chapters consider economic engagement from the perspective of the outside engagers, as well as from the local communities engaging with them. The assumptions brought to business development projects by funding bodies are based on capitalist practices and mindsets often quite unlike the practices and mindsets local people bring to their engagements with capitalism, resulting in frustration on both sides. At the same time, however, it is often quite clear that the business model contained in projects is impractical. Mine economies collapse after the inevitable closure of mines and development opportunities can rarely be transferred to another mining location. Coastal fisheries projects have been failing to meet their objectives of establishing sustainable businesses in fishing for decades yet donors and recipients continue to approve new projects containing elements that have been demonstrated to be unworkable. Local people continue to engage with the opportunities offered in these projects, however, because even though the capitalist business aims of projects often founder, they may meet noncapitalist aims people have to obtain cash-bought goods, enhancing their prestige as well as noncapitalist material activities such as providing for relatives. Barclay and Kinch’s main point is that projects could more successfully facilitate development if the local socioeconomic and political contexts of projects were better understood. Bainton and Macintyre’s main point is that the style of engagement with capitalism inculcated by mines is exacerbating social inequalities, leading to wide gaps between those benefiting handsomely from mining investment, and those unable to access the benefits. The last six chapters of the book take the perspective of particular groups of people and the ways they have interacted with different forms of capitalism coming into, or arising out of, their place. The chapters collectively address the themes of development, possessive individualism versus relational economies, gift and market exchange, bisnis, trade and customary tenure. Mark Mosko’s chapter shows that the development North Mekeo are experiencing, despite all the problems that it has generated, to a large extent suits villager’s aspirations – aspirations which remain consistent with the primary objective of creating ‘‘fame’’ (auafangai). North Mekeo development is only secondarily about material improvements in themselves

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(i.e., a la ‘‘development’’) and primarily about the social implications of material betterment. Thus to employ notions of possessive individualism (and its subsidiary connotations and implications) in interpreting the North Mekeo experience greatly distorts the reality as experienced by villagers. Tim Sharp’s case study is unique in that it deals with an indigenous product (betelnut) and an indigenously created trade, hence, capitalism has not, in this instance, come from the outside in terms of either manufactured goods or the market in question. Sharp shows how particular ‘‘place-based’’ practices and understandings infuse how people produce, transact, arrange and remunerate labor, distribute, accumulate, possess, and consume. The internal dynamics of competition and cooperation that exist in the interactions among Mt Hagen betel nut traders is not the same as the transactional dynamics typically assumed to exist between buyers and sellers. The betel nut trade is socially embedded and an example of a successful social engagement with a contemporary Melanesian market. In Anton Ploeg’s chapter the idea that ‘‘primitive’’ economies are directed solely toward social concerns is negated. This is an important insight, and although not new, is deserving of critical attention in the attempt to build a post 2008 economy. Ploeg shows clearly how the Me economy in precolonial times engaged with concepts and practices typically associated with capitalism yet managed also to sustain important social practices and traditional exchanges, including social reproduction. This then raises the question of whether alienated possessive individualism, or neoliberalist economic policy of contemporary versions of capitalism, which is embedded in social outreach programs (such as the initiatives discussed in chapters by Barclay and Kinch, van Meijl, McCormack, and Horan) is ‘‘the way to do’’ social progress. Perhaps ‘‘the way to do’’ is better situated in long-standing local concerns, in cultural obligations, in local ideas of material and cultural needs, in concerns for the environment and in a critical recognition of how contemporary ‘‘western’’ forms of capitalist engagements tend to entrench new forms of disenfranchisement. Shu-Yuan Yang discusses the ways Bugkalot people in the mountains of the Philippines have engaged with capitalism as an extension of their local culture. That is, they have not adopted capitalist mindsets about maximizing the accumulation of material wealth, although they have adopted some of the agricultural technologies and consumerist practices associated with capitalism. Rather, the Bugkalot continue to understand economic activity as being motivated by emotions of anger and jealousy in the context of strong norms of egalitarianism. The impetus to improve agricultural incomes or purchase store-bought goods is thus not motivated by a desire

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to accumulate more per se, but rather by anger/jealousy that another person has more than oneself, and a desire to reestablish equality by acquiring the same things. On this level engaging with capitalism seems fairly benign, but Yang also details processes by which the commodification of land and unaccustomed use of financial credit is resulting in the dispossession of Bugkalot people and social discord among them. Steffen Dalsgaard looks at remittances from migrant workers in Manus, Papua New Guinea, that have historically been a significant source of monetary wealth, and are today regarded as crucial in fostering local development. Remittances are a way of engaging with capitalism that depend on and maintain long-term personal exchange relationships. As such, they must be understood with reference to social and cultural contexts (both traditional and modern), in terms of the distribution of wealth, and resulting social and economic inequalities. The moral and social consequences are particularly felt in the relationship between villagers and returning migrants, who have grown apart from village ideals but often harbor political ambitions once they return. David Boyd’s chapter refutes the notion that ‘‘western’’ imposed models of capitalist development are simplistically adopted, that local peoples are necessarily victims and that an individualistic model of personhood results from such engagements. Rather, the alternative and decidedly local version of modernity created by the Papuan New Guinean Irakians is based on strong local agency, a village control of wage labor migrations, new placebased cash generating initiatives, customary tenure, valued traditions and a strong attachment to place.

CONCLUSION The insights on capitalism from Oceania offered by this collection point to the dynamic and complex nature of peoples’ economic practices. While elements of capitalism exist in many societies around the world, the interactions of those elements with other aspects of the political economies and cultures of those societies mean infinite variation. The focus of this collection is on societies often considered noncapitalist, and for whom noncapitalist norms and practices certainly remain strong. Yet all of them are engaging with capitalism, and incorporating capitalist norms and practices into their societies, in some cases intentionally, in others there is less scope for agency. The outcomes for people are also varied – local cultures are invigorated through processes of adaptation but social

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disharmony also ensues. While a select few are able to succeed as capitalists, many do not have the cultural or human capital to achieve all that they might hope for with capitalism, so participate as marginalized players. Recognizing the diversity of human economic existence as a given, and valuing noncapitalist social formations as valid parts of social life that coexist with capitalism, rather than denigrating them as backward and assuming that everyone needs to attain a universal and complete ideal standard of capitalism, would be good steps in the direction of enabling engagements with capitalism that are more attuned to the needs and desires of particular groups of people.

NOTE 1. Some versions of this definition of capitalism have been discredited as neomarxist dependency theory, but other versions of the world systems approach are widely considered still pertinent, such as those informing world history such as Eric Wolf’s (1982) seminal work, and the global commodity chain approach (see Bair, 2008).

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Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet. London: Routledge. Katz, C. J. (1997). Private property versus markets: Democratic and communitarian critiques of capitalism. The American Political Science Review, 91(2), 277–289. Lowie, R. (1921). Primitive society. London: Routedge & Kegan Paul. MacIntyre, M., & Foale, S. (2007). Land and marine tenure, ownership and new forms of entitlement on Lihir: Changing notions of property in the context of a gold mining project. Human Organization, 66(1), 49–59. Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Malinowski, B. (1935). Coral gardens and their magic (Vol. I). London: Allen and Unwin. Marx, K. (2007 [1857]). Capital: Critique of political economy. Vol 1 Part 1. The process of capitalist production. New York, NY: Cosimo Publications. Moore, B. (1966). The social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. OECD. (2009, October 29). Measuring and fostering well-being and progress: The OECD roadmap, Busan. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/0/44005046.pdf Polyani, K. (1944 [2001]). The great transformation: The political and economic origins or our time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Prattis, I. (1982). Synthesis or a new problematic in economic anthropology. Theory and Society, 11(2), 205–228. Quiggan, J. (1988). Private and common property rights in the economics of the environment. Journal of Economic Issues, XXII(4), 1071–1108. Rostow, W. W. (1960). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Sachs, W. (Ed.). (1991). The development dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books. Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Salazar, C. (1996). A sentimental economy, commodity and community in Rural Ireland. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Schmidt, V. (2003). French capitalism transformed, yet still a third variety of capitalism. Economy and Society, 32, 526–554. Scott, J. (1976). The moral economy of the peasant. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sklair, L. (2002). Globalization: Capitalism and its alternatives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J. P. (2009, September 14). Report of the measurement of economic performance and social progress. Commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress, Paris. Retrieved from http://www.stiglitz-senfitoussi.fr/en/index.htm Swedberg, R. (1994). Markets as social structures. In N. J. Smelser & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Swedberg, R., & Granovetter, M. (2001). Introduction. In M. Granovetter & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The sociology of economic life. Boulder, CO: Westview. Thompson, E. P. (1963). The making of the English working class. London: Victor Gollancz. Thompson, E. P. (1991). Customs in common. London: The Merlin Press. Von Benda- Beckmann, F., Von Benda- Beckmann, K., & Wiber, M. (2006). The properties of property. In F. Von Benda-Beckmann, K. Von Benda-Beckmann & M. Wiber (Eds.), Changing properties of property (pp. 1–39). New York, NY: Berghan.

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OWNERSHIP AND DISTRIBUTION IN THE SETTLEMENT OF MAORI GRIEVANCES: BALANCING HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE BETWEEN CLASSES Toon van Meijl ABSTRACT Purpose In the 1990s, the New Zealand government began returning land and other natural resources to Maori ownership in compensation for their dispossession in the nineteenth century. This chapter examines the impact of the settlement of the Waikato-Tainui claim on the socioeconomic development of the tribe since the compensation agreement was signed in 1995. Design/methodology/approach The ethnographic analysis is focused on the tribal debate that seeks to balance the corporate demand to maximize profits of commercial investments and the increasing demand of tribal beneficiaries for social services. This debate is situated within the broader discussion about the balance between ownership and (re)distribution, and between historical justice and social justice.

Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 29–52 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033004

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Findings The analysis demonstrates that the restoration of land to Maori ownership does not automatically result in an improvement of socioeconomic conditions for most Maori. Instead, it seems to facilitate a gradual transformation of tribal hierarchies into class distinctions. Research limitations/implications Further research is required as this chapter shows that the settlement of Maori grievances does not immediately resolve all socioeconomic problems as was originally expected. Practical implications The settlement of colonial grievances is inherently complex since each solution seems to create new problems, also because the sociopolitical organization of indigenous societies has changed fundamentally since the beginning of colonization. Social implications It will be necessary to continue to negotiate historical and social justice in postcolonial societies. Originality/value Ownership of natural resources does not automatically entail socioeconomic developments or improvements. Additional policy strategies are required to obtain the socioeconomic outcomes that people desire from their engagements with capitalism. Keywords: New Zealand; Maori; settlement process; property rights; (re)distribution; development

During my most recent visit to a Maori community on the North Island of New Zealand, where I was initiated into the anthropological practice of ethnographic research in 1982, I raised one central question in all conversations with all informants. Reflecting on the years that have passed since I first arrived, I asked to what extent people had managed to make dreams come true. In spite of the significant progress made by many Maori groups and organizations in settling their colonial grievances, however, most people commented that when it comes to the crunch not much has changed. This response was surprising when taking into consideration that over the past 30 years undoubtedly many important items on the political agenda of Maori have been achieved. In the local situation, for example, the primary school has been transformed into a bilingual school, while over the years a bilingual secondary school has been added so that a whole generation of young Maori people is now growing up speaking two languages fluently. The revival of the Maori language throughout New Zealand is directly

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visible in the growing influence of Maori media, including radio stations and television channels, which in turn have an important influence on public opinions about Maori issues. Most importantly, however, the historic claim of the local tribe for the return of the lands of which they were dispossessed in the nineteenth century was at long last settled in 1995. It was the very first major compensation settlement that was signed between a Maori tribe and the New Zealand government. When I began my research almost thirty years ago, the confiscations of tribal lands in 1864 characterized the community’s identity in all respects. On my very first day, I became an interesting new target for a couple of young boys who were involved in a Wild West play, when one of them pointed his plastic gun toward me and shouted, with a big smile on his face: ‘‘hey, you Pakeha, you have stolen all our lands!’’ The loss of lands during the colonial era had deprived most Maori of development opportunities in New Zealand society, a trauma that was passed down over successive generations. In 1995, however, the British Queen personally signed the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act 1995, which included a formal apology from the Crown for the confiscations, and which also provided for the return of 3% of the lands originally confiscated. The value of the returned lands was estimated at approximately NZ$ 170 million, and their annual proceeds at approximately NZ$ 10 million (van Meijl, 1999). Needless to say, Maori were excited about the settlement of their longstanding claim, which offered them the opportunity to abandon their historic trauma of landlessness and make plans for a radically new future. Fifteen years after the settlement, however, the enthusiasm about the settlement seems to have subsided to the extent that many people now realize that it will not change their daily lives substantially. And it has had no impact on a range of social problems that are associated with the disadvantaged conditions in which people are living their lives: too many people do not finish school, too many people are unemployed, too many people are short of money, too many people are eating, drinking and smoking too much, too many people have mental problems and the high levels of domestic violence are simply embarrassing. Roaming around the streets of the town confirms the analysis of many old friends that not much has changed indeed. It raises the question of what has happened after the settlement of the confiscations? Why does it not seem to make a significant difference in the lives of most tribal members? In this chapter, I seek to address these questions by analysing the management of the resources that were returned to Maori ownership. I will show how the settlement of Maori claims is working out in the case of the Waikato-Tainui Maori. My

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argument shall be that the restoration of land to Maori ownership does not automatically result in an improvement of socioeconomic conditions for most Maori. For the Waikato-Tainui, the original expectation that tenure over land would directly entail socioeconomic improvements is further hampered by the policy of the tribe’s leadership and management to focus on expanding the tribal estate, which prevents further distribution of revenues among tribal beneficiaries. As a consequence, the lives of the majority of poor members remain mostly untouched by the settlement, which instead is facilitating a gradual transformation of tribal hierarchies into class distinctions within the tribe. I begin with a short explanation of the historical background of the local community.

FROM THE CONFISCATIONS TO THE SETTLEMENT Although the early contacts between Maori and European explorers and the first settlers, including missionaries, were characterized by mutual interest and barter of goods and resources, Maori people soon realized that indigenous and nonindigenous terms of exchange were rather different. This came to the surface especially with regard to land deals. European settlers and colonial officials generally thought that when they had obtained a block of land they had acquired comprehensive property rights. From a Maori point of view, however, this was inconceivable as individual Maori chiefs could not dispose of land permanently, at least not without the consent of the entire tribe (Ballara, 1998). Maori notions of ownership are deeply intertwined with mythological conceptions of genealogical connections between people and land, making it rather impracticable to part with land in exchange for things such as blankets, soap, steel tools, or firearms. These different viewpoints soon led to a series of incidents between Maori and Pakeha, as non-Maori were called. Since more and more land became the subject of all kinds of shady deals, soon an intertribal Maori movement emerged to discuss a ban on all land sales. Such a ban had to be realized by a paramount chief with enough mana that would enable him to stand above all tribes. In 1858 the Waikato chief Potatau Te Wherowhero was elected and crowned as the first Maori King. As such, he was honored with the task to surmount tribal divisions and stop the sale of land in order to counter the imminent threat of colonial domination. Initially, King Potatau received broad support from many major Maori tribes, which enabled him to make the desired ban on land deals effective. As a consequence, however,

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the government considered him a rebel and punished him for being uncooperative by confiscating all the land of his own tribe and huge sections of land of a number of friendly tribes. Subsequently, the son of the first King, who succeeded his father when he died in 1860, attempted to redress the confiscations. Over the years this caused many tribes to withdraw their support of the Maori monarchy, because the King focused his actions primarily on the return of his own tribal lands. Nevertheless, the head of the Maori King Movement has remained a key symbol of Maori unity until today (van Meijl, 1993). Since 2006, King Tuheitia is the seventh monarch reigning in the line of Potatau. One of the main reasons why the Maori King Movement survived over the years is that the shared history of loss provided its supporters with a common idea of a new future in which the lands had been returned and justice would be established. The history of the Maori King Movement is characterized by neverending attempts to regain the confiscated lands. Over the years, some smaller pockets of swampy and infertile land were returned to Maori ownership and just after the World War II, after more than 20 years of negotiations, the kingly tribes received annually a small sum of financial compensation for the ‘‘excessive’’ confiscations. The opportunity to redress the confiscations in a serious manner, however, did not arise until the 1980s, when a series of political and legal changes took place that made it possible for Maori tribes to submit claims about their colonial grievances and negotiate redress about those claims with the government. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to elaborate on the transition that New Zealand underwent in the 1980s, involving dramatic economic changes as well as a radical transformation of the political landscape. The outcome of that process was that by the end of the 1980s it had dawned on the New Zealand government and increasingly also the country’s population that Maori could not longer be denied reparative justice for their dispossession in the nineteenth century. This realization had come about because in the course of time the Treaty of Waitangi was recognized as an important covenant between Maori and the government (Sorrenson, 1989). This Treaty was signed between Maori chiefs and a British governor at Waitangi in 1840. The debate about the Treaty of Waitangi is complicated since there are significant differences between the English version of it and the Maori translation that was signed by most Maori chiefs (Orange, 1987). There can be no doubt that both signing parties had different understandings of key aspects. Basically, however, the Maori ceded sovereignty, whatever that meant in those days, to the British Crown in exchange for the ‘‘undisturbed possession’’ of their lands and other properties. A third clause of the Treaty

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also promised Maori the same entitlements according to British law as the people of England. This article seemed initially a rather gratuitous additional statement, but in recent years it has become increasingly important in the debate between Maori and the government about the question of how the violations of the Treaty over the years should be redressed (see below). Indeed, the property rights as well as the civil rights of Maori as they were embedded in the Treaty have been trampled upon time and again in New Zealand history. The British exploited their ‘‘sovereignty’’ and ruled the country sovereignly without much regard for the country’s indigenous population. Interestingly, some chiefs, including Potatau Te Wherowhero, who would later be crowned King, had not signed the Treaty, but still their tribal territories were included in the colonial invasion. Their rejection of the Treaty as justification of the land acquisition policies of the colonial government was neglected completely by the British who claimed their sovereignty to be ‘‘exhaustive and indivisible’’ (McHugh, 1989, p. 41). In 1877 a judge even ruled in a landmark case that the Treaty was a ‘‘nullity’’ (Orange, 1987, p. 187). Unfortunately, the political tide did not turn in favor of the Maori until the mid-1970s. In 1975 the Waitangi Tribunal was established and Maori were enabled to submit claims about violations of the Treaty of Waitangi. Initially Maori could only complain about infringements of the Treaty that had taken place after the establishment of the Tribunal, but in 1985 the tribunal’s jurisdiction was backdated to the day that the Treaty was signed in 1840. As a result, some 600 claims had been submitted to the Waitangi Tribunal toward the end of the 1980s (Belgrave, Kawharu, & Williams, 2005). One of the most massive land claims that were lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal concerned those of the Waikato-Tainui people, the main supporters of the Maori monarchy. Although the first King had refrained from signing the Treaty, their claim was also submitted to the Waitangi Tribunal. The Tribunal, however, never examined the Waikato-Tainui claim since the government granted the Maori King Movement the privilege of direct negotiations about a settlement as it realized that their grievances were most severe. For that reason, too, the government opted to deal with the Waikato-Tainui claim first, which was also a way to show their goodwill to the Maori population as a whole. In 1995 the Tainui were the first Maori group to sign a comprehensive settlement of their historic grievances resulting from the confiscation of their lands and natural resources in 1864 (van Meijl, 1999). On the eve of the 29th anniversary of her coronation, the then head of the Maori King Movement, Queen Te Atairangikaahu, signed a ‘‘Deed of Settlement’’ with the

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government. The deal included a formal apology from the Crown acknowledging it acted unjustly in dealing with the King Movement in 1863, and it provided for the return of 14,165 ha (about 35,000 acres) of Crown land. This amounted to about 3% of the land originally confiscated, to be returned over a period of five years, in most cases excluding all buildings. The value of the lands restored was estimated at approximately NZ$ 170 million, while the annual proceeds from the rents and leases of the lands could amount to between NZ$ 7 and 14 million per annum. In November 1995, this settlement was passed into law with the signature of the British Queen Elizabeth under the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act during her visit to New Zealand.

OWNERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE Although initially the signing of the settlement raised enormous excitement as the deal indicated that New Zealand was making great strides in redressing the colonial grievances of the country’s indigenous population, the deal between the Maori King Movement and the government has been controversial from the outset. Elsewhere, I have elaborated on the criticisms of the negotiations preceding the settlement and also of the legal construction that was developed to formalize Maori ownership and governance of the returned properties (van Meijl, 2003). Here, a brief summary of this debate will therefore suffice. The central point is that the lands and other resources that were returned to Waikato-Tainui ownership were vested in the Potatau Te Wherowhero Land Holding Trust, a tribal trust named after the first Maori King, while three prominent members of the Maori royal family were appointed as custodial trustees, namely the head of the Kingitanga, her adoptive brother and her uncle. Some Waikato-Tainui subtribes, who had historically always supported the Maori monarchy, were rather unhappy with this legal construction as they felt that their original subtribal rights were substituted by a collective tribal title. It implied that they had effectively lost control of local lands to a tribal corporation in the making, while the tribe and the monarchy were considered only as a form of symbolic representation. Legally and politically many subtribes preferred to maintain their autonomy. The controversy surrounded not only the vesting of ownership at tribal instead of subtribal level, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, the exclusive appointment of members of the royal family as custodial trustees. The vesting of the returned lands in a dead ancestor was put in place to

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prevent the sale of the land. No individual can succeed to the title, while the beneficiaries of the land are supposed to be the tribe as a whole, not an individual, an extended family (whaanau) or a subtribe (hapuu). The lands are also difficult to alienate with a 75% majority of all beneficiaries having to agree to a sale, in addition to the endorsement of the three custodial trustees. Although this construction with trustees appointed exclusively from the royal family was justified with the argument to prevent future alienation of the returned properties, it simultaneously uplifted the Maori monarchy to a powerful institution in New Zealand, much more powerful than it had ever been before (Cheater & Hopa, 1997). The enhanced authority of the Maori monarchy was especially apparent because of the legal interconnection between ownership and management, which reinforced the criticism of a significant number of subtribes. The Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Act of 1995 aimed at introducing a strict division between ownership, governance, and management. The Settlement Act therefore established the Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust, the legal body holding the Potatau Te Wherowhero title as discussed above. Legal ownership of the returned properties vested in this trust in this new structure was held by the three custodial trustees of the royal family, but governance and management of the properties held by the Lands Trust were transferred to the Waikato Raupatu Trustee Company. The Trustee Company, in turn, was going to operate through the Kauhanganui,1 a ‘‘Great Council’’ of 204 people representing 68 marae who have signed the covenant supporting the settlement. Each marae elects from among its registered members three representatives, an elder (kaumaatua), a younger person (rangatahi) and a marae member. This Council began with representatives of 61 marae, but over the years seven additional marae have also signed the settlement. Since some 116 marae may be counted within the boundaries of the Waikato-Tainui district, it can be concluded that some 48 marae are not supporting the settlement for a variety of reasons, which I will elaborate upon below (see also van Meijl, 2003). The supportive marae have registered a total number of 57,000 beneficiaries, whereas all Waikato-Tainui marae are likely to list up to 120,000 tribal members, which implies that more than 50% of all Waikato-Tainui people are excluded from receiving a share of the settlement anyhow (ibid.) (Fig. 1). In 2009 the organizational structure was changed, as outlined below, in the sense that the Kauhanganui has been transformed in the legal trustee when it formally replaced the Waikato Raupatu Trustee Company. It is now registered as the Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated, but in practice it is often referred to as ‘‘the parliament.’’ The Kauhanganui delegates

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Waikato-Tainui Tribal Beneficiaries

Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust

Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated (Trustee)

Waikato Raupatu River Trust

Waikato-Tainui Te Arataura

Waikato-Tainui Fisheries Ltd

Fig. 1.

Tainui Group Holdings Ltd

Waikato-Tainui Management Structure. Source: http://www.waikato tainui.com

management and control to an executive board of 11 members, 10 of whom are elected from its membership, while the head of the Maori monarchy is entitled to appoint the remaining seat. When the executive board was first installed it was called Tekaumaarua or ‘‘council of 12,’’ which was named after the traditional advisory council of the head of the Kingitanga which was also made up of twelve prominent elders (in analogy with Jesus’ 12 apostles). In 2003, however, the then Maori Queen requested to change the name of Tekaumaarua to Te Arataura (‘‘a linking pathway’’), since she felt she did not have sufficient control over the tribe’s executive council (see below). Initially, the members of the executive board were also appointed as directors of the Trustee Company, but a series of conflicts between Te Arataura and Te Kauhanganui led to the transfer of this prerogative to the latter in 2009, as was already explained above. At present, the executive board also delegates the day-to-day administration of Te Kauhanganui to a chief executive officer.

GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT Although ownership and governance are formally separated in the organizational structure of the Waikato-Tainui, the management of the returned

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resources and their associated business operations has been plagued by a series of conflicts from the outset. The first major conflict dates from around 2000, when the executive board of the Trustee Company announced a 40 million dollar loss over the year 1999. The announcement inflamed media critiques and reinforced rumors of mismanagement, obscure deals, ridiculous investments, feudal relations within the Waikato tribe, and nepotism of the royal family. The executive council subsequently sacked the adoptive brother of the Maori Queen, the principal negotiator of the settlement, from the tribe’s company directorships, since he was held personally responsible for the poor performances of Waikato’s tribal business estate. Subsequently, however, the Maori Queen moved to dismiss the remaining members of the executive council by introducing a resolution in the Kauhanganui calling on them to quit (New Zealand Herald, 2000, August 14). The Queen and her advisors, including her adoptive brother, acted by virtue of their conviction that as custodial trustees of the Lands Trusts, they were also authorized to influence the management of the Trustee Company. The executive council, on the other hand, contended that as company directors they had their own management responsibility on grounds of which they were legally not obliged to tolerate interference in the tribe’s businesses by the Trust’s custodial trustees, that is, the royal family. When the Queen’s resolution was passed by the Kauhanganui, therefore, the executive council challenged the decision immediately in the High Court and the judge ruled that the resolution from the Queen to sack the executive was ‘‘unconstitutional’’ (Waikato Times, 2000, August 16). The issue of a summons to the Maori Queen to appear in court went, of course, straight against the belief of the monarchy’s supporters in the inviolability of the head of the Kingitanga. Nonetheless, the leadership crisis resulted in several court cases in which the Maori Queen was involved during the second half of the year 2000, all concerning the management of the tribal companies and the question of who was entitled to make decisions about which issues at each level of the tribal structure. The royal family, supported by a loyal group of elders, interpreted the implementation of the settlement as though it had been given the power as legal owners of the tribal estate, not only to hold the tribe’s properties under trust, but also to intervene in the governance of the trustee company by the democratically elected Great Council and its daily management by the executive council. The executive council, on the other hand, claimed the right to act autonomously in the interest of the tribal companies and rejected any interference by or on behalf of the royal custodians. In sum, this crisis

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concerned the ambiguity of the formal and informal separation between ownership, governance and management within the Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust and its business company. This embarrassing dispute settled down after a few years when a financial turnabout took place and the tribe could announce an NZ$ 8 million profit again in 2003. By that stage, the adoptive brother of the Maori Queen had died, while the chairperson of the executive council had been dismissed. The conflict caused the tribe to review its organizational structure, which eventually resulted in the transformation of the Te Kauhanganui into the tribe’s most important decision making body. In 2009 it became, as mentioned above, the Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated, which reflects its status as representation of all the tribe’s beneficiaries in the form of a ‘‘parliament.’’ And as early as 2003 the name of the executive council had been changed from Tekaumaarua into Te Arataura, also to endorse its independence from the royal custodians of the Potatau Te Wherowhero Land Holding Trust. Unfortunately, however, this reorganization of the tribe’s structure has not prevented more internal dissension, which in recent years has revolved around the differences in authority between the parliament and the executive council. In 2010, the chairperson of the parliament (Te Kauhanganui) challenged the executive board (Te Arataura) about its excess expenditure of NZ$ 1.7 million, which she argued contrasted sharply with the distribution in 2009 of only NZ$ 750,000 to the 68 marae and the reduction of education grants from NZ$ 1 million down to NZ$ 550,000. After the chair of Te Kauhanganui tabled a detailed report about Te Arataura’s spending at a meeting of the parliament, when she called for a financial review, the King stepped in and dismissed her for bringing the tribe into disrepute. Although the rules governing the tribal parliament stipulate that nobody must bring the tribe into disrepute, the chairperson argued that it had not been drawn up as a convenient clause to dispose of opponents. For that reason, she headed to court to challenge her dismissal and won. Subsequently, the executive council forced the parliament to vote for her, but again she received Te Kauhanganui’s confidence. Underlying this recent dispute between Te Kauhanganui and Te Arataura, with the King openly supporting the executive council, is a range of related issues. First, a clash of personalities may be involved between the chair of the parliament and the chair of the executive council. After the court case and the parliamentary debate about the credibility of its chairperson, the chair of the parliament called for a vote of no confidence in the chair of the executive council. When the chair of the parliament thought

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that the parliament had declared the chair of the executive council disqualified, the latter challenged the way the voting rules were interpreted, headed to court as well, where this time he won. As a consequence, both chairpersons are holding on to their positions. Second, the conflict between the parliament and its executive council also demonstrates continuing discussions about the structure of the tribe, this time focusing on the authority of the executive council. Formally, the rules of governance of the parliament as an Incorporated Society are unambiguous, but the authority that is delegated to the executive council is the subject of ongoing debate. Some members of parliament claim that the constitutional rules are invariably interpreted in favor of Te Arataura, which is virtually demanding the right to veto parliamentary decisions as they argue that it is unworkable to have 204 members of parliament to manage a business company. Intertwined with this discussion is a debate about the relation between democratic processes and tribal governance since the chair of the executive council is a confidant of the King. Nobody questions the tribe’s principle that the mana of the Kingitanga is to be upheld as the monarchy provides the various tribes with a symbol of unity, but the issue is whether the royal family should have any real influence on the tribe’s operations. For example, should the King have the power to dismiss the chair of Te Kauhanganui? And who should decide on the financial compensation of the royal family and its connections on the executive council? After all, behind the dispute between the chair of the parliament and the chair of the executive council is a conflict about the remuneration of the latter. In this context, it is important to make explicit that as a former journalist and a member of the national parliament he was rather controversial, but as chair of the executive council he has successfully represented the tribe in negotiations with the government about the ownership and management of the tribe’s main river. Under his leadership, the tribe’s business operations are also performing very well (see below). As such, he has restored his damaged reputation, but the question raised by the chair of the parliament is whether that also entitles him to very high consultancy fees on top of his very high salary, amounting in total to NZ$ 241,000 (Rata, 2011a, p. 346; see also New Zealand Herald, 2011, October 8), while in the financial year 2008–2009 he was also paid NZ$ 170,000 by the government for facilitating Treaty claims (New Zealand Herald, 2010, March 19). Third, the discussion about the excessive compensation of the chair of the executive council, especially in proportion to the distribution of grants to the tribe’s beneficiaries, suggests that underlying these debates is

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a controversy about the goals and objectives of the tribe. In order to elaborate on this tension, it is necessary to explain in more detail the tribe’s business operations and the redistribution of dividend to tribal beneficiaries.

MANAGEMENT AND DISTRIBUTION In 2007, the Waikato-Tainui parliament and the executive council jointly published a strategic plan for cultural, social and economic advancement of the tribe, entitled Whakatupuranga Waikato-Tainui 2050. This outline of the tribe’s vision of the future provides a blueprint of what they aim to achieve by the year 2050. The concept of whakatupuranga, meaning ‘‘generation,’’ but composed of the words tupu or ‘‘growth,’’ and whakatupu or ‘‘causing to grow,’’ indicates the tribe’s main ambition. Indeed, a key element of the intergenerational strategic plan is to grow the tribal estate. The expansion of the economic base of the tribe is generally justified with reference to the historical necessity to reverse the alienation of the Waikato-Tainui people from their land in the 1860s. The management of the tribal estate, however, shows that over time historical goals have been linked to the capitalist goal of maximization. Since 1995 the Waikato-Tainui tribe has gradually placed the management of its assets under the umbrella of two commercial companies, the Waikato-Tainui Fisheries (WTF) and the Tainui Group Holdings (TGH). The fishing interests comprise quota and other assets that have been allocated to Waikato-Tainui as a result of the Maori fisheries settlement with the Crown in 2003 (van Meijl, 2006). WTF holds a quota investment of NZ$ 20 million, but most of these have been outsourced to Aotearoa Fisheries, a commercial fishing company owned by a group of Maori tribes, in which the Waikato-Tainui people hold 5.48% of the shares. The first dividend of NZ$ 0.4 million of this company was not received until 2010 (TGH, 2011, p. 26). Tainui Group Holdings is the largest commercial company of the Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated. Its main role is to deliver commercial returns on assets that were returned by the Crown to the Waikato-Tainui people in 1995. TGH’s principal objective is to maximize these returns through its core business of property management, property development as well as through financial investments. As such, TGH is the tribe’s property management company, acting as landlord to properties Tainui received from the settlement, including the University of Waikato, Huntly Power Station, Ruakura Estate and several others. In addition,

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TGH aims at expanding the tribal estate that was received back by investing in property, such as residential and commercial divisions, including, for example, an upmarket retirement complex (Ryman Healthcare), four star hotels in Hamilton and near Auckland airport, and a former Air Force base that has recently been developed into a retail estate. Finally, TGH has also invested considerable amounts of money in financial corporations, also including shops, hotels and real estate complexes. Alongside Waikato-Tainui’s business interests that aim to expand the tribal estate, TGH aims at generating income from the tribe’s assets, allowing it to provide a dividend for the benefit of Waikato-Tainui beneficiaries. The dividend is paid to the group’s sole shareholder, the Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated, which as a charitable trust uses the dividend both to meet tribal expenditure and for distribution in the form of grants to Waikato-Tainui marae and registered tribal members for education, welfare, health and social and cultural development. As a consequence, the Waikato-Tainui tribe announces annually the total value of collective assets as well as the net operating profit, part of which is paid as dividend by TGH to Te Kauhanganui. Over the year 2010, Waikato-Tainui released a financial statement showing that in the previous year the tribe’s total assets had grown by 6.5% to NZ$ 644.5 million, with a debt-equity ratio of 26.8%. Waikato-Tainui Fisheries and Tainui Group Holdings posted a combined profit of NZ$ 34 million, while the net profit for the year was recorded as NZ$ 15.6 million. Since this amount is also used to cover business expenditure, a dividend of NZ$ 10 million was paid to the Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated, which in turn paid NZ$ 4.4 million of this dividend in the form of grants, the remainder having been spent on tribal expenditure and special projects. Grants were distributed to the following beneficiaries: 24% to the office of the King, 21% as 816 different education grants, 19% as 68 marae grants, 11% as 712 individual health grants, 9% as 4 special marae facilities grants, 4% as 166 sports grants, and 12% to a range of special projects. These million dollar figures have unquestionably enhanced the pride of the Waikato-Tainui people. As a tribal confederation they are no longer landless, and collectively they are no longer poor either. Individuals frequently show sparkling eyes when they point out that the tribe’s assets are exceeding NZ$ 600 million. Many marae are also very proud of their facilities that in recent years have been renovated with tribal grants paid out of the annual dividend from the Tainui Group Holdings. Fifteen years after the settlement was signed, however, the awareness is growing that the return

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of the land and the additional compensation funds will not be making a significant contribution to the reduction of poverty among the tribe’s people, at least not for the time being. Against that background, the management of the Waikato-Tainui tribe is increasingly criticized for its investment policies and the limited redistribution of its revenues. In this context, several stark examples are brought up. Fishing quota are outsourced to a large commercial company, which although tribally owned, has generated very few jobs for smaller Tainui fishermen (see McCormack, 2013). Some of the businesses are not economically viable, such as the hotels that are run by staff whose jobs are subsidized by the Department of Social Welfare. The tribe is investing in an upmarket retirement village that is far too expensive for most elderly Tainui people, who continue to live on a very small pension. In its response to these criticisms the leadership of the tribe and the executive council of the parliament have consistently argued that compensation received from the government was intended as a ‘‘land for land’’ settlement. For that reason, too, it is contended, the Waikato-Tainui tribe aims at rebuilding a tribal estate and the commercial objectives of the tribal subsidiaries are also to be understood in that light: investing money, adding value to the investment, and securing the returned properties for future generations. This explanation of the tribe’s long-term strategy is not unreasonable, but in practice sometimes loses credibility when considered in light of the hierarchical relations within the Waikato tribe and the privileged position of, not just the royal family, but also members of families that are directly related to the monarchy. Time and again, media reports have been released about the leadership of the tribe lavishing huge amounts of money on itself in the form of consultancy fees, big salaries and luxury cars at the expense of ordinary beneficiaries. The amounts of money mentioned above testify to those rumors. Indeed, a limited number of people who are involved in the management of the tribe’s settlement are benefitting extraordinarily from the compensation funds that have been invested. In addition, a number of lower paid jobs have materialized for a limited number of people who are involved in the operations of tribal business companies. The vast majority of Waikato-Tainui beneficiaries, however, are not benefitting individually or personally from the settlement. As a consequence, the settlement of colonial grievances seems to be changing traditional tribal hierarchies into class distinctions within Maori society (cf. Rata, 2011a, 2011b). Indeed, the settlement of Maori claims and the restoration of substantial resources to Maori ownership raise the question regarding the responsibility of Maori tribes to redistribute tribal assets among tribal beneficiaries.

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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE The debate about the responsibility of tribes to redistribute compensation from the settlement among its beneficiaries is complicated by a number of factors. When the settlement process started in the 1990s, the aim of the government was to repair historical injustices by returning properties to Maori ownership that in the past were dispossessed illegally. By doing so, however, the government hoped to address not only Maori historical grievances, but also widespread concerns about Maori poverty. These different yet related dimensions of the settlement policy have been described as historical justice on the one hand, and social justice on the other (Lashley, 2000; Sharp, 2004, pp. 198–200). Historical or reparative justice may be achieved, it was assumed, by returning tribal resources that were unjustly dispossessed in the nineteenth century to the collective ownership of tribal corporations. Social or distributive justice, on the other hand, can be attained by redistributing additional resources among those Maori who suffered most from colonization. By signing compensation settlements with Maori tribes, the government is hoping to achieve both historical and social justice, delegating to tribal corporations some responsibility for achieving social justice for its beneficiaries. In New Zealand this debate about the balance between historical and social justice parallels the interpretation of the Treaty, which guarantees Maori proprietary interests in Article Two, but also pledges to Maori the benefits and privileges of citizenship in Article Three. In recent years, it has appeared that different sections of the Maori population argue that either of these articles should be privileged in the settlement policy. Tribes appear to focus especially on Article Two since as traditional owners of tribal territories which they lost in the colonial era, they argued that ‘‘as land was taken, so land should be returned’’ (i haere whenua atu, me hoki whenua mai). This restricted interpretation of the Treaty focusing merely on Article Two, however, has become contentious since it does not take into account that according to Article Three all Maori are entitled to ‘‘all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.’’ The question is, however, who is responsible for the implementation of this clause after the government has settled the grievances of a tribe about the historical violations of the Treaty? As stipulated in Article Three of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Crown is obliged to provide social justice to all Maori. The abominable socioeconomic indicators of the Maori population testify to the fact that this obligation has been violated systematically since the Treaty was signed in 1840. After all, the vast majority of Maori continues to be trapped into a vicious circle of poverty, unlike other citizens of the New Zealand nation-state (Henare,

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Puckey, & Nicholson, 2011). The New Zealand government is therefore required not only to provide historical or reparative justice to settle breaches of Article Two, but also to provide redress for breaches of Article Three by redistributing traditional resources among all Maori people. Since great strides have been made in the settlement policy, the government is increasingly inclined to argue that it shares the responsibility for the welfare of Maori people with tribes. At the same time, more and more people are appealing to tribes for their responsibility to redistribute more of its wealth among their beneficiaries to address the poverty in which many Maori people are living. These views are frequently articulated in combination with implicit or explicit criticisms of the growing inequality in Maori society, since a small minority of tribal elites is clearly benefitting from Treaty settlements, whereas the vast majority is not. In opposition to these criticisms, Maori tribes, on the other hand, argue that in spite of the restitution of properties they have received in return from the Crown, the government still has an obligation to continue to provide social and economic services to Maori people as well as to non-Maori people, including proper standards of health, welfare, housing, employment and all the basic needs that Maori and non-Maori people require (e.g., Rata, 2011a, p. 328, 2011b, pp. 362–362). In this context, they also refer to legal constraints, because one of the conditions of the government to tribes before settlements are signed is that they register as incorporated societies, which makes it mandatory to annually publish financial statements and auditor reports. In practice, most tribes apply for incorporation as a charitable trust, which in New Zealand are nonprofit organizations that are not required to pay tax. Since charitable trusts are exempted from paying tax, however, they are not permitted to donate funds to individuals either. They are only allowed to redistribute money among their beneficiaries in the form of grants that are to be used for the ‘‘society’’ and its purposes (compare Barclay & Kinch, 2013, who also link local forms of capitalist engagement with specific national structures). In order to facilitate the distribution of settlement funds among Maori beneficiaries, the New Zealand Law Commission (2006) published a report, entitled Waka Umanga (‘‘Vessel for an Undertaking’’), recommending for legislation to provide for a new legal entity specifically designed for Maori groups that manage communally owned assets. It would represent tribes and manage collectively owned assets in a way that fits not only larger tribal organizations, but also smaller units, including subtribes (hapuu) and even extended families (whaanau) and marae communities. Thus, it would simultaneously resolve the problem that the government seeks to negotiate

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settlements only with larger tribal organizations, since it is reluctant to become involved in the ongoing debate about the separation of authority between subtribes and tribes, and also about intertribal boundaries (van Meijl, 2012). A major advantage of this proposal was that it would enable smaller tribal units to negotiate their own deals with the government, rather than being represented by a higher ranking, larger tribal corporation from which they feel practically alienated. Better still, however, would be the possibility that it would enable Maori organizations which would have registered as waka umunga to deliver to individual needs. Unfortunately, however, the report was rejected by the National Government, partly also because it did not receive widespread support from the tribal aristocracy simply ‘‘because it was not going to help them’’ as the chairperson of the Law Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, phrased it (New Zealand Herald, 2011, October 8). This raises the question of how Maori resistance against innovative legislation aiming at a more equal distribution of settlement compensation among Maori communities is to be explained.

OWNERSHIP, DISTRIBUTION AND CLASS DISTINCTIONS In his keynote speech to the annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society in Perth, James Ferguson (2011) shifted the paradigm of capitalism from ownership to distribution (see also Ferguson, 2012). He argued that Karl Marx focused his deconstruction of capitalism on the ownership of the forces of production, but that the antiauthoritarian Russian revolutionary philosopher Peter Kropotkin commenced his analysis of capitalism with an analysis of distribution mechanisms. As such, Kropotkin is often also positioned as a counter to the thinking of his contemporaries Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, who in the International Workingmen’s Association were in favor of centralized planning and control. Kropotkin, on the other hand, had a preference for local forms of production and, by the same token, local forms of organization, both obviating the need for central government. Kropotkin’s vision also favored agriculture and rural life, making it a contrasting perspective to the largely industrial thinking of his communist companions. Indeed, Kropotkin’s focus on unequal distribution in his analysis of capitalism, and on the organization of the bottom of society rather than the top of the organization, makes it interesting to speculate what his views would have

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been on the strategy of the Waikato-Tainui leadership to aim primarily at an expansion of the tribal estate. The adoptive brother of the late Maori Queen, who was the principal negotiator of the settlement on behalf of the Waikato-Tainui people and also the main brain behind the implementation of it, used to argue that the tribe was ‘‘traumatized’’ by the history of confiscations. For that reason, too, the strategy to expand the tribal estate in order to reverse the alienation of the land was always justified in historical terms. Underlying this countercolonial legitimation, however, has also been a conviction that the growth of tribal assets will bring the tribe wealth in the future. As such, the traditional justification was intricately intertwined with capitalist goals of the expansion of properties and the maximization of profits. This is particularly apparent from the strategies elected to realize growth, which are unquestionably of a capitalist nature. In turn, it puts the flipside of the tribal goal of accumulation in a different perspective, namely that the very many poor beneficiaries of the Waikato-Tainui settlement do not gain anything from the collective ownership of more than NZ$ 600 million worth of tribal assets. Ownership of traditional resources is fantastic, but no share in the revenues to make common lives easier might become increasingly controversial for the majority of Waikato-Tainui beneficiaries. Precisely this view from the bottom probably reflects the tribal spirit that I tried to reconstruct during my most recent visit. The discussion about the value of ownership for the long term versus the advantages of direct distribution for the short term may be considered in analogy with the debate about the vices and virtues of shareholder capitalism versus stakeholder capitalism (Kelly, Kelly, & Gamble, 1997). The neoliberal model of capitalism that has become dominant over the last 30 years rests on the core assumption that the owners, in practice the shareholders, have put their money at risk and are therefore entitled to the profits that are produced (Harvey, 2005). Although this viewpoint does not necessarily match the ideology of corporate Maori tribes, it is effectively related to the associated objective of the maximization of the shareholder value which does characterize Maori tribal business enterprises. And this goal of shareholder companies is in practice frequently pursued at considerable cost to the beneficiaries, the workers, the customers, and even the public interest. In Maori society the outsourcing of fishing quota is probably the most painful example, while the extremely limited redistribution of dividend to tribal beneficiaries also indicates that tribal leaders and managers adhere to a version of shareholder capitalism. Tribal beneficiaries, on the other hand, express their criticism of these tribal policies from the viewpoint of stakeholder capitalism. This

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alternative model of capitalism recognizes and empowers all of the parties that have an interest in and contribute to the success, including the profits, of a complex corporate business enterprise. In addition to the owners cum shareholders, this includes the beneficiaries, the workers, customers and the general public. Indeed, in Maori society it is argued that ‘‘the people’’ must be more included. The comparative analogy between, on the one hand, Maori tribal corporations focusing on ownership as a form of shareholder capitalism, and, on the other hand, the critique of their policies as expressed by tribal beneficiaries demanding more direct distribution as part of a form of stakeholder capitalism, draws attention to the most obvious consequence of the settlement policy, which may be described as a deepening of class distinctions in Maori society. In recent decades, it has been increasingly acknowledged that inequalities exist between Maori and non-Maori, but the class inequalities that exist within Maori society are generally disregarded (Poata-Smith, 2004; Rata, 2011a, 2011b). There is a wealth of statistical data based on comparisons between Maori and non-Maori in almost all sectors of New Zealand society, but the statistical patterns of the development of inequality within Maori society are not so readily available (Callister, 2006; Chapple, 2000). This reflects the dominance of postcolonial explanations for the persistence of ‘‘ethnic’’ inequality in New Zealand, which tend to view social inequality primarily as a consequence of cultural marginalization and institutional racism (Poata-Smith, 1996). For that reason, too, government initiatives to reduce socioeconomic disparities focus almost exclusively on the ‘‘gap’’ between Maori and non-Maori, and not on the class inequalities that exist within these communities (Kukutai, 2004). The government’s recent recognition and resolution of Maori colonial grievances has likewise never compensated for the negative impact of neoliberal reforms on the working class in New Zealand, which is predominantly made up of Maori and Pacific Islanders. A further complexity is that a significant minority of Maori, including some of the most dizadvantaged in society, are outside tribal structures anyway (Gill, Pride, Gilbert, & Norman, 2010, p. 19). Although statistical data on inequality within Maori society, more specifically within Maori tribes, are thin, there is a growing recognition that the settlement process has reinforced the conflicting material interests and class-based tensions that exist within tribal communities (Poata-Smith, 2004, p. 59; Rata, 2011a, p. 328). This chapter, too, demonstrates that once assets are transferred to a tribal claimant group, conflicts arise within those corporate organizations and between those managing the assets and their beneficiaries. Some view these disputes as arising from a conflict between

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indigenous values and contemporary strategies for economic development, and therefore they advocate for the introduction of culturally appropriate legislation that defines the core functions of those responsible for the stewardship of settlement assets (Law Commission, 2006). At the same time, it may be argued that these proposals may introduce management structures which are more suitable for smaller Maori kin groups, but they continue to overlook contradictory class interests within Maori communities as shown in this chapter. Indeed, the assumption that Maori share a commonality of interests and a unity of purpose, irrespective of their vastly different positions in the class structure of New Zealand society is no longer sustainable. The settlement policy of the last two decades has made it increasingly difficult to suggest that Maori communities are classless and share the same set of experiences of inequality and the same political aspirations (Poata-Smith, 2004, p. 60). The restructuring of Maori tribal organizations and their governance structures to fit a neoliberal settlement paradigm in which tribal business management teams effectively control the collectively owned assets of the tribe’s descendants, as if they are the only ‘‘shareholders’’ in a capitalist enterprise, has simultaneously entrenched and institutionalized the inequalities of wealth and political influence that exist within and across contemporary Maori society. The focus on ownership instead of distribution in the implementation of the Waikato-Tainui settlement discussed in this chapter is also ironic because the role of property is changing radically in contemporary economies. Although the capitalist economy is founded on the very idea of exchanging property in markets, ownership is becoming an anachronism in the new constellation of global economic relations. Property continues to exist, but is far less likely to be exchanged in markets, thus forcing suppliers to hold on to property and to seek different ways to generate income from their assets. The American economist Jeremy Rifkin formulated his qualms about the role of property and ownership in future economies as follows: It is likely that for a growing number of enterprises and consumers, the very idea of ownership will seem limited, even old-fashioned, twenty-five years from now. Ownership simply is too slow an institution to adjust to the near warp speed of a nanosecond culture. Ownership is based on the idea that possessing a physical asset or piece of property over an extended period of time is valuable. ‘‘To have,’’ ‘‘to hold,’’ and ‘‘to accumulate’’ are cherished concepts. Now, however, the speed of technological innovation and the dizzying pace of economic activity often make the notion of ownership problematic. In a world of customized production, continuous innovation and upgrades, and ever narrowing product life cycles, everything becomes almost immediately outdated. To have, to hold, and to accumulate in an economy in which change itself is the only constant makes less and less sense. (Rifkin, 2000, p. 6)

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As ownership is losing importance in contemporary economies, the exchange of property between sellers and buyers, the most important feature of the modern market system, seems to be giving way to short-term access between servers and clients operating in network relationships. Markets remain but play an increasingly diminished role in internationally oriented societies. Instead, global economies are governed by a whole new set of business assumptions that are very different from those used to manage a market era. In the new world, markets give way to networks, sellers and buyers are replaced by suppliers and users. Ownership is becoming old-fashioned as economic success is increasingly determined by access to resources. For that reason, too, the strategy of the management of the Waikato-Tainui settlement to aim at an expansion of the tribal estate might be outdated by late-capitalist developments, also because this chapter has shown that ownership of land does not automatically entail socioeconomic developments or improvements. Additional policy strategies are required to obtain the socioeconomic outcomes that people desire from their engagements with capitalism (see also Macintyre & Bainton, 2013). Furthermore, it is important to note that in New Zealand access to tribal resources is not equally divided among stakeholders or beneficiaries as some have better access than others. Indeed, there are winners and losers in the Age of Access. The analysis of the implementation of the settlement of the Waikato-Tainui people demonstrates that the tribal aristocracy has won, whereas the majority of beneficiaries are not equally sharing in the (re)distribution of the revenues of tribal resources and other compensation funds. Indeed, the settlement process seems to be turning tribal hierarchies into class distinctions.

NOTE 1. The Kauhanganui was named after the ‘‘Great Council’’ set up by King Taawhiao in 1894 to govern the entire North Island (Williams, 1969, pp. 44–47).

REFERENCES Ballara, A. (1998). Iwi: The dynamics of Maaori tribal organization from c.1769 to c.1945. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Belgrave, M., Kawharu, M., & Williams, D. (Eds.). (2005). Waitangi revisited: Perspectives on the treaty of Waitangi. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Callister, P. (2006). Ethnic measurement as a policy making tool. In E. Rata & R. Openshaw (Eds.), Public policy and ethnicity: The politics of ethnic boundary making (pp. 142–155). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Chapple, S. (2000). Maori socio-economic disparity. Political Science, 52(2), 101–115. Cheater, A., & Hopa, N. (1997). Representing identity. In A. James, J. Hockey, & A. Dawson (Eds.), After writing culture: Epistemology and praxis in contemporary anthropology (pp. 208–223). London: Routledge. Ferguson, J. (2011, July). Give a man a fish: The new politics of distribution in Southern Africa (and beyond). Keynote speech for the IUAES/AAS/ASAANZ conference about ‘Knowledge and value in a globalizing world’ in Perth, Australia. Ferguson, J. (2012). The social life of ‘cash payment’: Money, markets, and the mutualities of poverty. In E. Fischer & P. Benson (Eds.), Markets and moralities. Sante Fe: School of Advances Research Press. Gill, D., Pride, S., Gilbert, H., & Norman, R. (2010). The future state. Wellington: University of Victoria. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Henare, M., Puckey, A., & Nicholson, A. (2011). He ara hou: The pathway forward: Getting it right for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Maori and Pasifika children. Auckland: University of Auckland. Kelly, G., Kelly, D., & Gamble, A. (Eds.). (1997). Stakeholder capitalism. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan & St. Martin. Kukutai, T. (2004). The problem of defining an ethnic group for public policy: Who is Maori and why does it matter? Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 23, 86–108. Lashley, M. E. (2000). Implementing treaty settlements via indigenous institutions: Social justice and detribalization in New Zealand. The Contemporary Pacific, 12(1), 1–55. Law Commission, New Zealand. (2006). Waka Umunga: A proposed law for Maori governance entities. Wellington: New Zealand Law Commission. Masters, C. (2011). What’s eating Tainui? New Zealand Herald, October 8. McHugh, P. (1989). Constitutional theory and Maori claims. In I. H. Kawharu (Ed.), Waitangi: Maori and Pakeha perspectives of the treaty of Waitangi (pp. 25–63). Auckland: Oxford University Press. New Zealand Herald. (2000). Maori queen rescues Sir Robert. August 14. Orange, C. (1987). The treaty of Waitang. Wellington: Allen & Unwin. Poata-Smith, E. T. A. (1996). He pokeke uenuku i tu ai: The evolution of contemporary Maori protest. In P. Spoonley, D. Pearson & C. Macpherson (Eds.), Nga patai: Racism and ethnic relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand (pp. 97–116). Palmerson North: Dunmore. Poata-Smith, E. T. A. (2004). Ka tika a muri, ka tika a mua? Maori protest politics and the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process. In P. Spoonley, C. Macpherson & D. Pearson (Eds.), Tangata, tangata: The changing ethnic contours of New Zealand (pp. 59–88). Southbank: Thomson & Dunmore. Rata, E. (2011a). Encircling the commons: Neotribal capitalism in New Zealand since 2000. Anthropological Theory, 11(3), 327–353. Rata, E. (2011b). Discursive strategies of the Maori tribal elite. Critique of Anthropology, 31(4), 359–380. Rifkin, J. (2000). The age of access: How the shift from ownership to access is transforming modern life. London: Penguin.

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Sharp, A. (2004). The trajectory of the Waitangi Tribunal. In J. Hayward & N. R. Wheen (Eds.), The Waitangi Tribunal: Te Roopu Whakama i te Tiriti o Waitangi (pp. 195–206). Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. Sorrenson, M. P. K. (1989). Towards a radical reinterpretation of New Zealand history: The role of the Waitangi Tribunal. In I. D. Kawharu (Ed.), Waitangi: Maori and Pakeha perspectives of the treaty of Waitangi (pp. 158–178). Auckland: Oxford University Press. Tahana, Y. (2010). Tainui leader fuming over double-dip insinuation. New Zealand Herald, March 19. TGH (Tainui Group Holdings). (2011). Annual report 2011. Retrieved from http:// www.tgh.co.nz/ van Meijl, T. (1993). The Maori king movement: Unity and diversity in past and present. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 149(4), 673–689. van Meijl, T. (1999). Settling Maori land claims: Legal and economic implications of political and ideological contests. In T. van Meijl & F. von Benda-Beckmann (Eds.), Property rights and economic development: Land and natural resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania (pp. 259–291). London: Kegan Paul. van Meijl, T. (2003). Conflicts of redistribution in contemporary Maori society: Leadership and the Tainui settlement. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 112(3), 260–279. van Meijl, T. (2006). Who owns the fisheries? Changing views of property and its redistribution in post-colonial Maori society. In F. von Benda-Beckmann, K. von Benda-Beckmann & M. G. Wiber (Eds.), Changing properties of property (pp. 170–193). New York, NY: Berghahn. van Meijl, T. (2012). Changing property regimes in Maori society: A critical assessment of the settlement process in New Zealand. In T. van Meijl & M. Goldsmith (Eds.). The Journal of the Polynesian Society (pp. 181–208), 121(2). Special issue on ‘Colonial grievances, justice and reconciliation’. Waikato Times. (2000). Court rejects Tainui sacking. August 16. Williams, J. A. (1969). Politics of the New Zealand Maori: Protest and cooperation, 1891–1909. London: Oxford University Press.

COMMODITIES AND GIFTS IN NEW ZEALAND AND HAWAIIAN FISHERIES Fiona McCormack ABSTRACT Purpose – The chapter compares gift and market exchange in Hawaiian and New Zealand fisheries. Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork and literature pertaining to fisheries in both New Zealand and Hawaii. Findings – The privatization of fishing rights in New Zealand, in conjunction with a social policy directed toward Maori addressing colonial dispossession, has resulted in the dominance of market exchange, the creation of a purified version of indigenous gift exchange, and the attempted elimination of any hybrid activities. This has not been a positive outcome for the majority of coastal Maori. Fisheries development in Hawai’i has taken a different path. The flexibility that inheres in Hawaiian fisheries enables ongoing participation in both gift and cash economies. Originality/value – Over the last few decades western economies have witnessed a rapid extension of market approaches to many commonly Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 53–81 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033005

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owned environmental goods, a movement which has been entrenched as global policy orthodoxy. The social consequences of this development have been under researched. This chapter challenges the neoliberal model of using market mechanisms and property rights as ‘‘the way to do’’ natural resource management. Keywords: Fisheries; exchange; gift; Maori; Hawaiian; neoliberalism

INTRODUCTION In this chapter I trace the recent evolution of commercial fisheries in New Zealand as a lens through which to investigate the particular types of engagement with capitalism this has engendered in Maori fisheries. I compare this with fisheries development in Hawai’i where a very different type of engagement has emerged. Maori fisheries have been subject to three kinds of neoliberal policy reforms over the last few decades: first, the institution of private property rights in fisheries; second, an audit culture of strong monitoring and control; and third, the introduction of social policy regarding settling colonial dispossession. Furthermore, this combination of policies has been based on an ill-formed vision of what Maori fishing activities should be, reifying a dualism of ideal types of economic activity as being either commercial (commodity) or ‘‘customary’’ (gift). In practice, economic activities are not so purely either one or the other and forcing this duality through regulations has had negative social consequences for many Maori, particularly coastal Maori fishers. I argue that neoliberalism works not just to blur market and gift economies, and individual and communal property relations but also to rigidify their opposition on its own terms and thereby make their coexistence impossible. In Hawai’i, by contrast, there has been little neoliberal reform of fisheries and as a result Hawaiians are freer to pursue fishing in ways that suit their efforts to sustain their cultural and economic lives. The chapter is divided into four parts. In the first section I outline the development of Maori fisheries in the context of the restructuring of the fisheries sector in New Zealand as part of a package of broader neoliberal political, economic, and social reforms. I then describe two types of economic practices (categorized as commercial or customary) that have been enabled by this particular reparation process. In the third section I compare

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this with fisheries development in Hawai’i, a similarly post-colonial settler state yet one in which there has been no formal indigenous reparation of fisheries and a much more limited adoption of neoliberal principles of fisheries management. In the fourth section I discuss anthropological theory of exchange as way of explicating the potential opportunities and constraints that inhere in these two different versions of capitalism.

THE REPARATION OF MAORI FISHERIES One of the striking features of the Indigenous reparation process in New Zealand is that although New Zealand in the last few decades has implemented some of the most progressive, sustained, and successful policies for rendering reparative justice found anywhere in the developed world, this has had little effect on the comparative rate of Maori poverty (see van Meijl, 2013). A closer look at the settlement of Maori claims to Fisheries provides a plausible reason for this paradox. It is necessary to situate these claims within the context of the restructuring of New Zealand’s commercial fisheries, the implementation of a quota management system (QMS) in 1986, and the broader political and economic climate. It will be argued here that although local and diverse systems of ownership and exchange undoubtedly exist it is important to remember that they do so in the shadow of the constraints and also opportunities inherent in exogenously conceived dominant structures and institutions (legal systems, markets, property tenure regimes, political systems, etc.). The principle of using market mechanisms and property rights in natural resource management emerged out of resource economics. In fisheries this model arose as an alternative to biologically based, centralized forms of management in which tools such as net and gear restrictions, closed seasons, and fishing licenses are used. New Zealand, Iceland, and Australia were the first countries to take up the new economics-influenced model, and New Zealand in particular is renowned as the site in which the most comprehensive version of the system was adopted. The neoliberal model of using market mechanisms and property rights as ‘‘the way to do’’ natural resource management has since been entrenched as global policy orthodoxy in ‘‘The Future We Want’’ report with the notion of the Green Economy (this arose out of the UN Rio+20 summit in June 2012, see Barclay & Kinch, 2013).1 The financialization of environmental management reflects a new understanding of sustainability; the term is increasingly associated with

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formerly perceived extractive industries (fisheries, forestry, agriculture, pulp and paper production, biotechnology, and energy) now recreated as ‘‘bioeconomic’’ enterprises whose growth is synonymous with a burgeoning bioeconomy. Social distributional concerns and intergenerational envisaging have largely been obscured. Brockington and Duffy (2010) trace how a ‘‘conservationist mode of production’’ is emerging alongside a systemic revisioning of environmental sustainability as a new frontier for capital expansion and revenue growth, and the envisioning of markets as the channel through which environmental damage can be best mediated, mitigated, and governed. Quota, in this synopsis, signifies the creation of what Sullivan calls ‘‘increasingly derived tradable products through the addition of layers of abstraction to commoditized signifiers of nature, health and degradation’’ (2011, p. 9). This process is augmented by the construction of tradable equivalence between once nonexchangeable entities (such as fishing rights and the knowledge and local ‘‘ownership’’ previously tied up in such rights) and distant localities. Trade within this framework encourages and even demands the creation of socially abstracted leasing arrangements. New Zealand’s QMS was implemented ostensibly for sustainable management purposes, but perhaps more accurately to increase the profitability of what was considered a hyper regulated, overly capitalized, somewhat chaotic, and under developed market, particularly in terms of its export potential.2 This reform effectively created a new property right, an individual transferable quota (ITQ). ITQs bear all the characteristics and core ideology of the neoclassical private property model, and indeed the governing legislation equates these new virtual property rights with registerable interests in ‘‘real property,’’ provisions for which were simply lifted from the New Zealand Land Transfers Act 1952 (Boast, 1999). The holding of ITQs gives to individuals, or increasingly corporations, the right to harvest fish from a given stock and the ability to trade fishing rights in a ‘‘free market’’ system.3 ITQs are freely transferable, divisible, and give to the owner a long-term interest in resource management (in contrast to the supposed over exploitation inherent in common property resources, promulgated by Hardin [1968]). Ownership is presumed to flow to those who value the property most highly. Three main roles are available to quota system participants: as a quota owner who fishes their own quota; as a quota owner who leases out the property right for others to fish, and as a fisher who leases quota from a quota owner.4 These roles can be combined in various configurations (e.g., a fisher who owns some quota but who also leases some quota; as a quota owner who leases some quota and who fishes

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some quota and so on). Nonquota owning fishers must therefore purchase quota in order to fish and fish must, in all cases, be sold by a licensed fish receiver (LFR).5 In most cases LFRs are also quota owners and processors who contract fishers to fish on their behalf. The implementation of the quota system provoked an era of struggle for those whose rights had been abrogated, predominantly Maori. The QMS system obliged the new owners of that quota allocated in the initial round to sustain the economic viability of the new property. Thus a threshold, based on full-time fishing activity and capital investment was stipulated, a threshold which substantially excluded Maori fishers, particularly those in Northland (Fairgray, 1985, 1986) for whom fishing had been part of a mixed economy and a means of fulfilling subsistence, ceremonial, and cash needs.6 Subsequent Maori protests against the legislation and challenges based on rights flowing from the Treaty of Waitangi7 led to an interim agreement embodied in the Maori Fisheries Act 1989 and later a full and final settlement which is laid out in the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act 1992 (popularly known as the Sealords Deal). Fundamental to the negotiations was the space opened by the creation of new property forms (ITQs) which in the final instance were used to resolve Maori indigenous claims to their fisheries. The settlement did two main things: it provided ‘‘capital’’ in the form of cash, quota, and shares to enable Maori participation in the ‘‘business of fishing’’ and it created a legislative space for the development of Customary Fisheries Regulations, a process which partnered Crown and Maori groups in a long and drawn out series of negotiations. As well as the institutionalization of private property rights in resources, neoliberalism in resource management includes a type of re-regulation as opposed to a ‘‘rolling back of the state.’’ The enforcement of an audit culture of strong monitoring and control is apparent in New Zealand fisheries. In New Zealand the state’s role in fisheries has increasingly shifted from traditional enforcement practices to that of monitoring quota/product flows (Nielander & Sullivan, 2000). The Ministry of Fisheries has recruited a new category of enforcement officers, drawn from the Police and Customs services, whose work is primarily land-based and is geared ultimately toward the surveillance, detection, and investigation of quota-fraud, ‘‘poaching,’’ and ‘‘black-market’’ activities (selling fish without having the necessary quota to fish commercially, and receiving fish without an LFR license), in effect, protecting the income streams of private investors. The Seafood Industry Council (SeaFIC), a company established in 1997 to work on behalf of ‘‘commercial interests,’’ that is quota holders, echoes the

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broader ethos of resource economics whereby management is devolved away from central government toward those market participants who hold property rights. The company, whose shares are owned by Commercial Stakeholder Organizations, is responsible for monitoring and compliance costs, shaping policy and regulatory frameworks through advocacy and research. A third strand of neoliberalism is apparent in the close correlation between neoliberal governance in New Zealand and social liberal identity politics. Edwards and Moore (2009) point to the simultaneous implementation in New Zealand in the mid-1980s of a socially liberal ideology with a radical agenda of neoliberal economic reform. The former includes the acknowledgment in 1985 of Maori land grievances, a recognition which was made effective by the extension of the Waitangi Tribunal’s8 terms of reference back to colonization in 1840. Thus, Maori claims to fisheries both arose and were resolved within a particular ideological, social, and economic framework, and the consequences of this reparation must also be understood within this paradigm. Arguably the most consequential aspect of the settlement process in terms of local engagements with capitalism was the institutionalization of a rigid separation of commercial and ‘‘customary’’ fishing practices, a division which I suggest led to a reification of market and gift exchange in the Maori economy as separate and incompatible.

EXCHANGE IN MAORI FISHERIES Market Exchange Maori participate in commercial fisheries in five main ways: (1) as owners of fishing companies; (2) as recipients of quota dividends; (3) as holders and leasers of quota; (4) as individual fishers; and (5) as fish process workers. These areas correspond, albeit loosely, to different levels of Maori social organization. On the most general level, the commercial settlement has led to a significant Maori presence in the New Zealand Fishing industry. In 2009 the New Zealand total estimated commercial fish resource value was 4 billion dollars. Commercial fishing is New Zealand’s fifth largest export earner, about 90% of fish by value are exported and since 2000 the yearly export earnings have been on average 1.3 billion NZ dollars. Maori control up to 37% of domestic fishing quota (New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, 2009).

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Of the five largest seafood companies in New Zealand three are Maori owned.9 The largest of those, Aotearoa Fisheries Limited (AFL), was created in 1989 as part of an interim settlement to Maori fisheries claims. Its role as the commercial arm of the newly established Maori Fisheries Commission was a means by which the political aspect of the settlement (the contentious issue as to how quota was to be divided among Iwi10) was separated from commercial goals. The 1989 Act initially awarded 10% of existing quota to AFL, the percentage of which increased after the 1992 settlement, and from the beginning AFL established a policy of leasing out quota and using the accrued profits to purchase more quota and fishing companies. AFL and the Maori Fisheries Commission (now termed Te Ohu Kaimona) were recreated in the 2004 Maori Fisheries Act – a pan-Iwi agreement that took twelve years of negotiations, including High Court cases, centering on the most equitable means of distributing fisheries settlement assets (capital, quota, and shares in Sealords Fishing Company11). While Te Ohu Kaimoana acts as a governance body for Maori ‘‘interests’’ in marine environments AFL remains a commercial enterprise, owned by Te Ohu Kaimoana, whose primary aim is to maximize the value of Maori fisheries assets for the benefit of its Iwi shareholders. AFL has acquired five companies whose interests include fishing, processing, and marketing, and aquaculture and it is the Maori shareholder in Sealords. In 2008 AFL had a net profit of $19 million and in 2009, as legislated by the 2004 Act, it began paying an annual dividend (40% of net profits) to qualifying Iwi. AFL outlines its objectives as follows ‘‘Our vision is to be the key investment vehicle of choice for Iwi in the fishing industry, to maximize the value of Maori fisheries assets and to ensure that we are a strong seafood business delivering growth in shareholder wealth’’ (Aotearoa Fisheries Limited, n.d.). Investment here translates as quota, currently 14 Iwi lease ACE to AFL under long-term leasing arrangements, and other Iwi do so on a year-by-year basis. The 2004 legislation established a method through which the quota secured in the 1989 and 1992 settlements was allocated to Maori and in the next few years quota was divided among 57 Iwi organizations.12 In order to qualify Iwi organizations must set up a Mandated Iwi Organization and one or more asset-holding companies (as outlined in the 2004 legislation), the combination of which results in a corporatized charitable trust fund complex. Hence to access quota assets, rather than as prior to the 2004 Act to receive dividends from fisheries investments, Iwi management must now restructure along mandated corporatized lines. These new bodies can sell,13 lease, or fish quota to generate tribal wealth which then must be channeled

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into charitable works for the benefit of the Iwi, collectively perceived, irrespective of whether or not members are living in their tribal territories. Such community development initiatives work primarily at the hapu level and include grants for Marae (meeting house complex) (e.g., to cover electricity bills and structural maintenance), sporting and educational sponsorships (most often tertiary), grants to support community festivals and to promote cultural activities such as museum exhibits. Following the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, there were donations to the south island Iwi organization, Ngai Tahu Charitable Trust Fund, to support earthquake relief efforts. Such initiatives exemplify the third strand of neoliberalism present in Maori fisheries and although they can have a socially cohesive effect, they have done little to alleviate the incidence of Maori poverty (see van Meijl, 2013). The institutionalization of property rights in fisheries initiated the emergence of a new form of commodity trading. The tradability of the property right is a defining feature of Maori settlement quota and this type of participation in financial markets occurs at a corporatized Iwi level. A large proportion of Maori quota is leased to foreign charger vessels employing foreign workers. There are a number of interconnected reasons why Iwi are likely to lease ACE to foreign charter vessels. First, given the regulatory requirement that the sale of Iwi settlement quota be supported by 75% of adult Iwi members, leasing rather than selling may be the least contestable option. Second, while some Maori settlement quota is owned as part of a more diversified set of asset holdings (e.g., that owned by Ngai Tahu and Tanui as a result of comprehensive Treaty of Waitangi settlements) for many Iwi fishing quota is their only significant asset, and thus reducing risks and reaping the highest profit from the least amount of capital input may appear to be the only rational economic choice. Third many Iwi groups do not have the technology, the capital (boats and equipment), or the knowledge to harvest deep sea fish. Fourth, the tonnage of quota held for a particular species is often too small to sustain a local fishing venture, hence quota is leased to companies who then consolidate quota. Fifth, Iwi-owned quota packages contain a disproportionate amount of high volume species on the lower end of the commercially valuable spectrum; thus, in order to be economically viable it is necessary to harvest by the least expensive means possible and finally, the use of foreign charter vessels may be invisible as quota management arrangements go through a maze of brokers – quota is channeled (or solicited) through quota traders who then lease to either Foreign Charter Vessels or New Zealand vessels. This ‘‘quota maze’’ is part of an international commodity chain: foreign

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charter vessels typically process fish at sea, pass it on to a New Zealand LFR, which exports it for secondary processing to China, Thailand, or Vietnam, before the fish is marketed internationally by lead-buying firms (Stringer, Simmons, & Rees, 2011). Most of New Zealand’s largest seafood processing companies now process fish in China (Stringer et al., 2011). Recently, a number of interrelated controversies have surfaced in the commercial fisheries sector concerning the leasing of quota to foreign charter vessels,14 the exploitative employment conditions of foreign deck hands on these vessels, and the processing of this ‘‘sustainable New Zealand fish’’ in foreign ports. Quota is leased to foreign charter vessels by New Zealand fisheries companies (including Maori-owned companies) although the majority of quota is leased by the Iwi quota holders. The sinking of a Korean ship and the death of six Indonesian workers in August 2010 initiated both a moral outrage and a ministerial inquiry that has particularly focused on Maori involvement – Ngati Porou Seafoods leased the quota to the ill-fated ship. There are about 2,500 foreign fishers working on 26 boats that harvest fish outside New Zealand’s 12 mile limit, and they are mostly from Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, Korea, Kiribati, and Eastern European countries. A law change in 1996 required that foreign fishers receive a work permit and be paid according to New Zealand minimum wage laws for 42 hours of work a week, but these stipulations are easily circumvented. Boat owners, for instance, deduct pay for food, accommodation, medical services, and transportation; crew members work on average 84 hours per week (Department of Labour in Talley’s Group Limited 15b, 2011); the actual payment made to the crew is calculated at the pay rate negotiated in the host country (even though the crewing cost is calculated by an agent in accordance with New Zealand employment law); crew typically are paid between US $350 and US $850 per month15 and working and living conditions are most often substandard, resulting in the desertion of approximately 32 foreign workers per year (Talley’s Group limited 15b, 2011). A report by the University of Auckland’s Business school highlights the extreme conditions under which such fishers work; ‘‘serious physical, mental, sexual and contract abuse is commonplace with many crew aboard FCVs forced to work in substandard and often inhumane conditions’’ (Stringer, Simmons, Coulston, & Whittaker, 2012, p. 14). The leasing of Maori settlement quota and the institutionalization of transferability can be understood within the context of the financialization of environmental management (discussed above). Trade within this framework supports socially abstracted leasing arrangements. My argument here is slightly at odds with the work of Rata (2000) who attests to the pivotal

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role of a Maori elite in the creation of a corporatized tribal capitalism, and more recent work by De Alessi on the fisheries settlement. De Alessi (2012) links the asset maximization strategy of AFL to key Maori players within the fisheries settlement, their subsequent positioning within the Maori Fisheries Commission and Sealords company, and a program of aggressive expansion which subsumed other more distributional forms of tribal capitalism to its own accumulative goals. Although, De Alessi refers to the constraining bent of capitalist oriented Iwi structures, such that Maori ‘‘articulation’’ with capitalist modes of production results in a transformation of Maori identity (2012, p. 391), too little emphasis is paid to the political economy of neoliberalism, and by extension the QMS regime, in funneling economic activities toward a particular type of capitalist engagement. The virtual characteristic of the new property regime is apparent in the actual production of fish. Very few Iwi actually fish their quota and there is a glaring absence of Maori fishers in the industry. This is a great irony given the relatively large amount of Maori ‘‘business interest’’ in the industry and the disproportionate level of Maori unemployment.16 Commercial fishing for most Maori, at least at the hapu level, is largely synonymous with receiving annual marae dividends from quota investments. For many Maori fishers, whose expertise is generationally validated and whose identification with a particular seascape is ancestral, this exclusion causes a profound social suffering that cannot be underestimated (see McCormack, 2011). This exclusion is likely to intensify as quota transference, production, and postproduction patterns shift toward offshore outsourcing and a globalized fisheries value chain. Further, the current introduction of a tradable carbon emission scheme (the Emissions Trading Scheme), mooted as a solution to climate change that works to internalize ‘‘externalities,’’ is likely to disproportionally negatively affect Maori employment in fish processing (Karamea Insley & Mead, 2007).17

Gift Exchange Private property is typically associated with market exchange and is placed in opposition to common property, which is associated with gift exchange. Yet, there is no necessary relationship between individual ownership and commodity exchange and collective or communal ownership and gift exchange. Rather, the private property market exchange complex, envisaged as antithetical to common property and gift exchange, is a product of recent

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history. The institutionalization of private property rights to defend ‘‘the market economy’’ is critiqued by Servet who argues that it is a politically conservative justification ‘‘for inherited inequalities in fortune that ignores destruction of the environment and of established ways of life’’ (2009, p. 80). Busse points out the corollaries of this justification: customary land tenure is presumed to be exclusively communal; the significance of emotional attachments to land for individual and group identity are discounted and; ‘‘the neoliberal position ignores the way in which systems of customary land ownership are themselves a product of the expansion of capitalism and state structures, the very institutions with which they are contrasted’’ (2012, p. 5). In the New Zealand reparation process Maori ‘‘customary’’ fisheries were recreated in opposition to the commodification and privatization of commercial fisheries. Customary fishing, as defined in the regulations, is restricted to production for ceremonial occasions, specifically hui (meetings) and tangi (funerals). Three main conditions structure customary fishing under the Fisheries (Kaimoana Customary Fishing) Regulations 1998. First, Maori must establish a pseudo common property structure.18 Second, fish can only be exchanged in a system of ‘‘pure gifting.’’ Third management tools are directed toward conservational (as opposed to livelihood) ends. Exchanges are governed by a legislative misappropriation of the Maori concept of koha (gifting), in which the absence of a return is the most prominent feature. This idealization of Maori gifting as nonreciprocal is at odds with traditional understandings and practices, and arguably exemplifies how ill-informed imaginaries of Maori culture form the basis of the regulations. Customary food gathering is interpreted by the legislation as ‘‘y the taking of fish, aquatic life or seaweed or managing of fisheries resource, for a purpose authorized by Tangata Kaitiaki/Tiaki, including koha, to the extent that such purpose is consistent with Tikanga Maori and is neither commercial in any way nor for pecuniary gain or trade.’’ In my fieldwork (2000–2003) with a Northern Maori group, the Confederation of Tribes, this reductive interpretation of koha was challenged by fishers who continually tested the boundaries between ‘‘commercial’’ and ‘‘noncommercial’’ exchange. For instance, fish was sold as ‘‘koha priced fish’’ from a stall at a marae (meeting house complex) fund-raiser and was exchanged for oranges, kumara (sweet potatoes), and sometimes cash. Subsequent prosecution at a series of court cases ruled that such exchanges constituted ‘‘pecuniary gain or trade,’’ that barter and the recuperation of fishing costs were included in this definition, and that therefore any form of reciprocation was disallowed under Customary Regulations. The ‘‘illegal’’ sale of fish

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continues in New Zealand and if caught such ‘‘poachers’’ and the individuals who buy from them face severe consequences (fines up to $250,000 and forfeiture of property, including vessels, vehicles, and equipment). There are undoubtedly instances where such ‘‘black marketing’’ is decidedly opportunistic and when it can have a negative impact on fish stocks, yet its persistence can also be perceived as a livelihood struggle, or an ongoing resistance to the rigid recategorization of a resource into commercial or customary spheres, and private or common relations of ownership. Fisheries Development in Hawai’i In comparing Maori and Hawaiian fisheries two major differences are immediately apparent.19 First, in Hawai’i there has been no comprehensive indigenous reparation process associated with fisheries. Although indigenous claims and various compensatory actions have long existed in respect to lands, there is no equivalent to the systematization of indigenous claims generated by the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal process in New Zealand. Second, there has been no privatization of fishing rights, rather since Hawai’i was annexed in 1898 (see Kaiser & Roumasset, 2004) policy decisions have created an open access regime out of what was in effect a commonly managed resource. Although a QMS (termed catch shares) has been mooted for the Hawai’i-based long-line fishery this has not been implemented to date. The introduction of catch shares in the United States has been extensively debated and scientists, policy makers, academics, and fisheries managers have on the whole adopted a cautious approach, for instance, a moratorium was instated from 1996 to 2004 which restricted the implementation of the program, and to date a minimal 15 fisheries are managed under this regime (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, n.d.). Neoliberal fisheries management has not been widely implemented in the United States in general. Fisheries legislation in Hawai’i is based on a limited entry program for the long-line commercial fishery and otherwise regulations, which stipulate, for instance, gear, net and species size. These regulations are part of a preneoliberal conventional fisheries management toolkit that has been replaced in New Zealand. The absence of a comprehensive tradable quota regime in Hawai’i fisheries is likely due to a number of factors including: (1) the reluctance of States in the United States to employ tradable quotas as a fisheries management tool; (2) the perceived economic importance of the fisheries resource compared to New Zealand, particularly the perception in Hawai’i that commercial fishing does not make a substantial contribution to export-oriented economic

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growth20; (3) the absence of a large commercial fleet exerting pressure to privatize; (4) resistance exerted by the regional fisheries management council, local fishers, and the State of Hawai’i; (5) the ongoing recognition by both the academic and the policy making communities of the importance of smallscale fishing in fulfilling local market, subsistence, reciprocal, and cash needs (Glazier, 2007; Hospital, Bruce, & Pan, 2011; Pooley, 1993); and (6) the uneven development of neoliberalism on a global scale. In Hawai’i fishers are categorized as either commercial or recreational, with sports fishing, a popular tourist attraction, being a subcategory of recreational fishing. Recreational fishing does not require a permit though fishers are subject to various regulations, which are variably interpreted (or ignored), governing catch size and gear restrictions. In order to sell fish Hawai’i residents must purchase a $50 commercial license (though in practice this is often overlooked) and submit monthly reports to the Department of Aquatic Resources (DAR) detailing the catch for that month and the type of bait used. Fishers sell directly through a multitude of venues including whole fish purchasers, fish buyers/brokers, local fish shops, supermarkets, restaurants, car boots, stalls at the side of the road, and through established social networks. A defining feature of small-scale fishing in Hawai’i is that it defies codification. The categories of commercial and recreational are considered arbitrary and the decision to sell on the market, gift, or consume at the household level is often made only after fish have been caught (Aloua, 2011; Hospital et al., 2011). Bigger pelagic fish are often sold to restaurants or whole fish purchasers, whereas reef-caught fish are often consumed at the household level, and/or gifted. Yet the opposite is also the case. Glazier observes that fishing is a ‘‘circular and opportunistic arrangement in which natural resources are components of systems of reciprocity or are sold to support subsequent harvest and consumption of resources’’ (2007, p. 109). At the policy level there is a growing recognition of the importance of fish in community exchange networks. The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council21 has commissioned research on the link between ‘‘customary exchange’’ and cultural continuity and highlights the significance of this ‘‘generalized reciprocityyto people’s healthysense of sharing and common identity’’ (Severance, 2010, p. 1). Severance also points out that commercial fishers share a significant portion of their catch (2010). The fluidity between gifting and market exchange may be associated with the open access status of Hawaiian waters (subject to state legislation up to 3 nm) and an absence of institutionalized private and common property rights in marine resources.

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The ethnographic existence of a continuum between these modes of exchange, however, is questioned by Palsson who argues that, ‘‘In all societies, there exist cultural rules as to what can be bought and sold and under what conditions; some things, items, or services are singular or unexchangeable, while others are easily saleable – ‘perfect’ commodities being those which are exchangeable with everything else’’ (1998, p. 277). Similarly, Linnekin’s (1985) ethnography of the community of Keanae on the island of Maui suggests that these rules can be translated into physical space. She describes a Hawaiian community bounded in opposition to a larger plural society (‘‘inside’’ versus ‘‘outside’’), and whereas a gift economy and kinship are the major structuring forces inside, the world of money dominates the outside. Based on my own research on the Big Island of Hawai’i, I suggest that although there are limits to the exchange continuum, predominantly in terms of a discourse in which a moral evaluation is used to demarcate gifts and commodities, this opposition is hard to maintain and the presence or absence of money cannot be used as delineator (although it is possible that a distinction between ‘‘moral’’ and ‘‘market realms’’ was more pronounced at the time of Linnekin’s research). Fish also represent an interesting case of a product of labor which are potentially both commodity and gift, as noted above, fishers can opportunistically sell fish through more impersonal channels of commercial exchange. Further, it is locally recognized that the sale of fish by small-scale fishers is a current economic necessity (both to cover costs and for purposes of livelihood), and indeed ‘‘right,’’ though selling fish is largely not viewed as engaging in ‘‘commercial’’ activity; fishers who occasionally sell fish and otherwise gift fish typically do not consider themselves to be commercial fishers. The decision to sell or gift fish in coastal communities on the Big Island (Hawai’i) is not simply objectified in terms of inside–outside distinctions; it is dependent on a multitude of factors. Gifting is more common when the partner to the exchange is from an ‘‘old family’’ and/or is already involved in a reciprocal relationship with the donor; to older community members or those perceived of as ‘‘in need’’; or when fish, on request, has been produced for a lu¯’au (Hawaiian party/feast). Selling is more likely when a reciprocal relationship has broken down, to newcomers, to those who are more socially distant (such as work colleagues) or when fishers or their family are in need of extra cash. The latter type of sale is often termed a ‘‘fund-raiser’’ and these are instigated, for example, to raise money for a Community Association or school, to provide extra cash for a trip overseas, to offset Christmas expenses or to send a child to another island for a sport

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tournament or educational program. Small-scale fishers who regularly sell a proportion of their catch may create more formal processes – for instance establishing a spot for weekend vending at the side of the road or selling door to door through a network of contacts (including businesses and homes). The Universality of Exchange My underlying argument is that the privatization of fishing rights in New Zealand has resulted in the dominance of a particular mode of market exchange, alongside the creation of a purified version of indigenous gift exchange, and the attempted suppression of all other types of exchange. Importantly, this dualism was created through political and economic processes and, as such, was not inevitable as is evidenced by fisheries development in Hawai’i. In what follows I engage with anthropological discussions concerning exchange and question the utility of dualistic models as, arguably, they obscure and in some cases deny the entanglement of gift and market economies and they have manifest weaknesses as a way of modeling the economy, writ large. Drawing on the work of Mauss and Polyani, Hart (2008) argues that all forms of exchange (and I would suggest ways of owning) are simultaneously present, it is a matter of articulation. In this view there is no absolute ethnographic or historical distinction between gifts and commodities, exploitation and reciprocity and, I would add, private and common property. For Mauss this plurality of economic forms is an expression of the human propensity for merging both self-reliance and social connectedness in a multitude of complex social relationships (in Hart, 2008). However, at any particular time and place economic diversity may be colored by the existence of a dominant organizational form (for instance capitalism or communism). For Mauss, the attempt to create a society structured around an idealization of the archaic gift as ultimately altruistic is as ill-advised as its antithesis; the attempt in modern capitalism to create a free market for private contracts. Hart’s (2007, 2008, 2009) extensive research into the life and work of Mauss draws attention to this pervasive, though not necessarily always coherent, economic critique: Mauss advocated the universal foundations of human exchange; argued that capitalism worked to obscure other types of exchange, and that to reveal alternatives was both a political and an intellectual task that in the end would make a new ethical direction plausible in economic and legal life. This thesis calls into question the existence of separate realms in our subjectivities and in our theoretical models. Importantly, it also questions the creation of such a dualism through

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political and economic processes. I will address these three separations in the following subsections.

Dualisms in Our Subjectivities Hart points out that ‘‘Much of modern ideology emphasizes how problematic it is to be both self-interested and mutual. Yet the two sides are often inseparable in practice and some societies, by encouraging private and public interests to coincide, have managed to integrate them more effectively than ours’’ (2008, p. 2). This integration, the convergence of selfreliance and collectivity, is apparent in the ‘‘traditional’’ Maori economy as described by Raymond Firth in his monograph, Economics of the New Zealand Maori (1959 [1929]).22 Firth illustrates the complex coexistence of individual and communal property rights, that individual rights, in the final instance, were subjected to a degree of social control and that this was, in essence, a recognition of the rights of other community members to utilize individually owned things for their own purposes, if the need arose. Thus, personal ownership was qualified or accompanied by the overarching need of the community (1959, p. 356). Different types of ownership rights existed at different levels of social organization (individual, whanau (extended family), hapu and iwi) and yet these were mutually compatible. For instance commonly owned items also embraced a dense mesh of individual rights, privileges and obligations. Firth’s thesis also points to the simultaneous existence of individual and group exchanges and self-interest and mutuality. He gives accounts of extra-community exchanges, an example of what Mauss theorizes as money exchanges, thus, what is also implied is the coexistence of gift and more impersonal market exchanges. While the relationship between individual and communal is more clearly stipulated in Firth’s analyses of property, the same mechanisms operate in Maori exchange. Firth identified the underlying mechanism of all Maori exchange as the ‘‘principle of utu or compensation’’ (1959, p. 413); the understanding that for ‘‘every gift another of at least equal value should be returned’’ (1959, pp. 412–413). Firth argues that utu permeates a much wider range of social contexts than economics and is in fact ‘‘one of the fundamental drives to action’’ (1959, p. 413). He distinguishes exchanges which were primarily economic in motive, the objective being to acquire something of practical utility from another, from those which were ceremonial and served a wider social purpose than simply the acquisition of goods. However, he recognized

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that this categorization while conceptually convenient did not reflect the interconnectedness on the ground ‘‘for every affair of the first type involves elements that are not purely economic, while the ceremonial exchange of gifts has at times a distinctly economic tinge’’ (1959, p. 402). The trajectory of the Maori institutions of property rights and exchange are inseparable from the group’s experience of colonial capitalism. Firth’s conceptualization of this transition has been much critiqued for its overtly functionalist approach (see van Meijl, 1995; Webster, 1998). For the purposes of my argument, however, most problematic is the introduction of a dualistic account of economic behavior and the implied evolutionary superiority of individualistic exchange and private forms of ownership. For instance, in his penultimate chapter ‘‘The Economic Aspect of Culture Change’’ Firth’s analysis of four transitional stages is predicated on the inevitability of assimilation to capitalism glossed in his text as European civilization, and the use of a binary model of primitive and civilized. Webster (1998) points out that it is the insistence on conceptualizing societies as functional wholes that leads to the dichotomization between traditionalism and capitalism, and given the explicit assimilationist ideologies of the time, the forecasting of the demise of traditional Maori economic systems, and more broadly, their way of life. In Firth’s account this transition is relatively smooth, despite the hiccup of war and a subsequent natavistic revival, and this progression is idealistically accounted for by the seeds of individualism, hypothesized as a nascent capitalist spirit, already existing in the native psyche. Hence, colonization merely provided the stimulus for the full expression of this spirit of capitalism. Yet, this is at variance with at least three critical, though under theorized, insights embedded in Firth’s ethnographic material: first private property does not necessarily correspond neatly with market exchange (aka neoclassical economic theories); second, commonly owned property is not situated antithetically in a context of pure gift giving and third, Maori exchange, which neither contained a semblance of barter nor mechanisms ensuring equivalence in value, cannot easily be conceived of as a precursor to capitalist exchange (see Sharp, 2013; Mosko, 2013, who critique the supposed tradition to modernity/capitalism model as empirically inaccurate and Yang (2013), who points out that it is also a chauvinist discourse). Arguably, ‘‘traditional’’ Maori society enabled the co-existence of public and private interests and diverse forms of exchange and ownership. To suggest that the more individualistic end of the economic spectrum (private ownership/individual exchange) is a precursor to modern forms of Maori market behavior (for instance quota trading) is reductive and denies

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the historical engagement with colonial capitalism (see Webster, 1998) and more recent neoliberal politics. Conversely, to suggest that the communal end of the spectrum (common ownership, altruistic gift exchange) somehow corresponds to the structure of today’s repatriated resource rights (as in customary fisheries) is equally flawed.

Dualism in Theoretical Models The ubiquity of both communal and individualistic types of exchange can be explained by way of different value realms, as for instance Palsson’s cultural rules, designating things as either unexchangeable or perfect commodities and Linnekin’s inside/gift exchange vs. outside/monetary exchange opposition, suggest. Gudeman (2009, p. 18) argues that all economies, which are simultaneously embedded and disembedded, contain two realms, mutuality and market23 (or community and impersonal trade) and that the two realms are dialectically connected. Thus, in every ethnographic and historical situation individuals live on the trade of goods and services that are ‘‘alienated’’ from enduring social relationships and at the same time this is variously balanced with individuals living on goods and services that mediate and reaffirm social relations (see Mosko, 2013). The allocation of goods through ties of mutuality is guided by locally established customs and social values based on, for instance, age, gender, merit, or need and these are essentially contested, negotiated, individually interpreted, and changed (Gudeman, 2009, p. 18). It is out of this mutual domain, which itself contains impersonal exchange that the conditions for trade emerge. In this sense, market economies are always embedded in social relations. For Gudeman, the dialectic between the mutual and the market realm, although it differs in time and space, is moving in a certain direction; competitive trade reverberates in markets, expands into new spaces creating new competitive areas, and stimulates changes in calculative reason, in practices and in discourse; thus, ‘‘As the market realm expands it colonizes and debases the mutual one on which it relies’’ (2009, p. 19). Gudeman emphasizes that this transformation, which mystifies and veils the mutuality on which market expansion is built, occurs not just in political and economic spheres but also in everyday behavior, ethnographic contexts, and cognition. I concur with Gudeman’s critique of standard economic models and their inability to understand let alone contest wealth disparities between and within economies and environmental devastation and escalating and unsustainable consumption patterns. I am not, however, convinced that a

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model of society rooted in a dialectical, yet nevertheless dual value realm is the best tool for understanding the social consequences of capitalism at this juncture. Further, although dualistic models are important as a heuristic device they have a tendency to dichotomize and essentialize market and nonmarket behavior and in this sense miss the more progressive contribution of Mauss’s social theory. In the case of Maori fisheries, dualistic imaginaries which have been implemented as policies have had damaging social consequences. Yet, getting rid of dualistic models may also be problematic. Keane disputes the existence of distinct value realms and argues that such domains are always vulnerable to slippage and retrospective recategorization. For Keane this is a consequence of both the semiotic ambiguity internal to material objects and the temporality of any type of exchange that extends beyond barter for immediate use (2008, p. 33); a loan from a relative or a close friend that remains unpaid translates into a gift or a theft; a gift that was given in a spirit of brotherhood that goes unreciprocated may lead to implicit or explicit account taking. Transactions are thus events in which the control over future definitions and outcomes is at stake, and in which inheres a particular hegemonic metalanguage of action. Appadurai (1986) also emphasizes the permeability of value realms, and shows how objects pass between different spheres and cultures in a pattern controlled by social knowledge and ideas of good taste. Models of value that stress ‘‘slippage’’ between supposedly distinct realms and exchange as process are important for understanding subjective experiences of economic transactions; however, they tend to overemphasize individual preference or agency and do not pay sufficient attention to material constraints. Importantly, what is missing in much of the work that discounts dualistic models is an analysis of the effects of the organization of economic systems on society. The same can be said of the recent use of the concept of embeddedness in the social sciences which suggests that it is a constitutive element in all societies. This focus on the structural similarities of both nonmarket and market economies breaks down the duality and essentialization which is problematic in dualistic models. For instance, Foster’s research into commodity networks, consumer agency, and branding uses the concept of embeddedness to analyze ideas about person–product relationships current in business circles in America. For Foster economic action is always embedded in shifting networks or assemblages of peoples and things (2007, p. 709). Barber, in a review of the ‘‘career’’ of the concept argues that all types of economies are embedded in complex larger social systems (1995, p. 408). Embeddedness, thus, cannot be used to distinguish between

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capitalist and noncapitalist economies. Drawing on Polanyi’s double movement, social change may be seen to occur by way of oscillations between embedding, disembedding, and reembedding. However, a theory of embeddeness that emphasizes continuity ethnographically and historically runs the risk of being unable to address the specific structural changes taking place with the development of modern capitalism, and the effect of these changes on social groups. For instance, the social consequences for Maori of privatizing fishing rights, and the subsequent very different types of embeddedness embodied in commercial and ‘‘customary’’ fishing regulations. Beckert (2009) points out that this broader social reformist interest is paramount in Polanyi’s Great transformation, but is often overlooked in much recent work.

Dualism and the Political Economy Neoliberalism, as a contemporary variant of capitalism, differentially affects society in new ways. Narotzky’s (2008) critique of contemporary capitalism and dualistic explanatory models acknowledges Marx and Polanyi’s methodological insights into the ambiguity of social processes. Rather than distinct value realms she proposes an ambivalent value realm that is itself constructed from the ambiguity of simultaneously experiencing domains of social interaction (nonmarket and market relations) that people previously saw as differentiated (2008, p. 14). What is distinctive about neoliberalism is that, on the one hand, it opens spaces for once marginalized social relations, ‘‘allowing agents a greater degree of flexibility and opportunism, and a wider scope for reconfiguring relations according to tactical needs, a value realm highly arbitrary and morally shifting and contradictory’’ (2008, pp. 14–15), while on the other hand, it is characterized by the invasion of audit cultures into almost all aspects of life. Narotzky sees this apparent paradox as central to the ‘‘fuzziness’’ resulting from neoliberal penetration so that ‘‘social and subjective suffering takes place at the point of ambiguity where value gets extracted and governance acts through the blurring of incommensurable moral domains’’ (2008, p. 15). However, although I agree with Narotzky’s assessment (and those of many other commentators including, Brown, 2003; Larner, 2000; Shore, 2008; Speed & Sierra, 2005) about the insidiousness of neoliberal governance and its cooption of the mutual realm, which Merlan astutely describes as a ‘‘relation of schismatic complimentarity, a working against and within’’ (2009, p. 320), this is not the full picture. In my analysis of Maori fisheries (above) I have shown that

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neoliberalism works not just to blur market and gift economies, individual and communal property relations, and mutual and market realms, but also to rigidify their opposition on its own terms and thereby make their coexistence impossible; neoliberalism, thus, creates on one hand a fuzziness, and on the other, a clear duality. To argue against a dualistic heuristic model of the economy is not to collapse the distinctiveness of gift and commodity exchanges, nor common and private property rights, rather it is to acknowledge their complementarity in human practice. This then raises the question of when and how the market, society, nature, and property came to be seen as oppositional in any particular context. The reasons are multiple and complex although they are undoubtedly intertwined with the processes of capitalist accumulation. At the level of governance the prevailing political economy of neoliberalism in New Zealand creates a fuzziness in which the market and the mutual become entangled in new ways. This fuzziness is apparent in the creation of a corporatized Iwi. An Iwi body structured on corporate lines is a prerequisite for receiving quota, yet, irrespective of the virtual characteristic of the regime, commercial fishing does provide revenue which can then be used to finance intra-tribal social programs. More markedly, however, the particular type of capitalist engagement this enables creates a dualism which is expressed in new modes of exploitation, tribal class divisions (see Rata, 2011), and dispossessions which are often overlooked. Customary Fishing regulations can be seen as an effort to balance these excesses and an attempt to create a ‘‘pure’’ indigenous space. Li points out that endeavors to manage dispossession (whether these arise internally from indigenous peoples or externally from outside experts and authorities) are rooted in an account of cultural difference, vulnerability, and that the group to be protected has a unique and intrinsic attachment to place (2010). Further, ‘‘these attempts work by imagining collective landholding to be the natural state that protection serves merely to consolidate or perhaps to restore’’ (2010, p. 386). That indigenous peoples are assumed to be the perfect candidates for this type of protection, which I would argue embraces not simply communal ownership but also communistic exchange, suggests it is a continuation of paternalistic colonial policies on the one hand, though this category now also includes experts and authorities who decide which groups are suitable for engaging in the risks and opportunities afforded by capitalism, and on the other, an attempt by indigenous groups to carve out alternative spaces. The restructuring of commercial and customary fisheries in New Zealand is rooted in a model of humanity in which people (though also selected groups) are required to operate in divorced realities – either possessively

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individualistic or excessively communal. The flexibility with regard to the exchange of fish in Hawai’i stands in sharp contrast to the rigidity that characterizes these transactions in New Zealand fisheries.

CONCLUSION One of the latent dangers of dualist models is that one of the two models being compared is often assumed to be superior, more advanced, more rational, etc., than the other. In the case of proponents of capitalism, and its newer variant, neoliberalism, the model may be identified with the logic of history or seen as the culmination of human progress. Thus, there is an assumption about the inevitability and even desirability of the transition to the newly dominant model. It follows that an evolutionary hypothesis is imported into the analysis together with claims about the hegemonic status of the new order. Many present-day academics, not all of whom by any means favor the development of neoliberalism, attest to its inevitability. This position, however, has been powerfully critiqued by a growing number of scholars (see Kingfisher & Maskovsky, 2008; Morgan & Gonzales, 2008; St Martin, 2008; Williams & Round, 2010). For instance, Williams and Round mount a withering attack against the narrative of impending capitalist hegemony in both Eastern and Central Europe (2010). Their research in post-Soviet Moscow highlights the persistence of multiple economic practices and the shallow and uneven permeation of a wholly monetized economy. The penetration of the formal market economy varies spatially. Those living in more affluent districts more commonly use the formal market economy than those in the deprived districts, who are more reliant on community exchanges between close social relations. Both deprived and affluent populations, however, use other economic practices and different combinations of economic practices to secure a livelihood. Yet, and this is an important distinction, affluent populations engage in a wider variety of economic practices, tending toward those that are market oriented and wholly monetized in particular, and they do so out of choice, whereas deprived populations engage in a narrower range of practices and tend to do so out of necessity (2010, p. 67). To close off these alternatives and/or penetrate them with a neoliberal logic, as has been attempted in the case of New Zealand fisheries, while it can never be wholly successful, will penalize most heavily those who are already disenfranchised. New Zealand Maori are increasingly prevented from fishing themselves, with economic as well as social consequences. The flexibility that inheres in Hawaiian fisheries

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enables ongoing participation in both gift and cash economies, alternates which are important in terms of current livelihood struggles. It has been argued in this chapter that different forms of economic exchange are ubiquitous in human society and that an attempt to create an artificial dualistic system ignores how economic life is organized in everyday experience. Two things may be deduced: first, the economy is not an autonomous sphere of activity but requires articulation with the social, cultural, and political domains and second, the neoliberal approach to natural resource management, now entrenched as global policy orthodoxy, must be questioned. The need to theorize new directions in economic development is not simply an intellectual challenge but a social necessity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks is due to the ‘‘Engaging with Capitalism’’ panel participants at the 2011 and 2012 Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania conferences, and in particular to Kate Barclay. Thanks also goes to Joe McCormack, Kale Langlas, and Craig Severance.

NOTES 1. UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, 2012. Realizing the Future We Want for All: Report to the Secretary-General, http:// www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Post_2015_UNTTreport.pdf 2. Roughly 90% of all New Zealand seafood by value is now exported, predominantly to Australia, Hong Kong, China, the United States, and Japan (Seafood Industry Council, http://www.seafoodindustry.co.nz/factfile). Seafood is the fifth-largest export product. The high price of seafood in New Zealand’s domestic market means that it is increasingly becoming a luxury food item. The price of fish increased by 18.6% in the four years up to 2010 and in the five-year period from 2005 to 2010 consumption dropped from 34, 337 tonnes to 28, 539 tonnes. 3. ITQs were created as a perpetual right to a part of the fish harvest for a particular species or species group, to be taken annually from a specified quota management area. They allocate to an individual operator or a company an exclusive share of the total allowable catch (a catch limit set for a particular fishery on a yearly basis) (Dewees, 2008, p. 36) which since 1990 has been calculated as a percentage of the total allowable catch (TAC) rather than as a specific tonnage. 4. Quota holders may sell quota as they wish and there is no limit on the number of times that quota can be sold (Lock & Leslie, 2007). Quota is also divisible, so individuals can trade part of their quota or sell it as a package. In addition, quota owners can sell their current harvesting entitlement (Annual Catch Entitlement, ACE) while

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retaining their long-term ownership in the fishery. Annual Catch Entitlements (ACE) are assigned to quota holders based on the share of total quota they hold and the total allowable commercial catch (TACC). Once the TACC for a given year has been decided, the kilogram equivalent of each quota share is calculated. This is transferred at the beginning of the fishing year as ACE to the quota owner and determines the tonnage of fish that the owner is able to catch (or alternatively sell or hold) within the fishing year. 5. The establishment of Licensed Fish Receivers and the prohibition against commercial fishers selling fish to unlicensed people is an essential component of the QMS. Although there is no limit to the number of LFRs issued, statutory and regulatory requirements effectively play a prohibitive role. There are approximately 220 LFRs in New Zealand. 6. See McCormack (2010) for a fuller description of Maori fisheries before the introduction of the quota management system. Also, Firth (1959) gives an account of traditional Maori fisheries in his book Economics of the New Zealand Maori. 7. The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, consists of three articles and records an agreement between Maori and the British Crown. It provides the Crown with rights to govern and to continue settling the country with British immigrants. The Crown guaranteed Maori full protection of, and tribal authority over their lands, fisheries, forests, villages, culture, and treasures, and extends to Maori the full status and rights of British citizenship. 8. The Tribunal, established in 1975, is a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Maori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown that breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. 9. Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd. (AFL) is the largest Maori owned and second largest New Zealand fishing company. AFL holds a 50% interest in Sealord Ltd. (the third largest fishing company in New Zealand), the other half is owned by the Japanese company Nissui. Ngai Tahu Fisheries Settlement Ltd. is 100% Maori owned, a subsidiary company of Ngai Tahu Holding, and the fifth largest fishing company in New Zealand. 10. Joan Metge points out that Iwi and hapu are commonly translated as tribe and subtribe; however, anthropologists (Sissons, 1991; Webster, 1998) and historians (Ballara, 1998) note that this translation is a misrepresentation as ‘‘iwi and hapu were and are descendant based political groups and that in the late 18th and early 19th centuries hapu were largely self-governing and independent under their chiefs, not sub-divisions of a larger entity. Iwi were typically alliances of hapu held together by common interests and strong leadership but liable to break up and reform’’ (Metge, 2002, footnote 6). Iwi have more recently acquired an elevated status largely as a consequence of colonialization, and as a pre-requirement for entering into negotiations with the Crown regarding indigenous repatriations. 11. The settlement in 1992, known as the Sealord deal, granted Maori a 50% share in Sealord Products, New Zealand’s largest fishing company. 12. Inshore quota was allocated to Iwi based on a coastline formula. Deep water quota was allocated to Iwi using a 75% Iwi population: 25% Iwi coastline formula. A number of Iwi are awaiting receipt of this quota, to date. 13. The decision to sell must be agreed to by 75% of tribal adult members. 14. There is a current New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries inquiry into foreign charter vessels. The objectives of the inquiry are: (1) to protect New Zealand’s

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international reputation and trade access; (2)to maximize the economic return to New Zealand from our fisheries resources; and (3) to ensure acceptable and equitable New Zealand labor standards (including safe working environments) on all fishing vessels operating in New Zealand’s fisheries waters within the Exclusive Economic Zone. http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Consultations/Ministerial+Inquiry+into+ Foreign+Charter+Vessels/default.htm, January 24, 2012. 15. The annual income for a New Zealand A Grade sailor is NZ$82, 315, for a B Grade Sailor it is NZ$66, 595. 16. Maori have the highest unemployment rate of all ethnic groups in New Zealand, a higher proportion of Maori are on low incomes, they have a lower net worth than Pakeha, a higher incidence of household overcrowding, and a lower lifeexpectancy (http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate/maori-impacts-analysisconclusions-jan08/html/page5.html). 17. Maori have disproportionately higher interests in the fishing sector than nonMaori. The authors surmise that as fish processing is unlikely to qualify for free New Zealand Units (introduced by the government to mitigate the impacts of higher electricity costs on processing competitiveness) Maori workers within this industry will be negatively impacted. 18. The establishment of a rohe moana requires acquiesce from all interested groups (other Iwi, the local community, commercial fishers, etc.) and ultimately, the Ministry of Fisheries. The overriding right to regulate in a particular rohe moana sits with the Ministry of Fisheries while Maori have a much reduced advisory role. 19. This discussion is based on research in three fishing communities on the Big Island (Hawai’i) from 2010 to 2012. 20. Based on average annual consumption from 2000 to 2009 it is estimated that residents in Hawaii consume 1.8 times more seafood than is consumed in the entire U.S. (Geslani, Loke, Takenaka, & Leung, 2012). Approximately 51% of the seafood eaten in Hawaii is produced in Hawaii and of this non-commercial catch contributes approximately 39% (Geslani et al, 2012). 21. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional fishery management councils established by the U.S. government under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (1976, amended 1996). Its purpose is to develop management policies for fishery resources governed by the United States in the Western Pacific, which includes American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Hawai’i. 22. Firth draws heavily on the ethnographic research of Elsden Best. 23. Gudeman makes a distinction between the ‘‘market realm’’ which is universal and can perhaps best be described as ‘‘economically motivated exchange,’’ and the ‘‘market economy’’ which emerges in particular contexts when certain conditions are present.

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TIVAIVAI AND THE MANAGING OF ‘‘COMMUNITY’’ FUNDING IN AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Jane Horan ABSTRACT Purpose – The chapter looks at the way a group of Cook Islands women in South Auckland used neoliberal-inspired community funding to fulfil the criteria of the funders as well as their own noncapitalist aims. Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork and literature pertaining to the production and use of tivaivai in South Auckland and neoliberal policy in New Zealand. Findings – The chapter analyzes the cultural context of value creation that the production and use of tivaivai constitutes for Cook Islanders in South Auckland. The production of tivaivai as a ‘‘commercial’’ derivative of these elite social textiles saw the group of Cook Islands women operating in a ‘‘human economy’’ (Graeber, 2012), despite the neoliberal agenda of the funding. Originality/value – As a group, Cook Islanders are marginalized in New Zealand, but the outcome of this funding in the details of how the women recipients managed the use of the money, and how and what they produced, tells a different story about how Cook Islanders engage with Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 83–105 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033006

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capitalism via the ‘‘human economy.’’ Such an analysis adds considerable complexity to the understandings of the way women make and use tivaivai in New Zealand, as well as the ways Cook Islanders do economics in an expanded notion of economy. This sheds light on the subaltern strategies that Cook Islanders create in response to the opportunities and hegemonic forces that exist in the global capitalist economy, and the way they engage with capitalism in the context of the New Zealand political economy. Keywords: Tivaivai; Cook Islanders; community funding; neoliberalism; New Zealand

In Auckland in the early 2000s, the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini (Cook Islands textile-making group) sought and secured funding from the New Zealand Department of Labor via an organization called the Community Employment Group, to ostensibly commercially develop their production of tivaivai (textiles). They did so in a way that maintained their integrity as Cook Islands women and their kinship gifting obligations in what amounts to the Cook Islands ceremonial economy. That their project was considered a success to the extent that they literally became ‘‘poster Ma¯ma¯s’’ for the community funding that was born explicitly of neoliberal-inspired policy and capitalist notions of development, was due to their adroit management of the opportunities presented by the funding, and their pursuit of their own agendas via their ability to manage the constraints and hegemonic realities of the capitalist political economy in which Cook Islanders live in New Zealand. Pacific peoples in New Zealand, and Cook Islanders in particular, feature too prominently in the worst statistics to do with a range of indicators from levels of education, involvement in business and unemployment rates, to health (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). In such statistics, Cook Islanders in New Zealand consistently fare worse than averages designated for the total Pacific population in New Zealand, which tend in turn to lag behind statistics for the total New Zealand population across many indicators. As a group, Cook Islanders are marginalized in New Zealand, but the outcome of this funding as well as the details of how the women recipients managed the use of the money, and how and what they produced, tells a different story about how Cook Islanders engage with capitalism via the ‘‘human economy’’ (GibsonGraham, 2008; Graeber, 2012, p. 412; Gudeman, 2008, 2009; Guyer, 2004; Hart, 2008; Hart & Hann, 2009; cf. Narotzky, 2008). I argue that such an analysis adds considerable complexity to the understandings of the way women make and use tivaivai in New Zealand, as well as the ways Cook

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Islanders do economics in an expanded notion of economy. This sheds light on the subaltern strategies that Cook Islanders create in response to the opportunities and hegemonic forces that exist in the global capitalist economy, and the way they engage with capitalism in the context of the New Zealand political economy (cf. Larner & Craig, 2002). In this chapter I look at how tivaivai textiles function as the paramount form of valuable in Cook Islands ritual processes in the contemporary environment and how these textiles dignify the gifting of money in that public ritual realm. I detail how the grants were used to subsidise the production of a ‘‘modernized’’ form of the most elite tivaivai that was both prestigious for the women makers in Cook Islands terms and cast them as contemporary innovators responding to the realities of the New Zealand environment from the funders’ perspectives. In the reporting of the funding, much was made of the development, production, and marketing of a set of framed tivaivai pieces as a commercial product to be sold to a Cook Islands as well as a papa‘a¯ (white New Zealander) market. But that these took a fraction of the time and money to produce compared to full tivaivai textiles which were, for the most part, not made by the women to be sold, was part of the ‘‘glossing’’ that ensued in the women’s ongoing negotiations and communications with the funders. No impropriety was involved but rather a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of how to operate in the Cook Islands version of the human economy and the wider New Zealand policy environment (Larner & Craig, 2002, 2005). Graeber (2012, p. 412) contends that ‘‘[w]hat distinguishes human economies is merely that they recognise that the chief business of any social system – or indeed any system of production and distribution of material goods – is the creation and mutual fashioning of human beings.’’ The role that tivaivai plays in this process from a Cook Islands point of view is very specific, and how this was done via the engagement with capitalism whilst producing tivaivai for ceremonial use via the funding, delineates an aspect of the contemporary Cook Islands version of the human economy.

TIVAVIAI AS THE PARAMOUNT FORM OF VALUABLE Tivaivai are beautiful cloth applique´d or patchwork ‘‘unquilted quilts’’1 made by women (and some men) who are of Cook Islands descent who live in the Cook Islands2 or in the various migrant communities around the

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Pacific basin. This includes Auckland, New Zealand which is the largest Cook Islands city in the world.3 Tivaivai are a legacy of sorts of the colonization of the Cook Islands which began in 1821 with the arrival of the missionaries. By the 1890s, these cloth fabric textiles were beginning to replace indigenous plant fiber textiles in the wake of missionary conversion. Tivaivai and matching pillowcases were initially made as decoration for the bed which was the main piece of furniture in the home, but they have come to be the paramount form of wealth in the Cook Islands ceremonial economy at events in the islands and amongst the diasporic communities around the Pacific basin. Here, they are gifted publically (for the most part) to close kin, and used to wrap and adorn the individuals going through rites of passage events such as weddings, funerals, haircuttings (male rite of passage ceremony), and key birthdays and anniversaries. They are also gifted to dignitaries at public ceremonies, or to church ministers, generally at the conclusion of their tenure at a church, and they are also used as decoration at ceremonial venues during all these events. Such events comprise the Cook Islands ceremonial economy. Kinship relationships and extended kin networks are central to Cook Islanders’ lives, so tivaivai are given to maintain, underline, or create the most important relationships in a woman’s life. I argue that core values for Cook Islanders are orientated to varying degrees by two multifaceted concepts: kinship and aro‘a (‘‘love’’). Both concepts effectively name the core values for Cook Islanders, and contained in the very definitions of these concepts are the means and methods for how people as Cook Islanders are connected to one another, as well as how to actually act appropriately, and exist in the world. These concepts also define what is considered right generally, and more specifically, how Cook Islanders honor one another publically, as well as the way individuals access and negotiate prestige as in mana,4 and ultimately power. In other words, these concepts have cosmological foundations, define and create the structural parameters of value, and orientate behavior accordingly, including, I argue, particular modes of engagements with capitalism as demonstrated by the Enuamanu women and their use of the funding they received. Aro‘a is a complex word. The word is glossed as love, but linguistically, the notion of loving and showing love is contiguous with gifting as well as modes of decorum. According to Buse and Taringa (1995, p. 76), the word aro‘a means: (1) Greet, welcome, salute, offer good wishes to (especially to guests on arrival or departure); (2) To welcome with a gift, to present somebody with something (including publicly); (3) To forgive, have pity on;

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and (4) Kindness, sympathy, sorrow, love as in divine love or loving kindness. Expressing aro‘a is about actions rather than just words so aro‘a prescribes a way of acting toward kin and people in general. To gift tivaivai is to show the highest form of aro‘a, generally reserved for a woman’s children, husband, close relative, or in a more expanded notion of kinship, as in the gifting of tivaivai to a pastor as the earthly representative of God, or to a dignitary to signal island/national affiliations. So if aro‘a and kinship constitute core values for Cook Islanders to varying degrees, tivaivai are the materialization (literally and figuritvely) of those values in the form of valuables. To gift tivaivai then – in a public ritual event especially – signals a very specific, very weighted message. But as such a materialization of core values, I argue that the production and/or use of the textiles is also the access to and axis of prestige as mana for those women who choose to ‘‘demonstrate’’ their womanliness and Cook Islandness via the wielding of such paramount valuables. Women routinely say, ‘‘you are not a woman without tivaivai’’ meaning that to make and/or gift tivaivai marks a woman as an appropriate mother/grandmother/aunty as well as Cook Islands woman, even as to receive a tivaivai (either publically or not), is to mark a child as cherished, a husband as loved, a daughter at her wedding as all that a daughter should be, and a boy at his haircutting as part of a lineage and now a ‘‘man’’ with obligations (Horan, 2012). Such gifting is to do with how to be a Cook Islander, but also prestige as mana, which is configured by the relationship among values, valuables, and the structural parameters of value (Turner, 2008). As the paramount form of valuable and the materialization of value and valuables, tivaivai also effectively dignifies the gifting of lesser valuables through the course of the events that take place at ceremonial events. Such valuables include other lesser textiles, food, and other forms of gifts, but also money which is generally given wrapped in an envelope with the name of the giver emblazoned on the front. Tivaivai then fronts a ritual complex that operates at ceremonial events to transition individuals through major life junctures, and this process necessarily involves the inclusion of money as a gift of aro‘a to kin in the performance of kin obligations The various ways the ritual complex plays out in the range of ceremonial events in the Cook Islands ceremonial economy, including the way money is ritualized as the gift is beyond the scope of this chapter (see Horan, 2011, 2012 for more details). What is important for this chapter is the Enuamanu women’s pursuit, receipt, and use of the funding to simultaneously fulfil the criteria of the funders, create public ritual arena where their tivaivai production was displayed in a way that demonstrated their stellar tivaivai

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production prowess to their own community and the wider Cook Islands community in New Zealand, whilst being lauded by a range of elite government and Pacific (especially non-Cook Islands) officials who attended the tivaivai shows the women staged, including the incumbent Prime Minister at the time, The Hon. Helen Clark. The Ma¯ma¯s were held up as exemplars of successful ‘‘community development,’’ a term that really amounted to a euphemism for the advancement of neoliberal concepts where the economic and the social were linked anew (Larner & Craig, 2002, p. 11). But the women themselves did community development in their own terms because they were trafficking in values and valuables within the structural parameters of how value operates for contemporary Cook Islanders.

THE FUNDING The Enuamanu Va‘ine tini was one of two tivaivai making groups I joined and spent a considerable amount of time with during the almost three years of intensive fieldwork that I did for my doctoral research. I joined the group just months after it was formed and, for the most part, the group was comprised of 14 women who would regularly come to a sewing meeting. Others were considered members of the group but did not regularly attend.   All these women were Atiuan or were married to Atiuan men. The Va‘ine  tini was connected to the New Zealand-based Atiuan community in  Auckland, the Enuamanu Atiu Nui Maruarua Society Incorporated (Karora, Seve-Williams, Mokoroa-Karora, & Kaiaruna, 2007). This organization owns and administers the large Enuamanu Hall in Mangere  which is the geographical focus for the Atiuan community in Auckland.  Most Atiuans live in Auckland, only a small percentage still reside on the   Southern group island. The hall is an Atiuan piece of Auckland, an Atiuan  enclave, and is rented out for Atiuan and other Cook Islands groups’ ceremonial events. It is also where the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini hold their weekly meetings, which involve women gathering together to sew tivaivai,  eat together, talk Atiuan, communally look after the children the many grandmothers in the group have charge of, as well as have a good laugh together. The Enuamanu Va‘ine tini was initially set up via the first of the grants from The Community Employment Group (CEG).The women subsequently received two additional grants from this funding body. As per their first MiniGrant application to the CEG, the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini sought and

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were awarded the series of grants ‘‘to explore the possibility of Tivaevae and other craft becoming an enterprise and making money for ourselves and our community’’ (William, 1999, p. 1). The first grant was for $NZ2000 which the group received in August 1999, and helped with the purchase of an industrial sewing machine, hall hire, catering, fabric, and other workshop resources. The second was for $NZ1200 which was a contribution toward the cost of incorporating the Va‘ine tini into a legal trust and was received in May 2001. The third piece of funding was for around $NZ10,000 and was received in September 2001. This money subsidized the production of machine-made tivaivai taorei, a tivaivai show to display the new tivaivai in Auckland, and the development of a new product which was launched at the tivaivai show. This new product was a set of framed pieces of tivaivai taorei and embroidered ta¯taura, which were made to be sold to other Pacific Islanders as well as papa‘a¯ to make a profit. The funding covered the cost of the material and the framing of the six tivaivai pieces. The funding also covered the cost of a tere (travel) party for the Ma¯ma¯s and the Enuamanu music and dance troupes to travel to Wellington to ‘‘market’’ (Eva William, personal communication) the new frames via the staging of a second tivaivai show for the Porirua Cook Islands community featuring the machine-made tivaivai taorei and the framed pieces. At the time, the CEG had some 70 case workers, many of whom were Pacific peoples from the range of Pacific nationalites resident in New Zealand. The job of these case workers was to identify groups for funding and actively work with the funded groups in the community to maximize results. One of these case workers, Ma¯ma¯ Eva William, was a New Zealand born Mangaian, who was married to an Atiuan. Ma¯ma¯ Eva, her husband and their children as well as her mother-in-law, have been (and still are) very  active in the Atiuan community in New Zealand. In her capacity as a case worker for CEG, Ma¯ma¯ Eva saw an opportunity for the Ma¯ma¯s of the  Atiuan community to set up a Va‘ine tini with the availability of the funding, so she helped the Ma¯ma¯s apply for the funding and became their case worker. Most Va‘ine tini, including the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini, have set programs of craft production that each women member is required to get through in a six-month period, after which the Va‘ine tini have a show to display the work of the women. The program is set by the group’s ta‘unga, an expert in tivaivai, who generally cuts tivaivai for other women. The ta‘unga for the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini was Ma¯ma¯ Tapu Porio, and she was called a ‘‘head tutor’’ in the funding documents. In 2000, she set a program for the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini that focused on making various tivaivai ta¯taura, and .

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there were shows in April and October that year to showcase the women’s production. In 2001, her program for the first part of the year was focused on the production of blowsheets5 also showcased in a show. In the second part of the year, when the largest part of funding was made available, Ma¯ma¯ Porio decided to get the women to make machine-made tivaivai taorei. Most of the women had never made these before, and although some had made taorei by hand in the islands, few were bothering to make them in New Zealand because they are so much work. Depending on who I talked to, the use of a sewing machine to do the sewing was either a great innovation or a travesty; such was the controversy around using a machine for the production of these most elite textiles. Some nine women ended up making machine-made taorei, and the textiles produced were large and spectacular, and the context of their very public display was innovative, confronting, and as it turned out, a sophisticated and contemporary performance (Goffman, 1959) of being Cook Islanders in New Zealand.

The Tivaivai Shows Tivaivai shows are about the women producers of the textiles and their demonstration of their ability to be appropriate Cook Islands women as much as they are about displaying the industry of a group of women. In New Zealand, such shows entail halls like the Enuamanu Hall being hung with scores of tivaivai. These shows tend to be thinly veiled status arena, they are public, and large crowds comprized of the wider community attend. At such events I regularly watched other women go up to an individual’s tivaivai, gaze at it, and then flick a corner over to assess the quality of the sewing – the better the sewing, the neater the reverse side. I watched women doggedly guard patterns, and heard whispers of chagrin, even bitter jealousy, as well as admiration at other women’s work. How and what women sewed was assessed by others, and what was being quantified, what was being materialized, was a woman’s muliebrity and by extension when the tivaivai was eventually used ritually, her quality and essence as an appropriate Cook Islands woman and mother/aunty. Such tivaivai group displays are about prestige as mana, and a New Zealand-based female expression of this trope: mana for individual women, and mana for the group. As I walked into the Enuamanu Hall that early Saturday afternoon in late October 2001 to be a part of the machine-made tivaivai taorei show, I was not prepared for the sheer impact of the display of the new tivaivai altogether. Under Ma¯ma¯ Porio’s instruction, the group had been making the

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machine-made tivaivai taorei for the previous few months. I had seen all the new tivaivai taorei countless times at various stages of production, some I had even helped assemble the squares of fabric for, and watched as women laboriously sewed and sewed as they slowly put their tivaivai together. I had also been at the hall the night before until midnight helping with the finishing off of the last tivaivai, the hanging of the tivaivai, the food preparation, and the general organization of the hall. But the finished display was a sight to see. Standing in the large cavernous space that is the Enuamanu Hall, I was surrounded by the prodigious tivaivai and fabric labors of the women of the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini. The expansive bank of color and pattern that the machine-made tivaivai taorei created when hung en masse was breath taking. Tivaivai lined the walls of the entire hall, most of the tivaivai were ones made by the women previously, but the nine new machine-made tivaivai taorei hung around the south end in all their technicolor glory, along with two new handmade taorei made by two of the other Ma¯ma¯s. The effect literally wrapped the assembling crowd of Ma¯ma¯s, their families, and invited guests who were beginning to arrive. On a dais in front of the machine-made taorei were the set of six framed pieces of taorei and ta¯taura that were the heralded new product; they were propped upright on trestle tables that had been draped in tivaivai. Ma¯ma¯ Parua Tavioni’s tivaivai was one of the first new tivaivai taorei that I saw as I walked into the main entrance of the hall. When she was instructing the men hanging her tivaivai the night before, she had covered it with a sheet so it could not be seen until the moment of the show. Now here it was in all its splendour. As I looked at it I realized that I had never really registered the pattern of this tivaivai or any of the others during their making because they had seemed perennially in pieces. But here hung Ma¯ma¯ Parua’s finished article, a beautiful yellow rose tivaivai taorei with an orange background. Up close, tiny pieces of cotton still adhered to the myriad of small seams attesting to its newness. Ma¯ma¯ Parua’s tivaivai was just beautiful. Like all the new tivaivai taorei, it was very large, at least twice her height and the same width. The very weight of the combined fabric seemed to strain the hanging mechanism because of the sheer bulk of material used in its construction, and the confounding volume of sewing (albeit by machine) made it so worked upon, so created, so labored over by Ma¯ma¯ Parua. When I first meet Ma¯ma¯ Parua at the Va‘ine tini at the beginning of the year before, she had told me that she had never made tivaivai, let alone a tivaivai taorei, until she joined the group. A caterer by trade, she was also the secretary of the Va‘ine tini and the Enuamanu organization, and helped run the hall.

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Later in the afternoon, when I photographed Ma¯ma¯ Parua’s beside her tivaivai, she fussed over her finished work. I watched her almost caressing it as she picked still more pieces of cotton from its surface in preparation for the photograph. She touched and smoothed the near thousands of small squares of the tivaivai taorei, as if remembering each piece of sewing that she did to put it together: each concentrated precise application of the machine needle she had to do to maintain the evenness of the two and a half centimeter square pieces of fabric, and each conscious use of a specific square of colored fabric to maintain the accuracy of the pattern. Along with all the sewing, I had seen her in previous months frustratingly unpick portions of it with repressed fury and teary eyes because the seam allowance was not consistent enough, making the pieces sit unevenly in one part. In another section, she had made an error in the pattern, in both contexts, the piece had to be redone completely because unlike hand stitching, unpicking machine sewing damaged the small squares of fabric too much and made them unusable. But she had arduously, resolutely persevered. It was a difficult process doing taorei by hand, and while faster, it was no easier by machine. So to finish a taorei was a triumph for any woman. For Ma¯ma¯ Parua it was a significant achievement but also a hallmark of exalted Cook Islands womanliness. As Ma¯ma¯ Parua stood beside her now finished tivaivai taorei to be photographed, resplendent in her purple tie-dye mu‘umu‘u (Island-style dress) and bedecked with ‘ei katu (head wreath) and looking every bit the spectacular Cook Islands woman, her tivaivai appeared contiguous with her. It seemed to literally materialise, manifest, and express her essential muliebrity and capacity to be a Cook Islander, and it occurred to me that this was exactly the effect she wanted to create. It struck me at that moment, that for Ma¯ma¯ Parua, if you are not a woman without tivaivai, then how much more of a woman are you when you stand beside, and claimed the production of, and ownership of, such a magnificent piece of needle work. ‘‘How do you feel Ma¯ma¯ Parua?’’ I asked. Her reply was emphatic: ‘‘I feel proud that I have finished it!’’ The way she stood somehow conveyed the sense that this tivaivai in all its orange splendour trumpeted her prowess, saying by her very actions in creating the tivaivai taorei that she was a Cook Islands woman because she could make tivaivai, everything about her attested to this, as she embodied a fierce pride and a resolve accomplished. The tivaivai materialized her values, and the values of the other people in the hall, and it showed who she was as a Cook Islands woman, and she was recognized as such by the assembled guests in that public context of the show. And this was a contemporary expression of prestige as mana.

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Once all the guests had arrived, including the Minister for Pacific Islands Affairs, the Hon. Mark Goshe, as well as other community leaders and dignitaries, the formal part of the show began. This was focused on the official launch of the ‘‘new product,’’ the framed tivaivai pieces. The women performed a song and dance which highlighted their industry and labors, and then there were performances by the dance and music troupes. These were followed by speeches about the group and the funding that they had received from various dignitaries and then Minister Goshe, and all were effusive about the success of the women and their ‘‘business enterprise.’’ The formal part of proceedings culminated with due fanfare with the presentation of one of the framed tivaivai pieces on display to Minister Goshe and his wife. Throughout the formal part of the show the rhetoric and the gifting was all about the new product which was important and prestigious for the women, but the machine-made tivaivai taorei were arguably most significant for the women in terms of value creation. There was a sense of pride in all the women that day, as they basked in the reflection of the magnificent spectacle of tivaivai on display. That Ma¯ma¯ Parua’s tivaivai, and the tivaivai taorei made by the other women in the group were created in a modern, innovative way, by machine, and were in part brought about by government derived funding added other layers to the context, effectively making this no ‘‘ordinary’’ tivaivai show. Everything about this show, from the size of the tivaivai taorei and their construction, to the funding that the women received to set up the group and produce the tivaivai along with the criteria for the funding and the new product that was launched during the show, to who was invited to the show marked it so. These marks of difference were as much about the way these Cook Islands women were engaging with capitalism as they were about Ma¯ma¯ Eva William’s sophisticated ability to negotiate the funding, as well as the way the women were harnessing their involvement in apparent capitalist enterprise to produce greater stores of value that made sense in the Cook Islands version of human economy.

THE CONTEXT OF THE FUNDING In her capacity as the group’s CEG advisor, Ma¯ma¯ Eva noted on the first MiniGrant application form (William, 1999, p. 1) that the large Enuamanu Hall in Mangere was a utilisable resource and the setting up of a Va‘ine tini had potential. She wrote, ‘‘I support this application and see it as a good starting point for their community, to explore and look at the skills they possess to

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benefit not only themselves but the community at large’’ (1999, p. 1). On the same document, under the question, ‘‘What is the application for?’’ Ma¯ma¯ Eva had noted that the money was ‘‘to explore the possibility of Tivaevae and other craft becoming an enterprise and making money for ourselves and our community’’ (1999, p. 1). The grant application forms were suitably brief, but the key words of ‘‘tivaevae,’’ ‘‘community,’’ ‘‘enterprise,’’ and ‘‘money’’ were mentioned and the inference conveyed was that the productivity of the Ma¯ma¯s which was undertaken for the creation of traditional textiles would be harnessed for potential income generation. The use of this language was important because the funding from the CEG was made available through a policy directive from the incumbent Labor Government which was outlined in a document entitled Pathways to Opportunity: From Social Welfare to Social Development (Ministry of Social Development, 2001). The document stated that the policy ‘‘offers a new approach to social security for people of working age in New Zealand’’ (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 1; cf. Larner & Craig, 2002) with the emphasis on moving from the old system of social welfare to the new, modern version of ‘‘social development’’ (2001, p. 1). In the introduction to the document, signed by then Prime Minister Helen Clark and Steve Maharey, the then Minister of Social Services and Employment, it was stated that the $NZ5.4 billion paid out each year in benefits ‘‘must become an investment in people’s potential’’ and that in the past, debates about our social welfare system have been about ‘‘more versus less,’’ but now ‘‘we must move past this fruitless debate and focus instead on the purpose of social security in our economyyThis means seeing social security not as a fortnightly benefit cheque, but as a carefully considered social investment to lift people’s capacity today, so they can look after themselves tomorrow’’ (2001, p. 1; cf. Barclay & Kinch, 2013). The policy document went on to elaborate on how this was to be achieved. The traditional social welfare system was being extended into a ‘‘working’’ program – literally and figuratively. According to the Pathways document, while the passive forms of income assistance had worked in the past, things had changed; ‘‘the modern social development approach recognises that helping the individual means addressing problems such as lack of skills or loss of confidence. Further, it recognises that this is best done by working in partnership with the communities in which people live’’ (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 2). ‘‘Partnerships’’ were the new neoliberal speak (Larner & Craig, 2002, p. 11). The ‘‘new social development approach’’ (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 4) had a set of aims and implicit was the tacit acknowledgement

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that income assistance was not enough on its own, that people have different skills and this can be a function of the community they belong to, and that development in the Western economic sense could be facilitated by giving certain types of assistance to people as individuals but also as members of communities. That the particular form of social development sought was ultimately about sustainable income generation was made clear in the list of aims of the new approach: 1. A simple, flexible, and more effective system to meet individual needs. 2. More beneficiaries moving into sustainable paid work. 3. Fewer families and households where no family members are in paid work. 4. More beneficiaries earning income from part-time work and more beneficiaries increasing the amount they can earn. 5. Every family being able to meet their basic needs. 6. People enabled to be more involved in their communities. (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 4) The first five aims have an explicit Western economic focus; the sixth is seemingly more altruistic. But much hinges on this term ‘‘community.’’ Such terminology, as well as the use of the term ‘‘social exclusion’’ elsewhere in the document (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, pp. 5, 20) were indicative of the New Zealand version of the neoliberal reforms that were infusing policy in the United Kingdom and Australia at the time. In the United Kingdom this movement was referred to as the ‘‘Third Way,’’6 and was a scion of the New Right philosophies of the 1990s (Larner & Craig, 2002, 2005; Vasta, 2004). One aspect of neoliberalism is the attempt to expand market models into all areas of life. Suffice to say that the notion of ‘‘community’’ used in the policy document was not what the Cook Islands women understood by the term, but in actuality, the funding allowed them to do economy in their own terms. Whilst Ma¯ma¯ Eva’s use of the term community in the MiniGrant application was entirely in keeping with the policy directive, and her intent and that of the women’s were in line with the government funders, Ma¯ma¯ Eva was aware of the broader meaning of community for Cook Islanders. She knew how the tivaivai taorei and any money made from the sale of the new product would be used, and how the travel party to Wellington was about so much more than ‘‘marketing.’’ Ma¯ma¯ Eva knew what community was about for Cook Islanders and the role that tivaivai and money played in what constitutes the human economy for Cook Islanders in ceremonial arena. It is likely that levels of the CEG hierarchy knew how broadly defined

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this concept could be for Pacific people as well. Ma¯ma¯ Eva told me there was considerable discussion about what development meant for the different Pacific peoples generally within the organization. The idea that community productivity, as in the production of valuables like tivaivai could be harnessed for capitalist gain/profit was explicit in the funding application, despite the fact that in a general sense, this ran counter to what tivaivai are. This was dealt with by Ma¯ma¯ Eva and her careful handling of the language required in the grant application and subsequent reports on progress, as well as her dealings with CEG and Department of Labour hierarchy, to both reveal and gloss at the same time. The development of the new product was an aside to the actual production of tivaivai that were about participation ultimately in ceremonial arena. Ma¯ma¯ Eva and the women, for the most part, never had any intention of actually selling the tivaivai they made, and the creation of the new product was a strategy which effectively deflected commercial pressure from the tivaivai the women made. Ma¯ma¯ Eva told me that a number of the Ma¯ma¯s did make a reasonable amount of money out of the framed pieces,7 but the Ma¯ma¯s’ focus remained on the production of tivaivai. In terms of work hours, far less time was spent producing the pieces to be framed compared to the machine-made tivaivai taorei but the framed pieces ‘‘ticked all the boxes’’ so to speak, from the funders’ point of view. The funding to the Enuamanu Ma¯ma¯s was seen by the funders as lifting their skills, and by association, as a form of support to them and their families, but it was also supporting a set of important cultural institutions, and the assistance was certainly Cook Islander-specific. There was a disjuncture between the ultimately macro and microeconomic foci of the policy, and the aims of the Ma¯ma¯s, which was dealt with adeptly by Ma¯ma¯ Eva William. The process she employed amounted to a thwarting of the potential eroding of what tivaivai stood for in terms of Cook Islands values, and constituted a deft negotiation of the dialectical tension between Cook Islands values and neoliberal values. There was no impropriety on the part of Ma¯ma¯ Eva or the other Ma¯ma¯s, just a little ‘‘working within the system’’ type of strategy. That the demise of the CEG and its ability to give out and administer funding came about several years later (in 2004)8 was due to other grant recipients less-thanadept management of this, which highlights the level of sophistication at which Ma¯ma¯ Eva William operated. That, and the fact that the sums of money involved were less, let Ma¯ma¯ Eva and the funding she secured for the Va‘ine tini operate within the parameters outlined by the funding, as well as benefit the women in ways that adhered to the notion that ‘‘you are not a woman without tivaivai,’’ and all that this means.

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THE PRODUCTION OF THE MACHINE-MADE TIVAIVAI TAOREI To put the production of tivaivai taorei such as those produced by the Enuamanu women with the help of the funding in context, throughout the course of my fieldwork in New Zealand, Australia, and the Cook Islands, I very rarely saw women making taorei. Older tivaivai taorei were used frequently in ritual contexts in the most elite way, but women said the production of new tivaivai taorei was too hard and took too long. Ma¯ma¯ Porio, the head tutor of the group, was particularly interested in teaching the Ma¯ma¯s how to make taorei by machine because it was so much faster. She was also determined that the skills needed to make taorei would not die out and the patterns (mostly hers) be used, which effectively kept them alive. Ma¯ma¯ Porio had first made tivaivai taorei in this way when she was living on  Atiu in the 1950s. She told me that she was teaching full time at the local island school, she was mother to some 10 of her own children and had various adopted children around, and she had committed to making two tivaivai taorei for the centenary celebrations of the arrival of the gospel on  the island of Atiu within a few weeks. She decided that the only way she was going to manage it was to make them by machine. So she did, and created quite a stir with her tivaivai innovation. She said those first tivaivai taorei were finished with one centimeter square pieces and they took her two weeks, a handmade tivaivai with a similar gauge would have taken months and months. Most of the Enuamanu women were somewhat ambivalent about producing tivaivai taorei by machine, some just decided not to do it, others who began the process, found themselves regretting it regularly – until they had finally finished of course. In deference to the idea that handmade tivaivai taorei take so long to make with the implication that this was not commercially viable, I speculate that the decision to make machine-made tivaivai taorei was not a coincidence. Setting these as the program for the group and using the funding received to subsidise their production, as well as making them alongside the production of the framed pieces which were for straight mercantile sale, was a ‘‘good look.’’ The innovation of the use of a sewing machine to do what was generally done by hand, made the women appear to be making concessions with their traditional production, updating their traditional techniques in a way that seemed to be in line with more commercial imperatives. The fact that the women never had any intention of making tivaivai taorei for commercial production was an aside, but the appearance of the attempt to speed up the process of the taorei production

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seemed to be a nod to this, but it was also an innovation and a striking elaboration of traditional techniques in Cook Islands terms that was about the pursuit of prestige as mana. From the funders’ perspective the commercial intent of the funding was covered by the development and production of the new product. But Ma¯ma¯ Eva had an astute and sophisticated handle on what looked best from her organization’s point of view, and she managed the production, launch, and marketing of the new product with expert acumen. She knew how to ‘‘frame’’ the whole process (pun intended). The large, spectacular machine-made tivaivai taorei appeared to redefine the parameters of what taorei were from an outsider’s point of view, but there was an element of this redefining taking place from a Cook Islander’s point of view as well, which, I speculate was also her intent. So it was rather unprecedented that a Va’ine tini in Auckland would undertake a program that featured tivaivai taorei. Generally, the larger the tivaivai and the smaller the squares used, the more prestigious the tivaivai taorei is. So the sheer size, number, and boldness of the machine-made tivaivai taorei that were displayed first in Auckland under the gaze of the Minister and then in Porirua in Wellington, was audacious and had an angle of affront about it. The women’s tivaivai attested to the vigor and the  capability of the Atiuan women in the diaspora, and their command of forces over which they generally had little control. Tivaivai shows tend to be fora for status competition anyway, but this was amplified at the show in Wellington in particular.

The Travel Party to Wellington and the Second Tivaivai Show in November 2001  When the Atiu group, along with the music and dance troupes went to Wellington and staged the same show in Cannon’s Creek for the Porirua Cook Islands community, some of the Cook Islander Wellingtonians considered that the Auckland women had not made ‘‘real’’ tivaivai taorei, so affronted by the massive tivaivai were they. While many were in awe of the women’s achievements, I heard whispers of disdain that day about the arrogance of staging a show with such boldness and how uppity it was for the Auckland Ma¯ma¯s to have come to Wellington and ‘‘showed off’’ in the way they did. Ma¯ma¯ Eva knew that this was part of the reaction that the Wellington show would elicit, but she also knew that nobody could deny how spectacular the display of tivaivai was, or how industrious the women were, or that there was prestige associated with being the recipients of grant

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money that was sanctioned by the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs and the Prime Minister no less. The Auckland women were trafficking in prestige as mana at the expense of the Wellington women because of their display of value and valuables. Ma¯ma¯ Eva organized a film crew from an Auckland regional television station as well as print media to attend the show to publicise the event, and a group of papa‘a¯ Wellington quilters were invited to attend as well which made it even more prestigious. The presence of the papa‘a¯ quilters at the show and the feast was prestigious for the Auckland women because it showed their influence in areas outside Cook Islands ceremonial arena. This was all a source of chagrin for some in the Wellington audience. The Ma¯ma¯s were spectacularly dressed in specially made mu‘umu‘u dresses, and the guests were all fed lavishly with Cook Islands feast food. The overall effect was a ceremonial triumph, and the prestige as mana garnered through the production of tivaivai of such size and value was palpable for the Auckland Ma¯ma¯s. The values being materialized were mana as prestige inducing, but they were also elaborated, subsidized, and government endorsed by the funding that Ma¯ma¯ Eva William had secured from the CEG.

The Ma¯ma¯s as ‘‘Poster Girls’’ for the Funders The women with their beautiful colorful tivaivai, island-style dresses and flowers, and the ‘‘box-ticking’’ that their enterprise constituted, meant the Ma¯ma¯s literally became poster Ma¯ma¯s for the funding. Under the heading ‘‘Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion’’ in the Pathways document, it stated that these were addressed by ‘‘investing significantly in skills development and capacity building, including programmes so Ma¯ori and Pacific peoples communities can take greater control of their own development’’ (2001, p. 18). As if to literally illustrate this, on the next page was a photograph of two of the Ma¯ma¯s (the president and treasurer of the group respectively) sewing tivaivai, adorned with ‘ei katu (head wreaths) and dressed in the group’s matching island-style fabric shirts. Above the photograph, and under a side heading of ‘‘Practical Capacity Building’’ the document states: The Department of Labour’s Community Employment Group has identified Pacific peoples as one of its priority groups for development services. For example, it has helped set up Enuamanu Vainetini – a group of 30 women in Mangere from the Cook Island of Enuamanu who meet regularly to create intricately-

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designed and crafted tivaevae [sic] (Cook Islands quilts). The Community Employment Group will also be helping them to market their tivaevae. (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 21)

This same quote appeared in a summary of the Pathways directive on Prime Minister Helen Clark’s official webpage9 at the time. The Prime Minister also attended a function at the Enuamanu Hall during the period of the funding to highlight the women’s, and the funding’s, success. At the same time, a promotional video about the success stories for the CEG funding featuring the Ma¯ma¯s was made. Their section in the video was filmed in July 2001 when a film crew came to film a Va‘ine tini meeting. Ma¯ma¯ Eva instructed the women to cover the walls of the annex building beside the main Enuamanu Hall where the group normally met, entirely with tivaivai, and the Ma¯ma¯s all dressed in mu‘umu‘u dresses and ‘ei katu. The brief was to film the Ma¯ma¯s doing their usual ‘‘enterprise,’’ but the fact that the women never dressed themselves or the hall in this way for a regular session was part of the staging that was required to create the maximum impact on the film. Ma¯ma¯ Va‘ine had forgotten to bring her sewing that day, so preoccupied was she with bringing tivaivai for decoration, and food for the feast with the film crew. When she realised that I had brought my tivaivai to sew, she asked me if she could sew it whilst on camera. Footage and images appear of her sewing my tivaivai in the promotional video and the Pathways document respectively, and it seemed to me that this was all part of the performance of fundable enterprise by the Ma¯ma¯s who were dressed and performing as appropriate Cook Islands women. The showcasing was reflected in the spectacular photo opportunities that ensued at the Auckland show with the Minister. He was photographed flanked by the entire Va‘ine tini, including me, sitting in front of the justlaunched new product and surrounded by the new machine-made tivaivai taorei. In the staging of the photograph, the large machine-made tivaivai taorei stand sentinel behind the Ma¯ma¯s and the Minister, and down some of the wall pillars of the hall, separating the tivaivai taorei one from the other like the va¯‘i section that divides the pattern template in a tivaivai taorei, are visible lines of strung-up purple balloons. These balloons had ‘‘Community Employment Group/ te ahu tangata/ Department of Labour’’ emblazoned on them, and it seemed to me that they prefaced the relationship between the women and their tivaivai, the layers of governmental involvement and the political economy landscape that these women and their kin were inhabiting in New Zealand. The day the tere (travel) party arrived in Wellington, Ma¯ma¯ Eva had organised a tour of the tivaivai collection at Te Papa, Museum of

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New Zealand and the dance and music troupes staged a performance on the marae inside the museum. The tere party were then bussed to Parliament buildings, where we were given a tour and then had a meeting with the Hon. Winnie Laban, the sitting Labour Member of Parliament for Porirua and the only Pacific Islands woman in Parliament at the time. In the course of the tour, we were shown through the Parliamentary debating chamber and I noticed that Winnie Laban’s seat was at the very back, arguably in the least visible, least powerful place in the House. I pointed this out to Ma¯ma¯ Eva William, her reply was telling. She said, ‘‘At least she is here.’’ To me, this demonstrated a certain pragmatic approach to the realities of the position that Pacific peoples hold in New Zealand society, but it perhaps belied Ma¯ma¯ Eva’s sophisticated, nuanced, and knowing management of the multifaceted opportunities that the funding presented, and that she herself had created through the availability of the funding.

CONCLUSION In understanding engagements with capitalism, Narotsky (2008, pp. 14–15) calls for the conceptualising of a value realm that allows agents far greater flexibility and opportunism and a wider scope for reconfiguring relations according to tactical needs, a value realm highly arbitrary and morally shifting and contradictoryythis perspective would present us with a complex insight to the contemporary forms of value extraction and capital accumulation.

Such agents include the Enuamanu Ma¯ma¯s and the way they, and Ma¯ma¯ Eva William in particular, negotiated and managed the funding they received from the CEG, where their production and use of tivaivai are integral to such a value realm for Cook Islanders. In analysing neoliberal policy under which the Enuamanu women received funding, Larner and Craig (2002, p. 15) note that insofar as partnerships are located within a wider program of globalisation, they constantly risk being steamrolled, undercut and appropriated by larger forces of political economy. The challenge for partnerships, and the activists on whose activities they are centred, is to upscale their political contest, while maintaining their professional and technical legitimacy in a context where larger scales may remain powerfully determinant.

As the Enuamanu women displayed their funded enterprise via the multiple public showings of their new product, what they were also doing was the performance of a very contemporary, very Cook Islands version of

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prestige as mana. That particular funding ‘‘partnership’’ was not steamrolled, undercut, or wholly appropriated, instead the Cook Islands women’s engagement with capitalism allowed them to pursue their own noncapitalist aims of strengthening sociality and accruing prestige within their own worldview and understanding of value and what constitutes valuables.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Ma¯ma¯ Eva William, Ma¯ma¯ Tapu Porio and the other Ma¯ma¯s from the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini. Thanks also to Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay for comments and advice given in the writing of this chapter.

NOTES 1. There are three main types of tivaivai. The simplest form is the tivaivai manu, comprising of an appliqued pattern layer cut from a single piece of cloth and sewn to a base layer. Tivaivai ta ¯ taura are similar to the manu but are embellished with varying amounts of embroidery. But the most elite tivaivai are considered to be the tivaivai taorei. These are made in the patchwork style and the finest examples consist of thousands of tiny squares hand stitched laboriously together in an intricate symmetrical pattern. It was these most elite textiles that the Enuamanu women made with the funding from the CEG, but they used machines to do the sewing rather than doing them by hand. 2. The Cook Islands lie 3,270 km to the northeast of New Zealand, in a broad band of low lying atolls and mountainous islands that sit between Tahiti to the east of the group and Samoa to the west. The Cook Islands group contains 15 islands and atolls. Tongareva, Manihiki, Rakahanga, Pukapuka, Nassau and Suwarrow comprise the northern group and Palmerston, Aitutaki, Manuae, Miti‘aro, Ma‘uke,  Atiu, Taku¯tea, Rarotonga and Mangaia, the southern group. The administrative capital is Avarua on the island of Rarotonga. The women recipients of the funding    were from Atiu, Enuamanu is the Atiuan word for Atiu. 3. Almost 60,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand, 2008, p. 5), and only some 20,000 (Cook Islands Census, 2006) reside in the island homelands. Auckland, New Zealand, is the biggest Polynesian city in the world. It is also the biggest Cook Islands city in the world. So while Avarua on Rarotonga is the administrative capital of the Cook Islands nation, Auckland is the ‘‘capital’’ of the various island identities. According to the 2006 New Zealand census (Statistics New Zealand, 2008, p. 5) 34,776 people of Cook Islands descent are resident in Auckland. Communities of Cook Islanders live in various cities in New Zealand, Australia, the United States as well as the Cook Islands and other Pacific islands like Tahiti, and operate via the ritual economy as a nexus. 4. Mana is defined as ‘‘(Have) authority (legal, moral, religious) and the powers, rights and prestige which this confers’’ (Buse & Taringa, 1995, p. 219).

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5. Blowsheets are lesser textiles vis-a´-vis tivaivai in the hierarchy of textiles that are gifted in the Cook Islands ceremonial economy. They are made by laying out plain cotton sheeting on the ground. Stencils of various motifs like flowers, leaves, birds, bunches of grapes etc. are arrayed on the sheet in a decorative pattern. Then women take pots of paint, suck the paint up into straws, and literally blow it over the stencils. Several colours of paint are used, and the process is repeated enough times so that once the stencils are removed, a decorative pattern is revealed by the negative spaces. To make the most of the paint used, women also lay another cotton sheet over the paint-covered stencils to imprint the stencil patterns to create a positive image on the other sheet. Blowsheets have the advantage of being quick and cheap to produce, and are considered appropriate lesser gifts at ceremonial events. I watched the women from the Enuamanu Va‘ine tini produce upwards of 100 blowsheets in a single day during this phase of their programme. 6. The ‘‘Third Way’’ was a stance heavily influenced by the sociologist Anthony Giddens’ (1998, 2000) notion of the ‘‘new progressivism.’’ This was meant to be the new way forward, and sought to navigate a course between the old welfare state system of the left and the minimalist state championed by the right. Giddens writes: The cornerstone of the new progressivism are said to be equal opportunity, personal responsibility and the mobilisation of citizens and communities. With rights come responsibilities. We have to find ways of taking care of ourselves, because we can’t now rely on the big institutions to do so. Public policy has to shift from concentrating on the redistribution of wealth to promoting wealth creation (Giddens, 2000, p. 2, cited in Vasta, 2004, p. 203).

Similarly, under a heading of ‘‘What Will be Different,’’ the Pathways document states, ‘‘Communities will be at the heart of this approach. Government agencies will work more closely with groups in their communities and regions to develop opportunities and jobs.’’ (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 4) 7. The framed pieces sold for around $NZ300 each, but this did depend somewhat on who was buying them whereby discounts were given to certain kin if the seller had an obligation of some form to the buyer. The main target market for the pieces was other Cook Islanders and others who wanted a piece of tivaivai but didn’t want to pay the going rate of close to $NZ1000 for a tivaivai manu. Around 20 frames were sold in all. 8. The CEG came to a tumultuous and public end in the glare of damning media publicity that was counted as a blow to the Labour Government by right wing opposition parties at the time. Provision was made in the Pathways policy for the funding of ‘‘social entrepreneurs’’ who were considered to be people with skills and flare who could ‘‘make a real difference in their communitiesy [and] make an even greater contribution to their communities’’ (Ministry of Social Development, 2001, p. 18). A furore erupted and a media frenzy ensued, when it was publicised that the CEG had been funding ‘‘an overseas ‘hip-hop’ fact-finding tour, an overseas tour to study gay and lesbian sports participation, and the establishment of a regional Maori television station’’ (http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/jbl20400.htm, accessed 25.8.11). The hip-hop fact finding tour in particular meant Minister Maharey got a grilling in parliament (http://202.68.89.83/en-NZ/PB/Business/QOA/e/f/c/47Hans Q_20040518_00000593-9-Community-Employment-Group-Advice-to-Ministers.

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htm, accessed 25.8.11) the upshot being that the funding and the CEG became untenable and notification that the CEG was to be disbanded appeared on line (http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/20989, accessed 31.8.11) on 20th September 2004. The fact that the hip hop artist concerned, Lady 6, has gone on to become a very successful recording artist with an international profile is now a moot point. 9. http//:www.exective.govt.nz/MINISTER/clark/pathways/10.htm. Accessed on December 2007.

REFERENCES Buse, J. with Taringa, R. (1995). Cook Islands Maori dictionary. In B. Biggs & R. Moeka‘a (Eds). The Ministry of Education, Government of the Cook Islands; The School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London; The Institute of Pacific Studies, The University of Auckland; Pacific Linguistics, The Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. Cook Islands Statistics Office. (2006). Cook Islands census of population and Dwellings 2006. Retrieved from http://www.stats.gov.ck/statistics/censussurveys/censurvnav.htm. Cook islands. Accessed on July 20, 2010. Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2008). Diverse economies: Performative practices for ‘other worlds’. Progress in Human Geography, 32(5), 613–632. Giddens, A. (1998). The third way: The renewal of social democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. (2000). The third way and its critics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Graeber, D. (2012). On social currencies and human economies: Some notes on the violence of equivalence. Social Anthropology, 20(4), 411–428. Gudeman, S. (2008). Economy’s tension: The dialectics of community and market. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Gudeman, S. (2009). Necessity or contingency: Mutuality and market. In C. Hann & K. Hart (Eds.), Market and society: The great transformation today (pp. 17–37). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guyer, J. (2004). Marginal gains: Monetary transactions in Atlantic Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hart, K. (2008). The human economy. ASAonline article. Retrieved from http://www.theasa. org/publications/asaonline/articles/asaonline_0101.shtml. Accessed on Jaunary 24, 2011. Hart, K., & Hann, C. (2009). Introduction: Learning from Polanyi 1. In C. Hann & K. Hart (Eds.), Market and society: The great transformation today (pp. 1–16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horan, J. (2011). Tivaivai and value in the Cook Island ritual economy: The creation of value, values, and valuables in a diasporic community. In W. Little & P. McAnany (Eds.), Textile economies: Power and value from the local to the transnational (pp. 57–76). New York, NY: Altamira Press. Horan, J. (2012). Tivaivai in the Cook Island ceremonial economy: An analysis of value. Ph.D. thesis, University of Auckland, Auckland. Karora, M., Seve-Williams, N., Mokoroa-Karora, A., & Kaiaruna, T. (2007). A collection of writings from Enuamanu and beyond, E Au Tata Anga No Enuamanu E Ta Te Au Korero. Auckland: Enuamanu Atiu Nui Maruarua Press.

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Larner, W., & Craig, D. (2002). After neo-liberalism? Local partnerships and social governance in Aotearoa New Zealand. Working Paper No. 6. Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA. Larner, W., & Craig, D. (2005). After neoliberalism? Community activism and local partnerships in Aotearoa New Zealand. Antipode, 37(3), 402–424. Ministry of Social Development. (2001). Pathways to opportunity: From social welfare to social development. Retrieved from http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-ourwork/publications-resources/archive/2001-pathways.pdf. Accessed on February 11, 2008. Narotzsky, S. (2008). Reply: What’s changed (since 1975)? Dialectical Anthropology, 32(1–2), 9–16. Statistics New Zealand. (2008). Cook Island Maori people in New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/about-2006-census/pacific-profiles-2006/cook-islandmaori-people-in-new-zealand.aspx/Cook-Island-Maori-profile-updated-May2008-1.pdf. Accessed on January 2011. Turner, T. (2008). Marxian value theory: An anthropological perspective. Anthropological Theory, 8(1), 43–56. Vasta, E. (2004). Community, the state and the deserving citizen: Pacific Islanders in Australia. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30(1), 195–213. William, E. (1999). Community employment group MiniGrant application. Unpublished grant application form from the archives of the Department of Labour, Wellington.

LOCAL CAPITALISMS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN COASTAL FISHERIES: CASES FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA AND SOLOMON ISLANDS Kate Barclay and Jeff Kinch ABSTRACT Purpose – To critically assess engagements with capitalism in coastal fisheries development, considering their success or otherwise for coastal villagers. Approach – Using field research and written reports of projects and the concept of ‘‘social embeddedness’’ we analyze two fisheries development projects as local instances of capitalism. Findings – Coastal peoples in the Pacific have been selling marine products for cash since the earliest days of contact with both Europeans and Asians. Since the 1970s, there have also been fisheries development projects. Both types of engagement with capitalism have had problems with commercial viability and ecological sustainability. One way to understand these issues is to view global capitalist markets as penetrating

Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 107–138 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033007

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into localities through the lens of local cultures. We find, however, that local cultures are only one factor among several needed to explain the outcomes of these instances of capitalism. Other explanations include nature, national political and economic contexts, and transnational development assistance frameworks. The defining features of ‘‘local capitalisms’’ thus arise from configurations of human and nonhuman, local and outside influences. Social implications – Development project design should account for local conditions including: (1) village-based socioeconomic approaches, (2) national political economic contexts, (3) frameworks that donors bring to projects, and (4) (in)effective resource management. Originality/value of paper – The chapter builds on the experience of the authors over 15 years across multiple projects. The analysis provides a framework for understanding problems people have encountered in trying to get what they want from capitalism, and is applicable outside the fisheries sector. Keywords: Coastal fisheries; coastal resource management; Papua New Guinea; Solomon Islands; aid projects; social embeddedness

INTRODUCTION Engagements with capitalism are inevitably shaped by the particular configurations of local, national and global influences in those engagements. Village-based social and economic institutions and market opportunities affect the ways coastal and island peoples in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands exploit their marine resources. National government institutions also affect engagement with markets, especially via services for economic activities (such as transport and market infrastructure) and regulation of economic activities (such as environmental protection measures). Engagements with capitalism via the sale of fisheries products are also affected by global markets and corporations, as well as trends in development assistance (aid), the practices of national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and intergovernmental agencies (such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, or the Secretariat of the Pacific Community). The constraints and opportunities these configurations have offered to Pacific Islanders have changed over time through colonialism and globalization, and continue to change with shifts in aid interventions and in the export markets to which villagers sell.

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There are several features that distinguish village-level engagement with capitalism in the Solomon Islands and PNG (and many other Pacific Island Countries) including: (1) production for sale is usually part of a household livelihood strategy involving multiple sources of income – fishing, food gardening, cash cropping, market selling, wage-earning, and so on – and in which production for home consumption/gifting to kin and neighbors and production for markets can be mixed; (2) the time and effort spent on any one cash-earning activity may fluctuate due to better opportunities in another cash-earning activity, or due to noncapitalist social obligations overriding the imperative to earn cash; and (3) imperatives to use cash for noncapitalist purposes may drain cash away from a business and cause its financial failure. Governance frameworks for engagements with capitalism in coastal fisheries in both PNG and the Solomon Islands have two highly significant features. The first key feature is a clientelist, dependent approach to projects on the part of governments and communities. This approach has emerged over a long and complex history of interactions between local political systems, colonialism and processes of decolonization, and the later activities of aid donors and NGOs. The second feature is that there is often very little governance capacity to manage coastal resources. Resource management – from communities themselves, governments, and NGOs – have been unable to provide systematic medium- to long-term protection of coastal environments subject to small and large scale fishing by locals and foreigners, or from other impacts such as pollution and coastal developments (this problem is, of course, not restricted to the Pacific Islands). There have been two main outcomes of engagement with capitalism as influenced by these configurations: (1) fisheries that were readily profitable were quickly exploited and stocks were depleted in classic ‘‘boom-and-bust’’ cycles; (2) fisheries that were not so readily profitable have been subject to several decades of government and donor attempts to develop them, with little success in terms of sustained cash-earning activity, and in some cases has led to overfishing. The postdevelopment movement has raised a number of important questions about what ‘‘development’’ actually is and whether it is indeed a desirable aspiration (Sachs, 1997).1 Nevertheless, in low-income counties such as PNG and the Solomon Islands, the fact remains that most, if not all, people want development, including greater access to cash. While development can be pursued in many ways, earning cash by selling produce in markets is a long-established approach and is still one of the main ways rural people in Pacific Island societies pursue their development aims. The environmental problems with growth-oriented capitalist development are obvious all around the world. Much work has been done on how capitalism may be rendered more sustainable (e.g., Daly, 2009; Jackson,

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2009; OECD, 2009; Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009).The United Nations Council on Environment and Development Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 proposed integrated conservation and development projects, which have over time evolved into measures such as ‘‘conservation incentive agreements’’ and ‘‘payments for ecosystem services.’’ As part of the Green Economy approach, market mechanism solutions to ecological problems are currently dominant in global policy circles, as evidenced by the official report of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 The Future We Want.2 These mechanisms are intended to address local peoples’ needs for development from their environmental resources while also addressing the need to maintain global biodiversity values. These approaches, however, treat capitalism as a universal and do not account for varied influences on capitalism at the local level, nor do they consider the social inequalities that may be exacerbated by their implementation. Because capitalist activities are shaped differently in different places, it is also necessary to have knowledge of the locally specific nature of the activities under investigation. The approach taken in this chapter to understanding the sustainability of capitalist activities is to explicate the locally specific nature of those activities. One approach to understanding locally specific human factors in capitalism is that of ‘‘social embeddedness.’’ This concept was pioneered by Karl Polanyi (1944 [2001]) who stated that completely unfettered markets would lead to social and therefore economic breakdown, so markets must always be embedded within the law, politics and morality of any given society. Although thinking has moved beyond some of Polanyi’s earlier ideas (Curry, 2003; Granovetter, 1985, 2005; Swedberg, 1994), the approach of looking at economic activities as being shaped by local contexts is still proving fruitful for many social scientists (Hann & Hart, 2009). A lot of work on socially embedded economies details how local contexts can cause particular economic forms to develop. This may be at the national level with the salient factors being legal, financial and political, or in industrial sectors affected by their own organizational and business frameworks. The particular economic forms that arise, especially at the national level, have been analyzed by some scholars as ‘‘varieties of capitalism’’ (Boyer, 2005; Hall & Soskice, 2001). Scholars focusing on groups whose economic system has been predominantly noncapitalist, have argued against conventional understandings of a universal transition to capitalism, such as that first posed by W. W. Rostow (1960) and still evident in the approaches taken by many development agencies. These scholars have noted that even after many decades of engagement with capitalism, the nature of that

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engagement is best understood, for some groups, not as a form of capitalism, but as the extraction of material goods from the capitalist system that are then used within local society for noncapitalist ends (Curry, 2003; Gregory, 1982; Sahlins, 1992, see also 2013, especially the chapters by Mosko, Yang, Macintyre and Bainton, and Sharp). In light of the above, the approach taken in this chapter utilizes the social embeddedness approach, but is slightly different from most work on social embeddedness in two ways. The first being, that the locally specific is examined not only as the bilateral interaction between subnational or national contexts and externally introduced capitalism but rather in terms of subnational, national, and transnational influences (including capitalism) simultaneously. The second is that ecology is included with social activities as part of the locally specific nature of capitalism. The chapter first introduces fisheries production for cash markets that have arisen without government assistance, and that have existed since the early days of contact with Europeans and Asians. The chapter then moves to its main focus; cash-earning fisheries that in recent decades have been subject to government and aid donor efforts to develop them. The thinking behind this chapter emerged from the authors’ involvement in several projects. Kate Barclay was involved in postdoctoral research in 2005 looking at tuna as a resource for development for Solomon Islands, PNG, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and Cook Islands. Since then, she has done contract research on trade opportunities in fisheries in Solomon Islands in 2008 and on social impacts from tuna industries in PNG in 2012. Jeff Kinch has been involved with implementing aid donor-funded fisheries development projects in PNG since the late 1990s, as well as conducting a wide range of reviews of coastal fisheries projects in both PNG and the Solomon Islands, and the wider island Pacific. To supplement our primary research we also draw on reports and reviews of coastal fisheries development and resource management projects in the Pacific Islands Region.

COASTAL FISHERIES IN SOLOMON ISLANDS AND PNG Fisheries have long been an important social and cultural component of many coastal peoples in the Pacific Islands Region (Darcy, 2006; Hau’ofa, 2008). Since frequent contact with Europeans and Asians began in the

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mid- to late 1800s, Pacific Islanders have increasingly been pulled into the orbit of capitalism through the sale of their fisheries products. PNG is made up of the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and the islands of New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, Manus and thousands of smaller islands. PNG is home to just over 7 million people, with its population growing at around 2.8% per annum (National Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea (NSOPNG), 2004). The PNG economy during the 1990s was characterized by macroeconomic instability, stagnation and unemployment. In the last decade increased investments in oil, gas and mineral extraction projects have brought significant inflows into the economy. There are still doubts however as to whether sustained development will occur as projected in the national government’s Vision 2050, since this will require massive improvements in infrastructure and government services. Economic opportunities are severely restricted for the majority of people in rural areas.3 PNG is ranked 153rd out of 187 countries and territories in the Human Development Index (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2011). Solomon Islands to the east and south of PNG is made up of a double chain of six main islands (Guadalcanal, Malaita, New Georgia, San Christobal, Santa Isabel and Choiseul) surrounded by thousands of smaller groups of outlying islands. The population is over 500,000, and is growing at over 2% per annum (DFAT, 2012). Like PNG, Solomon Islands suffers from limited infrastructure and government services, and limited economic opportunities for the majority of its population. In late 1998, long-running dissatisfactions about the lack of economic development in some areas on Guadalcanal flared along ethnic lines. Sporadic incidents increased in frequency during 1999 and 2000, culminating in the overthrow of the government in June 2000. Government services were severely curtailed and all major industries scaled down or closed. In 2003, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), led by Australian police and military personnel, reestablished order. Solomon Islands is ranked 142nd out of 187 countries and territories in the Human Development Index (UNDP, 2011). PNG and Solomon Islands4 have some of the largest coastal fisheries in the Pacific Island Region. PNG’s coastal fisheries produced an estimated 5,700 tons (mt) from commercial fishing and 30,000 mt from subsistence fisheries in 2007, with Solomon Islands producing 3,250 mt in its commercial fisheries and 15,000 mt in its subsistence fisheries. The only other Pacific Island countries with coastal fisheries exceeding 3,000 mt for commercial and 10,000 mt for subsistence in 2007 were Kiribati and Fiji (Gillett, 2009).5

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As populations grow there will be increasing pressure on fisheries resources, especially around urban areas (Brewer, 2007; Lock, 1986), and these resources need to be carefully managed to prevent overfishing and to maintain food security (see Bell et al., 2009). There is a paucity of scientific evidence about coastal fisheries stocks in both countries (Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 2001; Gillett, 2010a), making it difficult to determine what sustainable yields might be.

COASTAL FISHERIES SUCCESSFUL IN GENERATING CASH There have been several fisheries products that for many decades coastal people in PNG and the Solomon Islands have sold for cash (Gillett, 2010a). We use the term ‘‘cash fishery’’ here to mean products that are sold for cash income, but in a production and exchange system that may well not be ‘‘capitalist’’ in terms of the villagers’ mindsets and practices with regard to the activity. These include sea cucumbers, various species of shellfish and shark fins. Shark fins have been a long-term cash product in both PNG and the Solomon Islands (Juncker, Robert, & Clua, 2006). Shark fins contain proteinaceous fibers highly prized for use in shark fin soup. The fins are dried and can thus be easily stored for long periods. They are high value relative to their bulk and weight. These features mean they are profitable, even though freight is infrequent and freight costs can be very high in both countries. Shark fins are taken in PNG and the Solomon Islands by artisanal fishing from island communities; and also from industrial longline fishing vessels, some of which are licensed to target sharks directly (in PNG under the National Shark Longline Management Plan), while others catch shark as by-catch when targeting tuna. Most shark species are vulnerable to overfishing primarily due to their long lifespan, late maturation, slow growth rate, and low fecundity. Overall, there is very limited knowledge of the status of shark populations across the Pacific (see Lack & Sant, 2009). Given regional and global trends (Graham, Spalding, & Sheppard, 2010; Lack & Sant, 2009; Opu, 2007), and despite more recent regional efforts to manage sharks (Lack & Meere, 2009), it is more than probable that shark populations are being damaged by fishing in both countries. Sea cucumbers have long been caught by Pacific Islanders for export to markets in East and South East Asia (Kinch, Purcell, Uthicke, & Friedman,

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2008a). Sea cucumbers are also high value product relative to their bulk and weight. Like sharks fins they are dried so are easy to store. In 2009, PNG was the third largest supplier of sea cucumber, supplying around 10% of the world trade (Kinch et al., 2008a). Previous surveys have shown that sea cucumbers have been overfished in both PNG (Kinch, Purcell, Uthicke, & Friedman, 2008b; Skewes et al., 2002) and the Solomon Islands (Kinch, Mesia, Kere, Manioli, & Bulehite, 2006; Ramohia, 2006). To address overfishing, the Solomon Islands instituted a fishing moratorium in 2005 (Nash & Ramofafia, 2006; Pakoa, 2012), and PNG instituted one in 2009. Both are still ongoing, although there is a black market continuing exports. Shells such as trochus, blacklip and goldlip pearl shells, giant clam, and green snail have all been sold for cash by villagers (Kinch, 1999, 2002, 2003; Skewes, 1990). Giant clam adductor muscles and mantle and trochus meat are regularly sold at local markets (Kinch, 2003) and clam meat has also been exported from Solomon Islands. The export markets for trochus have been for shells for buttons or other decorative purposes, and clam shells have also been exported. Like the other products mentioned in this section, shells are high value relative to volume and can be easily stored until there is suitable transport. Green snail, blacklip pearl shell, and giant clam stocks have all been greatly damaged by overfishing (Foale, 2008a; Kinch, 2002, 2003). These fisheries have been important sources of cash for rural coastal communities. The approach to fishing here is arguably not capitalist, in that people were not accumulating cash to reinvest and thus accumulate more cash. They were raising cash to then use for some other immediate purposes. They were nevertheless engaging with capitalism through these activities, in that the markets they sold in were competitive, with prices set by supply and demand. In addition, foreign traders to which they sold their products did approach the trade in a capitalist way, so the sales were an engagement with capitalism, even if the villagers themselves were not approaching the sales as capitalists. For the purposes of this chapter, therefore, we use the term ‘‘cash fisheries’’ to refer to the activities of coastal villagers’ engagement allowing that from their perspective the activity may or may not have been capitalism. Many coastal communities in PNG and Solomon Islands started having some contact with capitalist markets in the early 1800s with whaling boats, and then in the second half of the 1800s trader vessels were plying the coasts. Villagers have been selling marine and agricultural products from this time onwards. Prior to the introduction of capitalism, coastal resources had been utilized for subsistence and local trade. Community-based resource

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management based on precontact systems of resource access and use, however, altered greatly under colonization and exposure to capitalist markets (Foale, Cohen, Januchowski, Wenger, & Macintyre, 2011; Foale & Manele, 2004; Polunin, 1990). Communities’ capacity to manage their own resources varies from place to place, being more effective in villages where local leaders have strong social authority, and less effective in villages where there is high migration or social fragmentation. Villages in general are not socially cohesive units but are riven by various interest groups (Schoeffel, 1997). Furthermore, customary systems of resource management that have functioned well for subsistence fisheries have been less effective when the resources become commoditized (Foale, 2005, 2008a).Villagers with few other opportunities to earn cash often exploit their cash fisheries to the detriment of the resource.6 Even if community-based management was more effective at controlling the cash-earning activities of villagers, many key factors affecting coastal environments are beyond the control of villagers. This includes the transnational markets that products are sold to, as well as larger national and international processes affecting coastal environments and fisheries resources. The role of governments is thus key to improving coastal resource management, in regulating environmental impacts, collecting data on coastal environments, and working within intergovernmental efforts for conservation (such as the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Management Commission). NGOs and aid donors have also played a role through initiatives to try to improve conservation, and through funding livelihoods projects to provide coastal and island villagers with incentives to promote conservation (e.g., the Coral Triangle Initiative). Unfortunately, these efforts have also thus far failed to institute effective, systematic, long-term management of coastal resources in both countries (Kinch, 2010). The supply chains taking marine resources from the commodityproducing periphery to the metropolitan core of shops and restaurants in Asia and beyond illuminates the nature of contemporary capitalism as it manifests in those locations, and the political economy of relations between the various players along the chain. Much could be learned also by going more deeply into the local and exploring the role of these cash fisheries in village economies and cultures. Our main focus in this chapter, however, is the forms of coastal fishery interventions that have been supported by government and donor projects. The importance of the nonprojectsupported fisheries for sharks fin, sea cucumber and shells for the purposes of this chapter is to lay groundwork for understanding project-supported fisheries. First, most funded fisheries projects have ‘‘failed’’ in one way or

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another, so it is easy to fall into thinking that coastal villagers in Solomon Islands and PNG are simply unable to engage effectively with capitalism. The nonsupported fisheries show to the contrary that villagers are able to conduct ongoing cash-earning activities, selling commodities in markets. Second, the experiences of the shark fin, shell and sea cucumber fisheries highlight the necessity of effective resource management for sustainability in coastal fisheries.

COASTAL FISHERIES DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS While some of the above mentioned fisheries for dry products have been going on for over a century, very few coastal villagers have supplied fresh chilled or frozen commercial food fish markets in any ongoing way. It has been widely assumed by the public, government and aid donors that it should be profitable to catch fish in rural areas and transport them chilled or frozen for sale in urban areas, or to export them (Foale, 2008b; Gillett, 2010a; Lindley, 2007; Rural Fishering Enterprises Project (RFEP), 2007). From the 1970s, governments and aid donors started projects to provide infrastructure, equipment and/or training for rural fishers to kick-start commercial food fisheries. Most of these activities however, collapsed soon after the withdrawal of support from government or the funding agencies. The types of support given in the projects have also changed somewhat over the decades, partly due to lessons learned from prior projects, and partly in response to changing policy directions in aid, particularly the shift in emphasis from government provision of extension services to a focus on enabling private sector-driven development through partnerships with village fishers and established fisheries businesses (Barclay & Cartwright, 2007). Considering all the investment, why have cash-earning food fisheries not taken off in most rural coastal and island areas in PNG and the Solomon Islands to date? The main reason would appear to be that such fisheries are usually not profitable without high external inputs. Unlike high-value, easyto-store-and-transport shells and dried marine products, fresh, chilled and frozen fish are low value to weight and are tricky to store and transport in good condition. The costs and difficulties involved in getting fish from rural areas out to markets, and getting fuel and mechanical repairs into rural coastal areas, usually outweigh the prices fetched by the fish. When the project funding stops, therefore, the fisheries stop soon after (Brewer, 2007; Gillett, 2010a; Lindley, 2003, 2007; RFEP, 2007).

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The fishery center model has for several decades been seen by donors as an appropriate template for projects in the Pacific Islands region (Lindley, 2003). A fisheries center consists of a small building and staff providing services to support coastal fisheries. The kinds of services they usually offer include sales of ice and fuel, buying fish from fishers, and selling fish to villagers. Gillett (2010b) estimates that approximately 150 rural fisheries centers had been established across the Pacific Islands Region during the 1970s–1990s, with funding still continuing for some of these. The trajectories taken by fisheries center projects demonstrate a mix of local, national, and international socioeconomic and political influences, interacting with biological factors, that make up local instances of capitalism. Revealing these instances of capitalism in this way helps show where coastal villagers have been able to get some of what they want from capitalism, and where they have not, as well as why.

Solomon Islands: Rural Fisheries Center Projects In Solomon Islands, 31 fish landing and marketing centers have been set up since the 1980s by various organizations, including government agencies from Japan, Australia, the European Union (EU), and Solomon Islands itself, and an international conservation NGO. One of the major projects that previously funded rural fisheries centers in Solomon Islands was the EU-funded Solomon Islands Rural Fishing Enterprises Project (RFEP), which had three phases, starting in 1989 and finally finishing in 2004. Initially the centers owned the infrastructure for production and paid local fishers who used them to catch fish. Toward the end of the project, centers adopted a loan scheme for fishers to buy their own boats, with the idea that fishers would have a greater incentive to fish (Lindley, 2003). RFEP centers also administered the buying and selling of fish, fuel supply, undertook banking, transport services and marketing to urban areas. The original fiberglass fishing boats utilized by the RFEP were built locally under the project, but could not carry enough fish, and later versions were redesigned. By 2003, none of the RFEP boats were operating due to a lack of maintenance and mechanical failures. The assumptions made in calculating the profitability of the boats included that fishers would do more than 100 trips a year, but fishers involved generally only did 60–70 trips a year. Reasons fishers did not do more trips included being busy with other farming activities or social obligations, and also factors such as mechanical

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breakdowns. Even after the project had been going for over ten years, the loan scheme for private ownership of vessels was based on too optimistic catch projections. Another complicating factor was the increase in fuel prices in the early 2000s, and mechanical breakdowns in many of the fisheries centers. Mechanical failure is a difficult problem in rural areas, as new parts have to come in from town or overseas. Consequently, boats or refrigeration equipment may lay idle for weeks or months waiting for repairs. Overall, the fishers did not manage to repay their loans and the boats were all repossessed (Lindley, 2007). Getting the fish from the rural centers to urban markets proved to be an intractable logistical problem for the RFEP. Due to the geographic spread and small population of Solomon Islands, shipping is infrequent and sometimes irregular (see Brewer, 2007). In recognition of this, the RFEP trailed using a fish collection vessel, but the large areas needing to be covered meant that the collection vessel became a substantial cost to the project (Lindley, 2003, 2007). It was also hoped export markets would help make the RFEP centers profitable (Russel & Buga, 2004). Meeting the food safety standards for Australian markets however was a major problem, which was not helped by the high costs, limited space and general unreliability of airfreight out of Solomon Islands. The low volumes and irregular supply of fish from smallscale Solomon Islands production could not compete against product from industrial-scale operations in Australia and New Zealand (personal communication, Patrick Purcell [who managed a Fisheries Cooperative project in Gizo from 1991–1998]; Lindley, 2003, 2007). Another aspect of the RFEP that did not work according to plan was that by the end of Phase II, the RFEP centers were to be handed over to local organizations, such as fisher groups and provincial government agencies. These organizations had no track record of managing commercial ventures, and in light of the profitability issues, all attempts to handover quickly floundered (Lindley, 2003). The RFEP also suffered from business environment problems during 2000–2003, when the Solomon Islands was gripped by social and political upheaval. Of the various activities undertaken under the RFEP, one was considered by subsequent evaluations of the project to be worth continuing – that of icemaking in rural fisheries centers. Ice-making was not commercially selfsustaining, the maintenance of ice-making equipment had to be supplemented by donor funding. But the costs and difficulties of this level of support were found to be small relative to the very significant level of commercial fishing it generated. Ice is the key to being able to get fresh fish to market at a reasonable

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level of quality. In 2007, it was estimated that more than SBD 5.5 million worth of fish annually was supplied to the central market in Honiara (Lindley, 2007). Regional Fisheries Center, such as Gizo in Western Province, and Auki in Malaita Province supplied ice to fishers in their area who in turn brought fish to sell in these regional population centers. The single input of ice enabled these fishers to independently engage with markets in much the same way as they have engaged with markets for sharks fin, sea cucumber and shells since contact with outsiders began in the 1800s. In 2007, 11 of the 31 centers that had been built around the country since the 1970s had been selling ice for 20 or more years (Lindley, 2007). Indications that the socioeconomic benefits of the cash-generation enabled by ice-making outweigh the financial costs of maintaining icemaking equipment has been used to argue that ice production should be provided as a public service (Gillett, 2010b; Lindley, 2007). If reliable ice production is maintained in rural areas that have good access to markets so that food fisheries can be profitable, however, it is more than probable that these same fisheries are likely to run into the sustainability problems that have bedeviled the sea cucumber and trochus fisheries (Gillett, 2010a). In parts of Solomon Islands where rural finfish could be harvested for sale, overfishing has occurred (Foale, 2006, 2008b). Without sound resource management systems in place, enabling commercial food fishing in rural areas may spread overfishing problems from urban areas to areas surrounding rural fisheries centers. The cash fisheries involved in these types of projects that only run for the period of funding then cease, therefore, may not be significantly affected by biological limitations, because the resources are not pushed to the point of depletion. Where the cash fisheries are supported long term, or are taken up independent of support, however, they run into the problem capitalism causes worldwide; environmental damage. The nonhuman element is thus central to considering why particular instances of capitalism unfold as they do, and whether people are able to make use of it to achieve their goals. Case Study: Rural Fisheries Centers (RFCs) at Kia, Isabel Province The Bahana RFC at Kia was originally constructed in 1987 with Australian government funding, and was revamped in 1993 with support from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as part of a community incentive program centered around the Arnavon Islands conservation program. The Bahana RFC was again rehabilitated as part of the EU’s RFEP project (1994–1998), but did not operate during this period due to technical problems with its generator (Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development

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(MPGRD), 1999). In June 2001, a new generator was installed and production started, with 20,880 kg of fish and crayfish being purchased by the center in its first year of operations alone (Russell & Buga, 2004). Production dropped, however, in 2002, when the transport of fish from Isabel Province to market in Honiara was disrupted. This disruption was due to concerns for passenger safety as eskies (insulated cold boxes) were blocking passageways on deck. The lack of shipping greatly impacted production as there were no alternatives for shipping seafood to market in Honiara. As an alternative fishery, the RFC started buying trochus shells, which could be stored until transport to Honiara was available. In 2002–2003, 3,250 kg of trochus was bought by the Bahana RFC. The following year only 1,268 kg was bought. This was possibly due to a decline in the resource because of increased dependency on it for income, or because other marine resources buyers in Kia were offering better prices than the RFC. In mid-2003, the policy of not allowing eskies on the MV Isabella was changed, with six eskies now allowed each week (Russell & Buga, 2004).This volume of eskies amounted to around 30 mt of seafood per year. The Bahana RFC was originally set up with the assumption that it would have a through-put of approximately 50 mt per year (Preston, 1996). Furthermore, shipping routes were later changed, on alternate trips the vessel came not to Kia, but to Babahairo on the other side of the peninsula. The extra leg of travel added to transport costs. In addition to problems getting fish to market, the Kia fishers suffered problems with equipment failure, unreliable supplies of fuel, and in being paid on time due to the station often not having enough cash on hand. For these reasons, none of the fishers for this RFC took up any of the loans made available by the RFEP, but preferred the better money they could make from diving for sea cucumbers (Kinch, 2004). The catch rates under the RFEP in 2004 were significantly lower than those recorded in an evaluation of the TNC project in 1996 (Preston, 1996), but it seems likely the lower catch rate was caused by the problems noted above, rather than by stock depletion (Kinch, 2004). The social impact study associated with the RFEP project found communities with fisheries centers had more children attending school; better health indicators; improved lighting and improved communications (summary of evaluations from Lindley, 2003, 2007). Preston (1996) determined average net earnings per trip (after paying expenditures, such as fuel, but not including depreciation or maintenance costs) gave a per-person income of between SBD 10–20 per day, which was considerably higher than the average basic rural wage in the mid-1990s. Between 1993 and 1996, the

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number of households receiving some of their income from fishing rose from 58% to 83% (Lindley, 2003, 2007).

PNG: Rural Coastal Fisheries Development Program Like Solomon Islands, PNG has also had many rural fisheries development programs implemented since the 1970s to the late 1990s. These include: the Coastal Fisheries Development Programs in the Gulf and Milne Bay Provinces which ran for almost 20 years and were supported by a series of donors (ANZDEC, 1995); the MOMASE (Morobe-Madang-Sepik) Coastal Fisheries Development Project (MCFDP) which ran for 10 years was funded by the German Development Corporation (Hermes & Jarchau, 1993; Jarchau, 1995; Pfuhl, 1991); and numerous smaller UNDP-funded fisheries projects (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 1989). As an example to show the magnitude of this investment, one coastal fisheries project conducted from 2003–2007 cost USD 9.5 million, of which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) provided two thirds and the PNG National Fisheries Authority provided one third. Despite large investments over many years, these efforts did not stimulate the development of ongoing and substantial village commercial fisheries. In the early 2000s, the EU Rural Coastal Fisheries Development Program (RCFDP) was implemented in several Provinces (Madang, New Ireland and Morobe Provinces initially and later in the Central Province) around PNG, with the purpose of targeting deep-water snapper. This project aimed to build in lessons learned from the previous decades of coastal fisheries development projects, and was based on the premise that the appropriate role of governments in fisheries development was to provide a framework for the private sector to engage in fisheries production, transportation, marketing, and service and supply industries for fisheries, rather than for governments/donors to do these things. Because most of the recipients of the project did not have a track record in running commercial businesses, the project built in a scheme by which the recipients would be teamed up with established private sector partners (Motupore Island Research Center [MIRC], 2006; personal communication, Sean Marriot who managed the RCFDP). Fishers were supposed to market all of their catch through their private sector partner, who was also to provide fuel and ice, and cash advances for wages and other costs. The private sector partners were also

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responsible for extracting cash from the sale of fish and making the monthly loan repayments for the beneficiaries (Kinch, 2005). The RCFDP provided: (1) loans for fishing vessels; (2) fishing equipment; (3) training for fisher groups in fish handling for quality and food safety, and in export marketing; and (4) training for Provincial fisheries officers and fishing groups in resource use and planning involving monitoring and assessment of production data (MIRC, 2006). The vessel loans were interest free and had to be repaid within a three-year period. Groups who defaulted on loan repayments had vessels repossessed and the vessels were then given by the project to another group meeting the project selection criteria (Kinch, 2005). In Madang, the RCFDP project was used to provide eight 23 ft fiberglass dinghies which proved to be inappropriate as they did not have the required fuel efficiency, and were not suitable for deep water snapper fishing in the Madang environment.7 The fuel efficiencies of the vessels in the context of high fuel costs meant fisher groups were restricted to a small range area, with subsequent depletion in fish stocks, notably the larger snappers, and long-lived cod and grouper species (Kinch, 2005; Kinch et al., 2005). The climate around Madang was problematic also as the weather made snapper fishing impossible for about six months of the year (Kinch, 2005; Sullivan, Rainbubu, Keleba, Wenda, & Dominic, 2004). Some groups that were given vessels were also not experienced fishers (Kinch, 2005). All of this affected the ability of fisher groups to fish profitably and their ability to repay their vessel loans (MIRC, 2006), especially when fuel costs rose steeply during the project period and fish buying prices remained the same, with profit margins greatly reduced (Kinch, 2005; MIRC, 2006; Sullivan et al., 2004). As a way to work around this, fishers often chose to sell their fish in local markets, where they could get higher prices and did not have to expend more on fuel taking fish all the way back to the private sector partner as required by the project (Sullivan et al., 2004). There were also other problems with the private sector partner system, with none of the private sector partners facilitating the project as envisaged in the project design. In Madang, the first private sector partner faltered and left the country. Another private sector partner was involved in tuna catching and canning and this primary concern detracted from its commitment to the project. A third partner moved away from the province (MIRC, 2006). Sometimes partners refused to sell ice and fuel when fishers did not land fish back to them, or changed their preference for what kind of fish they wanted to buy but failed to communicate this to the fisher groups (MIRC, 2006; Sullivan et al., 2004).

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By early 2005 all but two vessels were defaulting on their loans. Three had already been repossessed and redistributed (Kinch, 2005). By 2006 only three groups were still fishing, and none of these were targeting deep-water snapper (MIRC, 2006). No doubt Papua New Guineans involved in the RCFDP, like Solomon Islanders involved in RFEP and similar projects, have garnered skills and equipment from the project and will continue to use these in their economic activities, but this outcome could have been achieved with much less investment.

Local Approaches to Cash-Earning Activities Part of the profitability problem in the projects discussed previously lies in unrealistic projections written into projects of the cash incomes fishers would generate from their involvement in these projects. Some targets were definitely unrealistic, but also did not take into enough account the particular ways rural people in PNG and the Solomon Islands generally approach cashearning activities, including fishing. Reviews of fisheries centers in the Pacific Islands Region have found that a lack of profitability was usually in part due to more modest catches than planned by project designers, caused by competing agricultural production activities and social obligations (Carrier, 1988; Gillett, 2010b; Kinch, 2008; Kinch et al., 2005; MIRC, 2006). One of the founding assumptions of the RCFDP in PNG was that coastal communities in Madang were primarily fishing people, and that vessel recipients would spend all their working time fishing and sell their whole catch through their private sector partner. Recipients did not, however, fish full time, nor sell their whole catch to the partner. The prevalent economic pattern in the area is that households balance multiple (sometimes competing) sources of income over a yearly period. People make choices among these various options concerning where to put their time and labor, often depending on the relative profitability of the activities. Even if people had fished full time, this would not have improved the financial viability of the project. In fact, because of the seasonality of fishing in Madang, the type of fishing supported by the RCFDP was not possible from June-September, so owning a fishing vessel with loan repayments under the RCFDP was only viable with other sources of income supplementing fishing (Kinch, 2005; Sullivan et al., 2004).8 This was also the case with another fishing vessel loan scheme in PNG, for ‘‘pump boats’’ in Lae (Kinch, 2008).

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In the Solomon Islands people also generally fish only in conjunction with other activities, such as copra production or running a small store.9 One reason for this is that there are long periods of bad weather when it is not possible to fish but also ‘‘nobody would commit themselves into an occupation full time which might just cease the next month due to the breakdown of equipment over which they have no control, and which may stay broken for several months’’ (Lindley, 2007, p. 6). Historian Judith Bennett (1987) found that this pattern of engaging in several diverse economic activities rather than committing to any one activity full time has been economically effective and has been the predominant economic strategy for rural households in Solomon Islands since first contact with Europeans and Asians. Prices for tropical commodities in global markets are often volatile, there is no government-funded welfare safety-net and most donor-funded services cannot be relied upon in the medium to long term. The assumption that recipients will fish full time for cash was thus one mismatch between donor expectations and local approaches to capitalism. A related mismatched expectation was about the way people conceive of and use fishing vessels. Projects such as the RFEP and RCFDP conceived of a vessel as primarily used for fishing, having it in constant use for that purpose, and also of connecting the income from the sales of fish to costs of repairs and replacement of equipment and eventually the vessel. Considering the marginal profitability of rural coastal fishing, covering these costs with fish sales may in any case be unviable, but it is also not the way things are done. In Solomon Islands, the only cost usually deducted from the fish price was fuel, after that the money from fish sales was distributed among the people who did the fishing. The vessel, motor and other equipment are bought, repaired and replaced from savings, or development projects (Lindley, 2007; personal communication, Cletus Pita of World Fish & Patrick Purcell, both in Gizo, July 2008). In general, fishers do not just use their boats for fishing alone, but rather for multiple activities, some of which are cash-earning transport activities that can help with the economics of running the vessel (Lindley, 2003). The majority of small business efforts in PNG have been affected by a variety of cultural expectations, including social pressure on the would-be entrepreneur to be seen to be generous. Generosity is typically achieved by redistributing accumulated wealth among kin and/or the community. This impedes the accumulation and maintenance of capital, in the form of assets or cash (see discussion on redistribution vs. accumulation in relation to capitalism in other chapters in this volume by Bainton and Macintyre; Boyd; Yang; Sharp). One study of a fish freezer project in Manus in the late

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1970s found that benefits from the project were carefully and extensively distributed among all people contributing to the project, and that strong norms against anyone accruing more material benefits than anyone else acted as a disincentive for people to try to accumulate wealth, with concomitant effects on capitalist development (Carrier, 1988). The accumulation of money in PNG and Solomon Islands is often cyclical in nature, following forms of cooperation within kin groups. Usually, high levels of cooperation are required, planned for and achieved, for a single event or goal, such as a feast or church offering. For these communal efforts, or for smaller family enterprises, a business or other income generating activity is often initiated to achieve a set goal, then is allowed to decline. For many rural people, therefore, business is not an end in itself, that is, it is not a long-term asset, but rather a means to fulfill a short-term goal (Brooks, 1996; Kinch, 2007). Rural people living on their land are able to treat business in this way because they do not depend for their survival on the long-term success of their business; the environment still has the capacity to provide food and shelter.10 The flexibility to engage and disengage with cash earning activities according to circumstance is thus predicated on customary tenure. Having the capacity to live off the land also influences the calculations people make about effort in a cash-earning enterprise relative to the cash returns and the value they place on those returns. Some oil palm producers in PNG have chosen not to put in extra effort that would result in larger incomes, because they felt the drop in quality of life that would occur from putting in that extra effort was not worth it (Koczberski, Curry, Warku, & Kwam, 2006). The motivation to be involved in development is not just about material needs and wants, but is also about prestige. George Curry (1999) has noted that the ownership of a trade store in PNG may be a source of continuing prestige as a manifestation of the modern cash economy, even if the shop itself has closed down for financial reasons. Similarly, the boats and engines in fisheries development are a source of prestige for the group managing them, even if only for a short time and irrespective of whether the business aspect of the project fails. Social obligations around important customary events also influence the operation of businesses. For example, a man leading one of the recipient groups in the RCFDP project stopped selling fish to the private sector partner for some months when one of his children died. During this time he continued to draw down on fuel and ice from the partner because he was fishing for cash to use for funerary costs and other social obligations related to his child’s death (Kinch, 2005). This recipient thus ‘‘failed’’ according to

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the project criteria, although from his perspective the project may well have helped him fulfill his required social obligations. Local cultures and their influences on the ways people engage with capitalism, however, are only part of the picture of why villagers, governments and aid donors continue to invest in rural coastal fisheries projects despite ample evidence that the project aims are likely to be unfulfilled. Indeed, to look only at local cultures for the reasons for project ‘‘failures’’ may feed the idea that there is some problem with local cultures that needs to be fixed for local people to be able to enjoy the fruits of modernity.11 People engage with capitalism not only from within their local cultures, but also from within their national and global contexts. And indeed, engaging with capitalism is not a one-way process in which all the variables lie on the local side of the people doing the engaging, with capitalism being some kind of normal universal constant. Capitalism is a multifaceted phenomenon, and the particular strands that are salient in any given locality are part of the variability of the local. In other words, the types of influences from outside cannot be assumed but must also be investigated (Paulson & Gezon, 2005). For the purposes of this argument we discuss national and transnational influences on rural fisheries together as aspects of a kind of capitalism that arises in aid projects.

Project Capitalism Development projects have a political economic meaning derived from histories of colonialism, decolonization, independent government, and decades of aid. This kind of engagement with capitalism through development projects for food fisheries has been quite different to the engagement in markets for sea cucumbers, sharks fins and shells. Engaging with capitalism through a ‘‘development project’’ is a very particular activity. The RFEP (Solomon Islands) and RCFDP (PNG) projects are representative of a trend since the 1990s by many of the large aid donors that development should be driven by the private sector, and that aid projects should therefore aim to support the emergence of commercially viable enterprises. This is in part because an earlier generation of fisheries development projects implemented by governments failed (Barclay & Cartwright, 2007). But it is also related to the rise to prominence of neoliberalism in policy circles, especially among the Western powers and in international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (Mosse & Lewis, 2005). It has also been part of the post Cold War

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‘‘Washington Consensus’’ norms about ways of encouraging economic and political development internationally.12 It is interesting that donors who are on the one hand concerned that projects facilitate the emergence of ongoing commercially viable businesses have, on the other hand, included key elements in their fisheries development projects that prevent profitability. We have highlighted several of these points for the RCFDP and RFEP already, but to underline the point it is worth expanding on two features of the RFEP. Phase II of RFEP included a collection vessel to bring fish to market. Over the decades five such vessels have been funded by donors from Japan, New Zealand, and United Kingdom for Solomon Islands coastal fisheries. For all of them, the costs involved in covering large areas were not met by the sale price of the fish. The same was found in PNG and Vanuatu. Despite all this evidence, the RFEP Phase III included a fish collection vessel, which detracted again from the project’s commercial viability (Lindley, 2003). The RFEP Phase II also included a financial analysis of operating a fisheries center and showed clearly that if depreciation, wages and administration costs were taken into account, the fisheries centers would not cover their costs (RFEP, 2007). Experiences with rural fisheries centers elsewhere in the Pacific also echo this finding. Yet Phase III of the project included an objective for the centers to be operating on a self-funded basis for at least three years after the end of the project (Lindley, 2003). It is not just donors who have failed to grasp the commercial realities of coastal fisheries. Pacific Island governments and recipient communities are active (if subordinate) participants in aid projects, and the message about the lack of profitability of fresh food fisheries from most rural locations seems not to have penetrated here either. Pacific Island governments and recipient communities generally continue to believe that rural fisheries centers can be profitable, or at least cover their costs, despite several decades experience showing that most, if not all, have cost money to run (Gillett, 2010b). Why do aid donors and recipient countries persist with such projects even after ample demonstration of project failure and flaws? Many authors over the years have grappled with this question about the aid industry (for example, Easterly, 2007; Ferguson, 1990; Mosse & Lewis, 2005). For fisheries projects in the Pacific in particular, several explanations have been suggested. One review found that international agencies and government people operating coastal fisheries projects rarely had any business experience as such, but rather tended to have backgrounds in development bureaucracy and biology-based fisheries management respectively (Gillett, 2010b). Another problem is that the business development objectives of aid donors

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can come into direct conflict with the poverty alleviation objectives of those same aid donors. Poverty alleviation and related concerns are articulated in the Millennium Development Goal approach to development, which coexists with the Washington Consensus as a key normative framework for development assistance for many of the main donors, including the EU. Fisheries centers have sometimes been located where there is most need for livelihoods support, but since proximity to markets is a key factor for commercial viability, these dual aims may cancel each other out. Furthermore, aid donors and recipient fisheries departments have reasons for wanting projects to go ahead. The self-interest of donor states or the internal concerns of their development agencies may drive projects. Aid flows have made up a significant proportion of government revenues for PNG in the past, and still do for Solomon Islands, so it is unlikely recipient governments will reject aid for not meeting the donor’s criteria. Recipient government officials’ political and pecuniary interests may also be at play. When decision makers determine that a project will go ahead even if it is not commercially viable, but donor policies stipulate projects can only go ahead if they are commercially viable, clearly there is an incentive to inflate the likely financial returns to facilitate the release of funds. Such projects may be beneficial for some, even if they are not profitable for the stated beneficiaries. One review of the RFEP found that donors, fisheries department officials and the politicians whose constituencies receive projects all acquiesced with the system by which unreachable financial returns are knowingly built into projects (Lindley, 2007). The role of national political culture in this phenomenon was explained in an analysis of a fish freezer project in Manus, PNG (Carrier, 1988). Politicians need to bring visible development projects, such as fish freezers, to their constituencies to fulfill expectations of development and to be reelected. Voters continue to demand such projects even though they are usually disappointed in the outcomes because projects require ongoing systems of government regulation and support to work well. Mundane services, however, do not have the same political cachet, and are not widely understood as being as important to development as the visible project. There is thus not the same political incentive to provide such services (Carrier, 1988), and they continue not to be provided. National political contexts also affect the operation of projects in other ways. Projects such as the RFEP and RCFDP were predicated on the assumption that people would take the project and run with it independently. This assumption runs counter to the fact that donor activities and national political processes over the decades have given rise to a dependent and clientelistic approach to projects. In both PNG and the Solomon

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Islands, political culture is very much organized along patron-client lines.13 The roots of this may be in indigenous authority systems, but no doubt the nature of colonial government, post-Independence government and the ways the aid industry has functioned in these countries have entrenched the patron-client approach to the distribution of goods in society. Haque (2012) has argued that many of the commonly identified problems with development in Solomon Islands are the result of ‘‘perverse material incentives prevailing under existing policy and institutional settings’’ (p. 1). Cox (2009) has pointed out that patron-client relations are the prism through which Solomon Islanders view government and the development projects that form such a large part of Solomon Islands government. The result is that people approach projects as supplicants, not as equal and independent actors. Bennett (2002) has described this historical process in Solomon Islands as giving rise to ‘‘mentalities of dependency’’ with regard to government and donor-funded projects. The patron-client approach has clearly influenced the ways people have related to fisheries projects in Solomon Islands. An institutional analysis of the Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Management found patronage was a strong feature of the organizational culture (Wilson, 2007). An evaluation of the RFEP project found that the project itself had over time encouraged a dependent approach to the project on the part of recipients. That is, in Phase I and II the RFEP, fishers did not have to maintain their boats and fishing equipment, the project did that for them through the centers (RFEP, 2007). The history of the project itself, as well as the wider context of project funding and government, therefore contributed to fishers relating to the project in a dependent and clientelistic fashion. The mistaken assumption that an independent entrepreneurial approach would be taken in the projects was just one of problems that arose from misunderstandings of how the projects would work in local/national contexts. Both the Solomon Islands and PNG rural projects analysed here suffered from a lack of care in political positioning, meaning that provincial government stakeholders, and even recipients themselves blocked parts of the projects (Kinch, 2010; Lindley, 2003). In Solomon Islands rural stakeholders were not engaged in the project design phase but were asked to comment on the project after it had already been decided on (Lindley, 2003). Communities were treated as groups with homogeneous interests, whereas in fact there were significant divisions within communities. Groups who felt their interests were not being furthered by the project thus caused problems with ‘‘political interference’’ and ‘‘lack of co-operation’’ (Lindley, 2003, p. 6).

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Another misunderstanding of how projects would be received was related to the norm that development should be driven by the private sector. As mentioned earlier, in international development circles since the 1990s, capitalist entrepreneurs have come to be seen in a very positive light as the most appropriate drivers of economic development. In PNG, the national level of fisheries administration was thoroughly renovated in the 1990s to form the National Fisheries Authority (NFA). NFA staff are better versed in international discourses about private-sector driven development. NFA, however, is an exception. Fisheries bureaucrats elsewhere in the Pacific, including provincial government fisheries bureaucrats in PNG, do not necessarily share a positive view of capitalist entrepreneurs. For example, in a Fijian fisheries center project government officials represented ‘‘middle men’’ not as a dynamic part of a private sector that enables fisheries producers to get their fish to market, but as a parasitic problem to be ‘‘done away with’’ by government-run fishing centers (as quoted in Gillett, 2010b). In PNG, Provincial Fisheries Officers, who have always been the administrators and managers of fisheries projects, regarded the private sector with ‘‘deep suspicion’’ (MIRC, 2006) and did not take on the role of facilitators of private business development as envisaged in the RCFDP project design (Kinch, 2010). In sum, rural fisheries development projects in Solomon Islands and PNG have constituted a very particular type of capitalism. In fact, it could be argued that the projects were not capitalist at all, as the recipients did not approach their activities within the projects in a noticeably capitalist manner and donors and recipient governments did not orient their handling of the projects to optimise capitalist approaches. However, the projects may be considered capitalist in different ways. One is that they were about using market sales as the way to generate wealth. Even if fishers did not approach their activities in a capitalist way, the markets they participated in were arguably capitalist. More significantly, the projects were underpinned by a certain vision of economic development driven by private sector entrepreneurialism. The normative thrust of these projects is that fisheries development should be capitalist. These projects failed because they were based on the assumption that the activities would be capitalist, when so many influencing factors discouraged a capitalist approach. Moreover, even if all players had approached the activities in a more capitalist manner, and government had been more prepared to support the activities, the projects still would have failed because the activities were not profitable. And even if the activities could be rendered more profitable they would most probably run into biological sustainability problems.

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CONCLUSION Donor-funded projects are a prominent part of the development landscape in Solomon Islands and PNG. The activities that these projects have attempted to develop however, have not been commercially viable, because they have not taken into sufficient account the locally specific aspects of capitalism. By locally specific aspects of capitalism we do not just mean village-level cultural approaches to market activities. Examples given in this chapter show that local capitalism is shaped by a combination of villagelevel, national-level and transnational-level human influences in interaction with ecology. Projects have been stymied by assuming a full time work ethic (village–level), by ignoring the patron-client nature of government and projects in PNG and Solomon Islands (national-level), and through the counterproductive approaches donor agencies themselves may bring to projects (transnational-level). If these problems were fixed and the projects rendered more commercially sustainable then, like the longer-running fisheries for sharks fin, sea cucumber and shells, biological sustainability would become an issue. Sustainability is key for Solomon Islanders and Papua New Guineans to be able to pursue their development aspirations through their coastal resources. Although there are various ways development may be pursued through coastal resources, selling fisheries products in markets is the most easily accessible and widely accepted model. Fisheries development projects as they have been conceived since the 1970s have not effectively facilitated sustainable cash fisheries, in a commercial or environmental sense. Increasingly people working in fisheries development recognize this, and especially in the last decade have attempted to rectify the situation, but have still met with limited success. Determining how future projects will be shaped by the particular configurations of village-, national-, and transnational-level influences, as well as ecological factors, and considering the kind of capitalism the project hopes to develop, would better facilitate long-term commercial viability while maintaining social cohesion, cultural integrity and resource sustainability.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to participants in sessions at the 2011 (Hawai’i) and 2012 (Portland Oregon) annual meetings of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania. In particular thanks to insightful contributions from Joeli Veitayaki,

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George Curry, and Nancy Sullivan. Thanks also to Fiona McCormack and Simon Foale for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the chapter.

NOTES 1. For critical discussions of the meanings of development in various Pacific Island countries (see Barclay, 2008; Gegeo, 1998; Hanlon (1998); Robbins & Wardlow, 2005; Schoeffel, 1997; Sillitoe, 1998). 2. There are many critiques against using market mechanisms to try to protect the environment (see, e.g., Thematic Social Forum, 2012; Sullivan, 2010). One is that these solutions involve an intensification of capitalism, and since capitalism is the root cause of the problems, solutions should instead focus on deintensifying capitalism and use noncapitalist modes to address the problems. Another is that these solutions continue to deny the existence of diverse systems of knowledge and multiple social and economic systems. 3. The 2000 census indicated 85 per cent of the population lived in rural areas (Hanson, Allen, Bourke, & McCarthy, 2001). This is likely to have reduced with urban drift since then, but the 2010 census figures were not available at the time of writing. 4. In this chapter we follow Solomon Islanders’ lead in (generally) referring to their country with no preceding ‘‘the.’’ 5. Since there is no systematic collection of data on subsistence catches in either country these estimates are extrapolations based on previous studies. For further details see Gillett (2009, pp. 128–29, 163–64). 6. The overexploitation of cash fisheries by coastal villagers is frequently noted by people working on coastal fisheries in the region. For example, it was raised by people working at the WorldFish Centre station at Gizo in discussions with Barclay in July 2008. 7. More appropriate vessels were provided for the project in New Ireland, Morobe and Central Provinces, but there were problems with delays and quality problems in construction (MIRC, 2006). 8. Problems from assuming fishers will work full time when many small scale fishers fish part time also arise in other countries, see the chapter by McCormack (2013). 9. The main people in Solomon Islands who fish full time are landless ‘‘Fishing Village’’ communities in areas around Honiara and Gizo, who do not have the option of agriculture, and for whom ice and markets are accessible (Lindley, 2007). 10. Particularly in PNG the proportion of people able to live off their land is already changing with urbanization. With population growth the proportion of people relying on cash for their survival will increase in future. 11. This idea took root in the colonial era, but continued through modernization theory, and survives in some discourses of development (Sachs, 1997). 12. This is not to say all donors have followed the same pattern. Japan, for example, has focused on subsistence fishing rather than commercial fishing for much of its aid program (Barclay & Cartwright, 2007). 13. Scott (1972) used this model to explain Southeast Asian politics.

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Hermes, R., & Jarchau, P. (1993). Fisheries extension: Problem areas and new approaches. Working Paper, No. 10. Report prepared for the Momase Coastal fisheries development project, Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet. London: Earthscan. Jarchau, P. (1995). Recommendations for the development of Artisanal fisheries in Papua New Guinea based on findings and achievements of the MCFDP. Working Paper, No. 17. Report prepared for the Momase Coastal Fisheries Development Project, Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Juncker, M., Robert, M., & Clua, E. (2006). Coastal shark fisheries in the Pacific: A brief overview of current knowledge. Noumea: Coral Reef Initiatives for the South Pacific. Retrieved from http://www.crisponline.net/Workshops/tabid/65/Default.aspx Kinch, J. (1999). Economics and environment in Island Melanesia: A general overview of resource use and livelihoods on Brooker Island in the Calvados Chain of the Louisiade Archipelago, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. Report prepared for Conservation International, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Kinch, J. (2002). Giant clams: Their status and trade in the milne bay province, Papua New Guinea. Traffic Bulletin, 19(2), 67–75. Retrieved from http://www.traffic.org/bulletin/ Nov2002/giant_clam.pdf Kinch, J. (2003). Marine Mollusc use among the women of Brooker Island, Louisiade Archipelago, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. SPC Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin, 13, 5–14. Retrieved from http://www.spc.int/coastfish/News/WIF/ WIF13/Kinch.pdf Kinch, J. (2004). The status of commercial invertebrates and other Marine resources in the Santa Isabel province, the Solomon Islands. A Report prepared for the United Nations development program’s Pacific sustainable livelihoods program, Suva, Fiji; and the Isabel province development program, Buala, Santa Isabel Province, Solomon Islands. Retrieved from http://westernsolomons.uib.no/ Kinch, J. (2005). The socio-economics of an European Union – Rural coastal fisheries development program fisher group: Karkar Island, Madang province, Papua New Guinea. Motupore Island Research Centre, University of Papua New Guinea, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea. Kinch, J. (2007). Market linkages and business analysis for the Huon Gulf District, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Report prepared for the New Zealand Agency for International Development, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Kinch, J. (2008). Review of the fisheries credit scheme to date in Papua New Guinea. Report prepared for the forum fisheries agency, Honiara, the Solomon Islands; and the European Union’s DevFish Program, Noumea, New Caledonia. Kinch, J. (2010). Integrated coastal and marine resource management in Papua New Guinea: A review of lessons and best practices. Report prepared for the United Nations environment program, Nairobi, Kenya; and the Department of Environment and Conservation, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Kinch, J., Baine, M., Mungkaje, A., Dako, C., Bagi, T., & Aranka, M. (2005). Moving towards management: An analysis of the socio-economic conditions and catch data of the European Union’s rural coastal fisheries development program’s fisher groups, Madang province, Papua New Guinea. A report prepared for the European Union’s Rural Coastal Fisheries Development Program, Madang, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea.

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Kinch, J., Mesia, P., Kere, N., Manioli, J., & Bulehite, K. (2006). Socio-economic baseline assessment for the Eastern Marovo Lagoon, Western province, the Solomon Islands. IWP-Pacific Technical Report, No. 35. Apia: SPREP. Retrieved from http://sprep.org/ att/publication/000536_IWP_PTR35.pdf Kinch, J., Purcell, S., Uthicke, S., & Friedman, K. (2008a). Population status, fisheries and trade of sea cucumbers in the Western Pacific. In V. Toral-Granda, A. Lovatelli & M. Vasconcellos (Eds.), Sea cucumbers: A global review of fisheries and trade. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper, No. 516. (pp. 7–55). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0375e/i0375e00.htm Kinch, J., Purcell, S., Uthicke, S., & Friedman, K. (2008b). Papua New Guinea: A hot spot of sea cucumber fisheries in the Western Pacific. In V. Toral-Granda, A. Lovatelli & M. Vasconcellos (Eds.), Sea cucumbers: A global review of fisheries and trade. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper, No. 516 (pp. 57–77). Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0375e/i0375e00.htm Koczberski, G., Curry, G., Warku, J., & Kwam, C. (2006). Village-based Marine resource use and rural livelihoods: Kimbe Bay, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. TNC Pacific Islands Countries Report, No. 5. Report prepared for The Nature Conservancy, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Lack, M., & Meere, F. (2009). Pacific islands regional plan of action for sharks: Guidance for Pacific Island countries and territories on the conservation and management of sharks. Apia, Samoa: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program. Retrieved from http://www.sprep.org/att/publication/000853_RPOA_Sharks.pdf Lack, M., & Sant, G. (2009). Trends in global shark catch and recent developments in management. Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC International. Lindley, R. H. (2003). Mid term review of the rural fishing enterprise project phase III (No. 7.ACP.SOL.46). Funding from European Union, Solomon Islands Government, Honiara. Lindley, R. H. (2007). Interim report of the rural fisheries development specialist. NZAID Solomon Islands Marine Resources Organizational Strengthening (SIMROS) Project, Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Honiara. Lock, J. (1986). Effects of fishing pressure on the fish resources of the Port Moresby Barrier and Fishing Reefs. Fisheries Technical Report, No. 86-03. Port Moresby, PNG: Department of Primary Industries. MIRC (Motupore Island Research Centre). (2006). Deep-water snapper project, resource use planning and training program (SV 2004/17). Final Report, University of Papua New Guinea, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea. Mosse, D., & Lewis, D. (2005). The aid effect: Giving and governing in international development. London: Pluto Press. MPGRD (Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development). (1999). Constituency development profile and action plan: Hograno/Kia/Havulei. A report prepared for the Provincial Government development unit, Ministry of Provincial government and rural development, Honiara, the Solomon Islands. Nash, W., & Ramofafia, C. (2006). Recent developments with the sea cucumber fishery in Solomon Islands. SPC Beche-de-mer Information Bulletin, 23, 3–4. Retrieved from http://www.spc.int/DigitalLibrary/FAME/Collection/BDM NSOPNG (National Statistical Office of Papua New Guinea). (2004). Population and social statistics. Retrieved from http://www.spc.int/prism/country/pg/stats/Pop_Soc_%20 Stats/popsoc.htm

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OECD. (2009, October 29). Measuring and fostering well-being and progress: The OECD roadmap. Busan. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/0/44005046.pdf Opu, J. (2007). Shark finning: A major threat to PNG shark populations. Report prepared for the Humane Society of the United States, Human Society International. Pakoa, K. (2012). Communities in the Solomon Islands want effective enforcement of sea cucumber ban. SPC Fisheries Newsletter. 137. Retrieved from http://www.spc.int/ DigitalLibrary/FAME/Collection/FishNews Paulson, S., & Gezon, L. (Eds.). (2005). Political ecology across spaces, scales and social groups. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Pfuhl, A. (1991). Overall economic situation and development of coastal fishing. Report prepared for the Momase Coastal Fisheries Development Project, Lae, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Polanyi, K. (2001 [1944]). The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Polunin, N. (1990). Do traditional marine ‘‘reserves’’ conserve? A view of the Indonesian and New Guinean evidence. In K. Ruddle & R. Johannes (Eds.), Coping with global change, study no. 2, Traditional marine resource management in the Pacific Basin: An anthology (pp. 191–212). Jakarta, Indonesia: UNESCO/ROSTEA. Preston, G. (1996). Evaluation of TNC’s small-scale fisheries enterprise project. A Report prepared for The Nature Conservancy, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Ramohia, P. (2006). Fisheries resources: Commercially important macroinvertebrates. In A. Green, P. Lokani, W. Atu, P. Ramohia, P. Thomas & J. Almany (Eds.), Solomon Islands marine assessment: Technical report of survey conducted May 13 to June 17, 2004. The Nature Conservancy Pacific Island Countries Report No 1/06. RFEP (Rural Fishering Enterprises Project). (2007). A financial analysis of small scale fishing and fish marketing in Solomon Islands. Rural fishing enterprises project (No. ACP.SOL.20), Honiara, Solomon Islands. Rostow, W. W. (1960). The stages of economic growth: A non-communist manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, D., & Buga, B. (2004). Marketing unit: Final report. A report prepared for the Solomon Islands Government and the European Union’s Rural Fishing Enterprise Project, Phase 3, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Sachs, W. (Ed.). (1997). The development dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books. Sahlins, M. (1992). The economics of develop-man in the pacific. Res, 21, 13–25. Schoeffel, P. (1997). Myths of community management: Sustainability, the state and rural development in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. State Society and Governance in Melanesia Discussion Papers: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Retrieved from http://rspas.anu.edu.au/ melanesia/discussion.php Scott, J. C. (1972). Patron-client politics and political change in Southeast Asia. The American Political Science Review, 66(1), 91–113. Sillitoe, P. (1998). What know natives? Local knowledge in development. Social Anthropology, 6(2), 203–220. Skewes, T. (1990). Marine resources profile: Solomon Islands. A Report prepared for the Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara, the Solomon Islands. FFA Report: 90/61. Skewes, T., Kinch, J., Polon, P., Dennis, D., Seeto, P., Taranto, T., y Sarke, J. (2002). Research for the sustainable use of Beche-de-mer Resources in the Milne Bay Province,

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Papua New Guinea. CSIRO Division of Marine Research Final Report. Report prepared for the National Fisheries Authority, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J. P. (2009, September 14). Report of the measurement of economic performance and social progress. Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Paris. Retrieved from http://www.stiglitzsen-fitoussi.fr/en/index.htm Sullivan, S. (2010). Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service provider. Radical Anthropology, 3, 18–27. Sullivan, N., Rainbubu, J., Keleba, K., Wenda, Y., & Dominic, C. (2004). European union’s rural coastal fisheries development project baseline study follow-up rapid rural appraisal for madang. Nancy Sullivan Ltd and Associates, Madang, PNG. Swedberg, R. (1994). Markets as social structures. In N. J. Smelser & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Thematic Social Forum. (2012, June 10). Another future is possible. Texts drafted on the basis of the findings of the thematic groups of the thematic social forum. Retrieved from http:// rio20.net/en/iniciativas/another-future-is-possible UNDP (United Nations Development Program). (1989). Fishery sector review: Papua New Guinea. A report prepared for the United Nations Development Program, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. UNDP (United Nations Development Program). (2011). Country profiles and human development indicators. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/ Wilson, M. A. (2007). A fisheries sector development strategy for the Solomon Islands. NZAID Solomon Islands Marine Resources Organizational Strengthening [SIMROS] Project, Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Honiara.

‘‘MY LAND, MY WORK’’: BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND LARGESCALE MINING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA Nicholas A. Bainton and Martha Macintyre ABSTRACT Purpose – This chapter analyzes landowner business development and economic sustainability in the context of large-scale mining in Papua New Guinea with a focus on the Lihir gold mine. It pays particular attention to the social implications of success or failure of business development in mining contexts. Methodology/approach – This chapter is based upon ethnographic research and social impact monitoring studies conducted by the authors in Lihir between 1994 and 2012, as consultants and employees of the Lihir mining operation and as independent researchers. This chapter is also based upon broader research and consulting work undertaken by the authors at other mining locations throughout Papua New Guinea. The research is intended to explore the social changes generated by large-scale mining and related forms of business development, and the factors and strategies which constrain or enable landowners to get what they want from capitalism. Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 139–165 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033008

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Findings – Business development in resource extraction enclaves is structurally different from other nonresource development contexts and produces a more dependent and client-based approach to capitalism. In Lihir, research and ethnographic observations indicate that landowner business development is highly territorialized, which is captured by the landowner catch cry ‘‘My land, my work.’’ Ultimately, mining has provided significant economic opportunities for the local community, but these economic changes, especially through the distribution of minederived benefits and opportunities for business development, have involved processes that have divided people and entrenched inequalities. Practical implications – In Papua New Guinea, the close relationship between property ownership, landed interests, and capitalist engagement creates steep challenges for sustainable business development in resource enclaves. This research provides a strong foundation for exploring alternative strategies for economic development. Originality/value – Provides detailed insights into the social, economic, and political factors which influence sustainable business development in Papua New Guinean mining enclaves. Keywords: Business development; mining; dependency; sustainable development; Papua New Guinea; Lihir

INTRODUCTION James Ferguson’s study of the Zambian Copperbelt presents a grim view of the lives of miners, when mining – the industry that industrializes, urbanizes, and transforms a subsistence-based economy into a modern capitalist one – declines and ceases (Ferguson, 1999). Historically the situation is very different in Papua New Guinea (PNG), not only because of the ways that the workforce is recruited and organized, but also because of the ways that the constitution preserves customary rights over land. ‘‘Landowners’’ – the customary owners of the land and resources being developed – wield a great deal of influence over the daily operation of mining projects and the distribution of any related economic benefits. Their demands typically include large compensation packages and privileged access to employment, ‘‘spin-off ’’ businesses and contracts with the developer, such as the

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provision of labor and equipment hire, catering, and other mine-related services. Mining companies often represent these businesses as positive contributions to the national economy and as examples of their commitment to economic sustainability. There is no doubt too that many Papua New Guineans who benefit from employment or royalties or various forms of compensation believe that these benefits will contribute to their economic advancement. But many also believe that this might be achieved through the establishment of a business. Much has been written about the ways that Papua New Guineans have embraced the use of cash and capitalist enterprise. Entrepreneurial endeavors and various economic activities that have been introduced since the first colonizers arrived have been scrutinized by anthropologists for decades (Akin & Robbins, 1999; Epstein, 1968; Finney, 1987; Gewertz & Errington, 1999; Gregory, 1982; Salisbury, 1970; Strathern, 1971). In the main, anthropologists – even those such as Finney and Epstein who stressed the ways that Papua New Guineans held views about work, wealth, and entrepreneurship that were consonant with capitalism – have argued that in choosing to embrace capitalism, the social and cultural values attached to wealth accumulation, distribution, and consumption remained steadfastly ‘‘Melanesian.’’ In some ways this chapter will continue that tradition as we discuss the success and failure of local business development around the Lihir gold mine in PNG. But we are especially concerned here with the social implications of success or failure in the context of large-scale mining projects where the transformation of the economy entails dramatic changes in social relations over the life of the mine, which in the PNG context is often the major determinant of significant inequalities. This chapter draws upon a combined engagement with the Lihir gold mine that spans over twenty years through independent research and social impact monitoring studies for the company.1 We reflect on the range of overlapping and sometimes contradictory ways in which Lihirians have approached business development and engagement with capitalism more generally throughout the different stages of the mine, from negotiations, construction and early operations, to the current operational phase. In doing so, we emphasize the sorts of cultural responses to mining which not only shape local economic behavior but are likely to also influence the sustainability of the post-mining economy. In considering the ways that Lihirians engage with the cash economy through business enterprise we emphasize the changing trajectory of people’s relationships to the mining project, to the company, and to the major beneficiaries of royalty and compensation payments over the life of the project – the landowners from the mining lease areas. We are

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especially interested in people’s capacity to get what they want from capitalism in terms of economic development, personal wealth, status and improved living conditions, and the social structural changes that have accompanied various forms of economic engagement through resource extraction. We explore the dialectical relationship between the broader processes of encompassment (LiPuma, 2001), whereby existing forms of sociality and economic practices are reconfigured by global capitalism, and local expressions of agency manifest in a seemingly rapacious desire for change driven by the wealthy elite and ambitious landowners. The articulation between and within these different levels has simultaneously produced deep social ruptures and innovative cultural reflexes. We argue that business development in resource development enclaves is structurally different from other nonresource contexts and produces a more dependent and client-based approach to capitalism, which in some ways is symptomatic of a wider national dependency upon resource extraction. At the national level, the Government has outlined a commitment to business development in their Papua New Guinea Vision 2050 plan which sets goals to increase the number of Papua New Guineans participating in economic activities and the number of medium sized enterprises. To a large extent the Government’s strategy relies upon the resource boom to stimulate new business activities including value-adding, support services and supplies. We have found that there are few resource area landowners who establish businesses in order to merely survive. From this perspective, enterprising landowners are perhaps best described as ‘‘opportunity entrepreneurs’’ rather than ‘‘necessity entrepreneurs.’’ At the heart of this distinction is an expectation for business opportunities – an extension of an existing national ‘‘ideology of landownership’’ which is frequently manifested in rent-seeking behavior (Filer, 1997). The expectation for ‘‘compensation as development’’ still remains, but there is an added sense of entitlement to exclusive business opportunities played out in the struggle over the role of patron and client. Such territorialized development effectively constructs relations of dependency and serves to undermine the goals of sustainability as business development remains financially, politically, and spatially tied to individual resource development projects. But even when companies attempt to develop more sustainable economic models that might benefit greater numbers, those very elements of Melanesian society which tend to ‘‘menace the mining industry’’ (Filer, 1998), including limited scales of social cooperation and a multitude of divergent interests, work against corporate, national, and local interests. Moreover, when the sort of instant lottery riches delivered

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through mining benefits merge with existing notions of prestige and wealth distribution, local engagement with capitalism is often characterized by consumption rather than enterprise and accumulation.

EXPECTATIONS OF DEVELOPMENT Mining relies upon a finite resource. While individual mine sites have a definite life-span, over the past decade the major global mining companies have worked hard to develop the image of a more sustainable industry (see, e.g., International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM), 2008; Minerals Council Australia (MCA), 2005; Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development (MMSD), 2002). There has been an industry-wide shift toward greater social and environmental accountability and more emphasis upon facilitating social and economic development that will sustain communities, or entire regions, into the post-mining era. Companies now face closer scrutiny against a range of international performance measures, although to a large extent improved practice remains dependent upon selfregulation and voluntary commitment to higher standards, which can reify auditing over actual performance (Kemp, Owen, & van de Graff, 2012; Macintyre et al., 2007).2 If the PNG State has historically lacked sufficient capacity to closely regulate the activities of multinational companies, in some ways this has been balanced out by the ability of project area landowners to exercise their ‘‘rights’’ and to ‘‘regulate’’ or at least influence mining operations to serve a raft of local interests. It is for this reason that commitments to ‘‘best practice’’ are not so much the result of corporate altruism but more a pragmatic reality of doing business. In the PNG operational context, which includes a volatile political landscape comprising empowered and expectant landowners (Allen, 2013), good corporate citizenship, or the development and maintenance of a ‘‘social licence to operate,’’ is inextricably linked to managing social and political risk and maintaining ‘‘business continuity’’ (see Owen & Kemp, 2012). However, when business risk is the primary driver for investing in landowner businesses, this invariably compromises the agenda of sustainability. Mining companies frequently present economic sustainability as an objective (to governments, landowners, shareholders, and society at large), but in practice this goal is rarely realized. This is partly because, historically, in the start-up phase of an operation, many companies have necessarily concentrated on the development of businesses that supply goods and

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services to their enterprise rather than those that might flourish independently of the project and be economically sustainable beyond the life of the mine. It is also due to the ‘‘capital logic’’ of each operation which determines the schedule for the repayment of loans and the attainment of profits and influences the outcomes of the project, even when these appear to have little to do with mining (Gerritsen & Macintyre, 1991, pp. 37–40). However, at different stages in the life of a project companies will shift emphasis, and in some circumstances companies will be better placed to invest in broader forms of economic development. The life-span and size of a project are also important, as smaller and shorter projects allow less time to realize sustainable goals. In all cases, the money from loans, compensation, and wages facilitates new forms of entrepreneurship and generates new patterns of consumption. Compensation payments provide ad hoc injections of cash into the local economy which soften the impacts of business inefficiency. Even those businesses that appear to be independent of the mine, such as livestock projects, commercial food crops for local consumption, transport services, clothing stores, supermarkets as well as small village trade stores, are often profitable only because of wages or the general increase in the circulation of cash throughout the local economy. The experience of people on Misima Island (in Milne Bay Province of PNG), who had a mine that was closed in 2004, indicates that when employment ceases small businesses collapse, as people have little money to spend. The remittances from qualified tradesmen who go to work in other mines cannot substitute for the level of income available during local operations. Those businesses that have been established to support mining activities usually close down. Although the development of such contractor companies is presented as an opportunity to ‘‘go national’’ and so gain contracts on other mining developments, in fact each new project is expected to support its local landowners in such enterprises. The tendency for localisation, which is exacerbated in island locations, militates against commercial viability beyond the life of the mine. Local landowners, in most instances, simply will not allow another company from elsewhere in PNG to come and work at ‘‘their project.’’ The argument often being that these businesses similarly excluded outside involvement in their own locations – so the circle of localized, relatively short term, project dependent business development becomes further entrenched. Cash cropping and other primary industries theoretically provide economic opportunities that will carry on beyond the mining operation. But in reality these activities are rarely as lucrative as contracts with the mine, and farmers are often reliant upon the transport infrastructure maintained by

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the company, even more so in island locations. Nor is this always considered desirable work. As Ferguson (1999) observed of Zambian miners, people do not really want to go ‘‘back to the land’’ when mining stops. In PNG, many people attempt to start businesses with the aim of accumulating wealth and diversifying their income in ways that will ensure that they are not reliant upon subsistence farming or cash cropping. Mining companies, aware of criticisms about enclave development and the problems of sustainability beyond mine closure, invariably establish business development offices that are tasked with promoting tandem projects (such as some form of cash cropping) during the life of the mine. However, working the land (or fishing) is often redolent of the ‘‘hard work’’ of a pre-modern economy, as subsistence farmers or plantation laborers, and lacks the prestige of a business – where one can sit in an office, employ other people, and drive around in a company car, or as one Lihirian man once told Macintyre, ‘‘wear shoes and socks all the time.’’

PLANNING FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN LIHIR The Lihir gold mine commenced operations in 1995 when an Integrated Benefits Package (IBP) Agreement was signed by the landowners, the company, and the Government. The agreement specified that the people whose land fell within the Special Mining Lease (SML) area would not only receive royalty and compensation payments and new houses if they were relocated, but that they would have privileged access to ‘‘spin-off ’’ businesses, training, and employment. The Lihir gold mine is located on the main island of the Lihir Group of Islands in New Ireland Province. The mining lease area is relatively small, yet the social and economic footprint of the mine has encompassed the entire group. Lihir is divided into 15 local-level government wards with approximately 40 villages scattered along the coastal fringes. Land rights are primarily vested in matrilineal clan groups that are distributed throughout Lihir. The main ‘‘landowner villages’’ of Putput and Kapit were relocated in 1995 to make way for the SML area where the mine is located and the company townsite, camps, and airport are located near Londolovit and Kunayie villages. These so-called ‘‘affected area’’ villages contain the largest concentration of lease area landowners and have subsequently received the most economic benefits. Over the past twenty years the local population has grown from less than 10,000 Lihirians to approximately 16,000, coupled

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with approximately 7,000 migrants seeking new economic opportunities and access to services (Bainton, 2013). In 1994, Rolf Gerritsen, a development economist, and Martha Macintyre prepared a social risk assessment for the Lihir gold mine, commissioned by the Export, Finance and Investment Corporation, an Australian government institution that was the initial insurer for the project (Gerritsen & Macintyre, 1995; Moody, 2005). Having previously collaborated on the Misima mining project (Gerritsen & Macintyre, 1986), they had by that time become very familiar with the problems surrounding the influx of money into communities in the first phase of a mining project, so they stressed the need for tandem development to reduce dependency on the mine. Gerritsen and Macintyre’s brief involved recommendations concerning the mining company’s support for the establishment of businesses that would serve the needs of the company’s activities – this included recommendations on a locally owned company that had been formed to provide catering, cleaning, and maintenance of the camps where fly-in/fly-out workers were accommodated; earth-moving companies that could quarry and supply coronus, and make and grade roads; and a security and maintenance company for the airport facility. There was also a need for labor hiring services, building contractors, vehicle sales and servicing, a fuel outlet, waste collection and disposal, and a hotel for business visitors. A supermarket, post office, and banking facilities were also planned. In short, from an island that previously relied upon subsistence farming and had only a few trade stores, Lihir suddenly needed numerous businesses to support the mine and to service the needs of the employees who lived there. Many of these services were to be provided through private contracts with the mine, which created opportunities for local business development. The role and presence of the government also expanded as the District Office administration staff increased fivefold and a police station with several stationed officers was required. By 1996 all of these businesses had been established. In this early phase almost every village had at least one building company. The construction of roads and relocation houses alone generated a great deal of business and as there was work for unskilled laborers in such tasks a very large percentage of the male population was able to earn money. Lihirian leaders drove a hard bargain during negotiations, and for some Lihirians these changes signaled the emerging realisation of previous dreams of ‘‘becoming a city’’ – an all-encapsulating vision of the new modern world (Bainton, 2010). Support for local business development was initially provided through interest-free loans and the company’s business development section gave

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advice and training in business planning and management and free bookkeeping and accountancy services. During the construction and early operational phase (and continuing in the current era), company support entailed a hierarchy of interests. Maintaining good relations with landowners meant that these landowners had first claim on business development opportunities (which is a common approach in PNG) – since they had lost land that previously provided their subsistence livelihoods. In the early days people whose land had not been used by the mine generally accepted this arrangement and in a larger sense, this acceptance underpins the institutionalisation of localized business development throughout PNG. Looking back at the prevailing Lihirian ideas about business, employment, and economic development during the construction phase of the mine, much of which centered upon ideas of prestige and modernity, it is easy to see that the majority of people in Lihir had relatively little understanding of the ways that they could initiate economic development in the form of businesses – how they could establish companies and secure business contracts with the mine. There was a core group of men who had formal education, who had worked for government and in private companies, and who were striving to ensure that Lihirians gained control over all major business developments. But in this early period they had to work with older men who had been designated ‘‘clan leaders,’’ or ‘‘landowner representatives,’’ whose major concern was gaining cash from various forms of payment as opposed to running businesses – reflecting the earlier belief held by some landowners that once the mine began nobody would have to work again as they would all receive ‘‘compensation’’ (the term most often used for any financial benefit). In the light of later developments during the renegotiation of the IBP Agreement between 2000 and 2007, when there were many returned Lihirians who were formally educated, experienced in working in towns, and more astute in their assessment of where business opportunities might lie, it is salutary to recall that in the very early days of the mine they were a distinct minority. While the company managers dealt mostly with this educated elite and so considered that they represented Lihirians, they were in fact a minority whose views were unrepresentative. At that time there was community resentment toward them as ‘‘greedy’’ in their demands for business development and their actions jarred with local appeals to ‘‘custom’’ that emphasized unity and egalitarianism. Over time there has been a persistent tension between the ethics of distribution and reciprocity and the accumulative practices of the new elite (whether they have gained wealth through mining benefits or business success), which has dramatically

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restructured clans, dissolved corporate solidarity, and transformed ‘‘everyday’’ and ceremonial exchange practices. But in retrospect these men were the ones who ensured that Lihirians had some influence in policies and commitments by the company that protected local companies, paving the way for later business success. Early plans for businesses had arisen as landowners and the wider Lihirian community, national government politicians and public servants, and the provincial administration officials had bargained with the mining company for the benefits that would flow from gold production. As in previous PNG mining contracts, the mining company had to deal directly with the local landowner organisation (the Lihir Mining Area Landowners Association) and it was this body that argued strongly for control over ‘‘spin-off ’’ businesses. In Gerritsen and Macintyre’s (1995) report and for the purposes of negotiation a proposed umbrella company, provisionally called ‘‘Lihir Holdings,’’ was to be established. At that time the landowner organisation appeared to be strongly arguing for the general benefit, stressing the need for shares, for large enterprises to be divided between different clan groups (so, for instance one clan was to own the company that catered for the camp, another would have the fuel outlet license, another would have an earth-moving company, etc.). The rhetoric of business development appeared to embody ideals of communitas. Yet even before the umbrella company could be registered, three men who had participated in negotiations went to Port Moresby and registered a company as ‘‘Lihir Holdings’’ in their names. They had hoped in doing this to gain control over the management of all companies and to be able to claim contracts from the mine that had been designed with the name ‘‘Lihir Holdings’’ as the contractor. This created some problems that were resolved by adopting a new name for the landowner group’s company – Lakaka. But it is indicative of a pattern that was quickly established, which is by no means unique, whereby individuals would attempt to gain control over business ventures and exclude others who had an interest, by fair means or foul. Often the ways that people went about this were clumsy and easily detected – but some succeeded in excluding family members from ‘‘family businesses’’ and others simply struck out alone in order to gain control over businesses and to become the primary beneficiaries of the profits.3 Despite public appeals to custom and equality, in practice competitive economic behavior has become completely normalized. Leaders are not being disingenuous when they assert the need for ‘‘balanced’’ or ‘‘parallel’’ development. Their statements reflect genuine concern over the socially

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divisive effects of capitalism as it is experienced through large-scale mining and the unequal power relations between Lihirians and the company. But ultimately there is a contradictory process at play: as leaders externally proclaim the importance and unity of the community in moral opposition to corporate profit maximising motives, this masks the internal divisions that are exacerbated through daily actions and the pursuit of new economic opportunities.

THE FIRST RUSH OF MONEY The early phases of negotiation and construction of mining in PNG are typically marked by spectacular changes in consumption as cash flows in. In Lihir, throughout the early to mid-1990s, this was a heady period of optimism, excitement, and social upheaval. As compensation payments first poured in and as business enterprises were established, coupled with the sudden availability of paid employment for people who had none previously – and the promise of royalties over the following decades – this all contributed to the general feeling that this small island community had hit the jackpot. Although the influence of earlier socio-political movements that promised a new world order cannot be discounted as an influence in the unrealistic expectations of Lihirians during the initial stages of mining (Bainton, 2010; Patterson & Macintyre, 2011), we want to stress the range and variations in notions of wealth acquisition and people’s engagement with business opportunities. Some held to the fantasy that they would no longer have to work and would enjoy the wealth from mining in the form of a perpetual income stream. Others had no experience of running a business but were eager to do so. A few had experience and understanding of business enterprises and were able to immediately take advantage of the company’s offer of interest-free loans to assist in the process. Some were relatively unconcerned about opportunities in small businesses and wanted to ensure agreements that would place them in managerial positions within the mining company and assist in setting up large companies that could be contracted to take on all aspects of construction and mining. The mining operation’s need for reliable service provision meant that there was also a more certain way of gaining an income – becoming a ‘‘silent partner’’ with an established national company, such as Ela Motors or Avis Car rental – and as discussed further, this kind of arrangement has come to typify an ideal of landowner status.

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The major beneficiaries of compensation payments initially conceptualized their engagement with capitalism mainly in terms of consumption rather than productive business enterprise. In interviews they mentioned what they would buy – at that stage invariably a truck – and then discussed the ways that they expected to live on store bought food, buy beer, clothing, and other goods. They expected royalties to provide them with a regular income that would sustain their lives of newfound luxury forever.4 When no royalty payments were forthcoming (and after considerable work by the company’s community relations team explaining how royalties related to production and the price of gold, which at that stage was significantly lower than today’s price) there was a spate of compensation claims – especially from those who had been relocated and had little gardening land. The resettlement allowances given for the first six months were finished and few had even planted new gardens, believing that they would not have to ‘‘work for food’’ again. In the first two years of the project much of the money, whether acquired as compensation, wages, or loans, was spent quickly on consumables and many of the newly acquired vehicles had been written off. The payments for compensation (for loss of land, crops, water, etc.) were often substantial – in the thousands of kina5 – and these payments were initially accepted as payment for loss of land. As the effects on people’s lives became apparent, further claims for compensation were made – for dust pollution as the roads were built, light pollution from the plantsite, for the noise and disruption caused by explosions, and for the deaths of pigs and dogs that wandered onto the newly made roads (Kirsch, 2004). In most instances these were paid. One effect was the expectation that there would be a continuous flow of money in the form of compensation. At the other extreme were people who saw the advent of construction and the influx of money as an opportunity to engage in village-based commerce. They did not borrow money but set up roadside stalls selling betel nut and surplus produce from their gardens and small ‘‘canteens’’ or trade stores. There was also a flourishing black market in beer. In many ways these experiments with petty capitalism, while dependent upon the circulation of cash from the mine, were approached in a more independent manner compared to landowners’ businesses. There were also numerous instances during those early years where company advisors exposed frauds that outsiders attempted to perpetrate, but in several respects this only increased suspicion among Lihirians that the mining company was determined to deny them real access to the capitalist system – that they were withholding the secrets that would ‘‘unlock’’ a constant stream of benefits and greater control over mine operations.

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Throughout this time, it became apparent that many people (especially those who encountered the confidence tricksters who convinced them of high percentage profits and the millions of dollars that was simply waiting for them if they invested their money) had limited knowledge of how investment worked. This lack of knowledge is not restricted to PNG, many people around the world have similarly limited understandings of money markets, including in countries where capitalism has been the dominant economic system for centuries (Strange, 1986). Some Lihirians at this time, however, had a great deal of disposable income, with more to come, and they were easy targets. This was also the heyday of money scams such as ‘‘Mani Rain’’ and ‘‘U-Vistract,’’ the home-grown Ponzi schemes that promised returns on investment as high as 100% per month (Cox, 2011). Its coincidence with the first large payouts for compensation from the mine saw many Lihirians lose thousands of kina. The appeal of these schemes tapped into local desires for immediate riches and ideas about capitalism based upon the instantaneous arrival of mine-derived wealth.

THE NEW ‘‘PRESTIGE ECONOMY’’ This initial embrace of resourced-based capitalism was largely manifest in changes in consumption and ostentatious displays of wealth. Beer, cars, trucks, boats, clothing, electrical goods, supermarket foods, and cooked food were the goods most desired. This was what getting money meant – spending it and showing people that you had it. This emphasis certainly fits with ideas about Melanesian competition being expressed in conspicuous consumption or what the surrealist essayist Georges Bataille termed ‘‘economies of excess’’ (Bataille, 1994). But there is a marked difference between these goods and those that were formerly considered ‘‘wealth.’’ While beer and supermarket foods can be incorporated into feasts, the most expensive items (such as trucks) cannot – and these are the things most desired. And whereas pigs and yams were things that everybody could grow and raise, goods bought with money differentiate those who have money from those who do not. As a result, the ebb and flow of ceremonial exchange has been eclipsed by the arbitrary access to mining benefits played out in an ever-expanding and quickening competition as different clan groups channel more wealth into customary activities. Although competition to obtain business opportunities has deeply divided people, customary feasting has become a means (perhaps now the only one) of expressing clan solidarity, even if at the same time these events also

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expose the differences between ‘‘landowner’’ and ‘‘non-landowner’’ groups. These occasions provide opportunities to reassert ideologies about the importance of the clan, but they are simply moments – performative events that punctuate the daily rhythms of social change and dramatically proclaim cultural distinctiveness (to mine management and the migrant population as well as to themselves). The feasts occur much more frequently now, perhaps in part because buying pigs and yams has become easy for some. They also fulfil a need to assert leadership and claim prestige, and constitute a way of enacting and reinforcing a belief in the importance of the clan and group sociality. As such, the contemporary feasting complex might be regarded as a kind of ‘‘custom cult’’ – a desperate response to the divisive modernity generated by resource development as it has occurred in this location. The new prestige economy exemplifies ‘‘encompassment’’ – the process whereby pre-capitalist forms of wealth, value, and social status are subsumed and reconfigured by the engagement with the global capitalist system (LiPuma, 2001, pp. 19–21). Increasingly, money and the status associated with being successful ‘‘businessmen’’ determine roles in intercommunity feasting. The new displays of asymmetry and inequality that are manifest in competitive feasting retain forms and meanings that have a long cultural history, but they are encompassed by those that have come with changed relations to land (as landowners in the lease areas benefit far more than those outside it), changed relations of production, and the shift to a cash economy. As Lihirians assert their status as patrons through their attempts to ‘‘manage’’ processes of economic transformation, they are simultaneously engulfed by the forces of capitalism. On the one hand there is an active or maximising agency, on the other their lives are over-determined as the price of gold and the success of the mine set the range of possibilities for Lihirian landowners and reinforce relations of dependency. During the early years of the mine, saving, investing, or devising means of accumulating more capital were issues on the minds of few Lihirians. For most people the project of wealth-making was viewed primarily as finding ways to extract more concessions from the company. There were constant struggles over compensation, shares, jobs for Lihirians, and resentment at the lack of management positions for local people. The assertion of ownership of the gold resource was a constant issue as few Lihirians really accept the notion that the mineral resource is owned by the State. Lihirian exceptionalism and secessionist tendencies fueled vehement opposition to the company when contracts went to people from other areas of PNG and hostility toward migrant workers increased, underscoring localized forms of project dependent business development.

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The desire to make money is certainly a factor behind landowner interest in owning or running a business. But there are other social motivations that are derived from Lihirian ideas about prestige or gaining status (Banks, 2007). Having a business was seen by many as a way of displaying one’s position as a landowner. Mainly, those who applied to the company for a business development loan appeared to be intensely interested in acquiring a motor vehicle or boat and only secondarily concerned with the type of business they wanted. Many took their cue from already established businesses, such as building companies, which meant that there was a proliferation of such businesses for a short period. This ‘‘copycat’’ approach to business invariably ensured that many were not viable as there were simply not enough contracts available. Few Lihirians were prepared to introduce competition in the form of bidding lower than the amount that they had heard was paid previously to a successful company. In a discussion in the late 1990s with three disgruntled men who had not gained building contracts (each had tendered a slightly higher price than a recently awarded contract), they explained to Macintyre that to bid lower would have implied that they were ananit (Tok Pisin – ‘‘underneath,’’ of lower status) the clan group who had gained the earlier contract and that they bid higher in order to show that they were antap (Tok Pisin – ‘‘on top,’’ superior) of their rivals. In this way, inter-clan rivalries are transferred to the realm of business; the allocation of contracts antagonises and exacerbates existing differences, prompting some to sabotage or block business development activities. Although many Lihirians demonstrated a rather surprising disregard for ‘‘rational,’’ competitive business strategies, a few who were able to capitalize on the situation expanded their business activities rapidly during this period. There were two very successful businesses that had preceded the mine – a liquor outlet and a large tradestore in the affected area villages. With the establishment of the mine, these businesses expanded and thrived. Both were owned and operated by Lihirians who had returned to the island after working away from the island for several years. These men were shrewd, careful in maintaining control over their day-to-day operations and kept aloof from others in their villages. They were in many ways ‘‘loners.’’ The liquor storeowner employed only his own sons and a few men who were paid extremely low wages. The trade store keeper explained that he would not employ anyone who was related to him and for several years employed only young people from East New Britain, whom he also housed. Similar to many other business owners, both of these men insisted that the main problem for retail businesses in PNG are the demands of families and

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wantoks (relatives) to extend credit on goods. They also thought that family members were also far more likely to steal – knowing that a relative would probably not prosecute them. Their success highlights the problems that many Papua New Guineans face in building up their businesses or maintaining their affluence, as the demands of kin present a distinct threat to their position or the viability of their enterprise (Gewertz & Errington, 1999; Martin, 2007). Unlike traditional items of wealth, such as shell money, it is far more difficult to hide cash or trade store goods to avoid demand sharing.

INSOLVENCY AND SABOTAGE Small business failure in the context of mining development is intriguing, mainly because several of the economic circumstances that frequently cause insolvency elsewhere in PNG (such as low and intermittent cash incomes; problems with supply because of transport delays and inefficiencies; poor accounting skills; and theft and embezzlement) should not obtain, or at least not to the same extent. Theoretically, support from business development officers and closer contract management should help to mitigate these factors. Yet the vast majority of Lihirian small businesses begun in the first years of the mining project failed because of insolvency. So did some of the larger businesses. But we have also found that business failure is often a result of deliberate sabotage, which is again closely connected to the so-called ‘‘resource dependency syndrome’’ (Filer, 1998). Discussion of business failure in PNG is in some quarters a sensitive issue, often provoking a defensive tu quoque response that ‘‘small businesses fail at spectacularly high rates in developed countries too.’’6 The perception of high failure rate of small businesses in Australia, however, and possibly elsewhere, appears to be one of those ‘‘zombie myths.’’ Rates as high as 80% are sometimes claimed for small business failure in the first year of operation. The actual rates of failure, according to several studies, range between 9% and 35%, depending on how ‘‘failure’’ is counted. ‘‘Exit’’ from business operations accounts for the higher estimate, including cessation of businesses because of death of the owner, sale, or merger with another business enterprise and other reasons that are not economic. Failure due to insolvency is rarer.7 In PNG, and particularly in Lihir, we have found that insolvency is the most common reason for failure of businesses, especially small retail businesses such as village trade stores (see also Kuehling, 2005, Chapter 6).

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Local agricultural projects that supply produce to the mining camp mess are an obvious choice for local business development. Early attempts by the mine camp to purchase local produce (such as eggs, poultry, fish and vegetables) struggled with securing a regular supply and these projects ended up more like elementary community relations exercises than business development. A returnee from Lae initially embraced a poultry project with enthusiasm. The company’s agricultural staff provided assistance with the project and imported feed from Lae as part of the establishment process. When the food ran out the owner was incensed to discover that he was expected to purchase feed regularly with the profits from his egg sales. He stormed out of the company office, spent a great deal of money on beer, and abandoned his birds to death from dehydration and starvation. A piggery was proposed, funded, and supported by the company as another ideal business project that could be sustainable beyond the life of the mine. Pigs were imported from East New Britain that were larger than local pigs and it was envisioned that the pigs would be sold to village owners who could in turn breed from them and sell pigs to the local community. A slaughtering facility was planned so that meat could be produced and sold to local consumers and the catering company. The large pigs were much admired and within weeks most had been given away at feasts or killed for consumption by the businessman involved. The cultural prestige factor was irresistible and giving away huge pigs was a guaranteed strategy for displaying wealth. The demise of this business caused considerable ill will. He was, like the chicken farmer, furious when he discovered that a new supply of breeding stock would not come courtesy of the company and killed off the last pig – a pregnant sow – to the horror of many Lihirians. A vanilla plantation project failed when all the beans were stolen just as they were ripe. A large-scale vegetable project failed when conflict broke out between villagers claiming ownership of the land (which had been acquired by the Catholic Church a century previously and leased by the mining company) and stopped all people from entering the area. A mariculture project to produce crayfish for sale was sabotaged by men who were angry because they had not been given a comparable business venture. The cancrushing machine donated to the women’s association (as a way of raising funds and dealing with the thousands of aluminium cans littering the island) was very successful in generating income. Some men resented the venture’s success and claimed that it should be given to them as a business. When they were thwarted they smashed the machine. These cases illustrate the ways that some Lihirian people constructed the mining company as a source of constant funding and regarded such things

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as ‘‘interest-free loans’’ as gifts to which they were entitled rather than seed funding from which they were expected to grow an ongoing business. In effect, various forms of financial and advisory support were construed in terms of reciprocity – the land and resources being used by the mine had initiated indebtedness that was continuous. All benefits, including business support, were thus a form of due rent (Ballard, 1997). While many no doubt hoped that they would make money from their businesses, they were not unduly concerned about failure as they believed that the mining company would refinance them, or pay off their debts, or give them a lucrative contract that would enable them to do so. While this view of reciprocity and indebtedness might be characterized as ‘‘Melanesian’’ it also reveals a lack of awareness about the ways that loans work and of business acumen more generally. Interviews with recipients of loans at the time suggested that many were not being disingenuous when they asserted that the loans were ‘‘free money.’’ Moreover, the response of ‘‘cutting off the nose to spite the face’’ when their hopes for a business or perpetual financing were foiled occurred so regularly as to be a Lihirian, if not a ‘‘Melanesian’’ or ‘‘cultural’’ trait. Allowing all the chickens to die, smashing the can crusher and letting several hectares of vegetables rot in the ground were typical of the reactions when people were angry or resentful. In all, during the years 1996–2001 no fewer than 16 such incidents were recorded that effectively ensured that a business failed. Such acts might be construed as evincing the ‘‘ferocious egalitarianism’’ that is sometimes claimed to be a Melanesian cultural trait, but most Lihirian people attributed them to a more ferocious competitiveness, anger, and envy (Tok Pisin bel hat; jelas). These are perhaps manifestations of the same egalitarian proclivity, but they are a far cry from the dispersal and redistribution of wealth that is assumed when people speak of Melanesians investing in the social realm and so expanding their prestige. Unlike other documented cases of sabotage (Scott, 1985), these ‘‘levelling’’ acts are directed both vertically toward dominant forces and horizontally towards ‘‘peers’’ – other landowners. In several respects these acts have less to do with the morality of distribution or social equality, and are more related to the feeling among certain individuals or groups that they have been slighted or have missed out on their just entitlement. Dashed expectations and sheer resentment manifest in forms of ‘‘negative’’ or ‘‘outraged’’ agency (Wardlow, 2006) – material moments of disruption and destruction that signal the perceived failure of others (in this case the company) to act in expected ways.

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BOARDROOM LANDOWNERS In the past five years the Lihirian economic and social terrain has significantly changed, dramatically exacerbating the early patterns we have described. The number of companies operating in Lihir has exploded as a greater number of Lihirians actively seek (sometimes demand) contracts with the mine. By 2011 there were approximately 650 Lihirian-based companies registered with the PNG Investment Promotion Authority. The largest are grouped under the Anitua Group of Companies (formally Lakaka).8 Although the ‘‘six major clans’’ in Lihir maintain the majority of shares in Anitua, the distribution of profits within this large umbrella structure is a challenge. The Group currently employs in excess of 2,000 workers, which is comparable with employment figures for the mining company, and approximately 45% of the workforce is Lihirian. The most successful branch is the NCS Catering Company, which has gained contracts with new projects in other parts of the country, but the majority are dependent on the presence of the mine in Lihir for their income.9 The Anitua Group has a board of directors largely comprised of Lihirian landowners. Many of these board members have become extremely rich. These few ‘‘boardroom capitalists’’ constitute the new wealthy elite and many have integrated their wealth into the global economy through investments. In many ways they exemplify Lihirian ideas about commercial engagement and embody the ideal of landowner status, whereby income is drawn from board positions that are awarded according to landownership, while expatriates or other Papua New Guineans manage and work for these companies. This model has now been widely replicated through the range of joint venture or ‘‘silent’’ partnerships and the range of small-to-medium enterprises, many of which supply labor. Much of this has been driven by the opportunities created by expansion of the mine processing facilities in order to produce an annual output of one million ounces of gold. This project, which was approved in 2008, has required approximately 500 additional laborers and provided millions of kina in contracts and grants that have directly benefited local companies (Newcrest Mining Limited, 2012, p. 59). In order to maximize commercial opportunities lease area landowners have grouped themselves under six larger ‘‘specific issues companies’’ that reflect geographical areas within the mining lease, such as the plant site, the mining pit, the stockpile area (where Kapit village was once located), the Londolovit weir, and Kunayie airport. Many of the smaller companies employ fewer than 50 staff and provide ‘‘labor hire’’ services, drawing upon the large pool of migrant labor in Lihir.

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Labor hire companies offer services not just to the mining company but also to other Lihirian contractors. The abundance of such ventures is in part a continuation of the ‘‘copycat’’ phenomenon observed above. Once people observe that a labor hire company is successful, they emulate it in the hope of similar success. While this promotes competition initially, there are diminishing returns once almost every lineage or sub-clan group sets up a labor hire business. Just as in the first construction phase there were simply too many building companies to be viable, now there is a super-abundance of labor hire businesses. While they might begin by buying a vehicle and having a logo painted on the side and having a list of staff or an ‘‘operations manager,’’ many do not have sufficient contracts to remain viable and certainly few will be able to fulfil their aspirations of expanding into equipment hire and becoming national companies. The prestige of having a vehicle with a logo and being able to call oneself a company director are undoubtedly also factors in this trend, but they also indicate the ways that competition over businesses is now a site of social fission and conflict. As has happened elsewhere in PNG, the mining project in Lihir has attracted large numbers of domestic migrants (Bainton, n.d.). There is a symbiotic relationship between increased in-migration and the growth in landowner businesses. While migrants constitute a large proportion of people employed by Lihirians and have fueled the expansion of labor hire companies, their presence continues to be a source of resentment and tension. The outsider status of migrants reinforces Lihirian ideas about their status as landowners who should be the primary beneficiaries of economic development, and they also desire to profit from the migrants’ presence – as employers and by renting houses and land to them. From the earliest phase of the project Lihirians have regularly called for migrants to be evicted and ‘‘sent home’’ (Bainton, 2009), all of which have foundered because Lihirians are their landlords and bosses, and so are dependent upon them. The labor hire company glut has also created challenges for the equitable distribution of contracts and the development of long-term commercially sustainable businesses. The proliferation of small enterprises offering similar services makes it difficult to establish economies of scale. The contracting environment on Lihir has assumed a kind of Byzantine complexity with companies operating under joint venture, independent, family, clan, or subclan ownership. Other companies operate according to land areas that cut across individual clan land boundaries such as the specific issues companies. Commercial affiliations are duplicated across these entities. This means that in many instances the same people are competing for contracts but through different companies and in some instances in collaboration with different

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sets of individuals or groups (as a way of maximising opportunities). There has been an attempt to address the oversupply of labor hire companies by grouping smaller companies under the specific interest company structure. However, many landowners remain committed to the notion of individually owned and operated companies, which likely reflects their concerns over large distribution models, the fear of losing any prestige associated with owning a company, as well as more general patterns of social and political division that preclude some groups and individuals from working under a single entity. There are other factors which must be considered to understand the labor hire phenomenon. The shift from a focus on royalties and compensation money as the main form of economic benefits to ‘‘commercial participation’’ is premised upon enduring ties to land whereby landowners expect to participate in any work that occurs on their land in order that their land might still be regarded as ‘‘productive’’ (which is most often expressed through the local idiomatic turn of phrase, kisim kaikai bilong graon bilong mi yet – to get food from my ground). This exacerbates the politics of resource development as labour hire companies typically operate within their own territory (their clan land identified within the lease area) and generally have little competition from other companies (except in cases where members of the same clan, or rival clans with competing land claims, establish a company in the same line of business). The landed interests which underpin the allocation or awarding of business opportunities ensure that business development remains synonymous with compensation. The distribution of economic benefits within clan, sub-clan, and even lineage groups is rarely to the satisfaction of all members. This has hastened the splitting of landowner groups and the subsequent ‘‘sub-division’’ of lease area blocks – as these groups compete for economic opportunities from the same source this produces an economically and socially diluting effect. The owners of these companies are able to leverage their negotiating position in relation to the mining company by threatening to disturb to operations, which is signaled through the placing of a symbolic taboo marker made of a ginger root plant (Bainton, 2012). Such tactics of disturbance are directed toward both the company and fellow Lihirians. Quick responses by the company to these threats in order to maintain good relations and avoid work stoppages ultimately furnish landowners with an unusual amount of negotiating power that is perhaps more commonly associated with business owners operating in the underground economy. Consequently, the broader mining lease area now resembles a patchwork quilt of imperfect economic competition. The ability of certain landowners to extort business

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opportunities from the mining company through chicanery or force configures landowner–company relations around forms of negative reciprocity (Sahlins, 1974) and reinforces a competitive system of block holder monopolies that further deteriorates intercommunity solidarity.

CONCLUSION: FISSION AND FRICTION The patterns we have described help to explain why landowner businesses in PNG often fail to expand beyond immediate regions and why capital then appears to ‘‘jump’’ between mineral enclaves and bypass or skip over most of what lies in between (Ferguson, 2005, p. 39). Even if mining companies fulfil their immediate responsibilities to project area landowners, especially in terms of assisting them to develop viable businesses to capitalize on projects, at the same time, capital cannot easily flow between different mining locations or throughout nearby areas because it tends to get ‘‘stuck’’ in local political eddies. These localized interactions between landowners and companies are framed by a global context where much larger sums of wealth move at a higher and restricted level across transnational grids through reinvestment, mergers, and capital movement between and within corporations, which eventually leaves most landowners and hopeful entrepreneurs with the feeling that the real development lies elsewhere. Over the last decade, when the Lihir mine has been in production and expanding, Lihirians have become more concerned with obtaining business contracts than with claiming conventional forms of compensation. The demands for compensation have certainly not decreased rather compensation has assumed the form of business development and vice versa. The categorical merging of business development and compensation frustrates the larger goals of sustainable development and reinforces dependence upon the company. The anomalies in the Lihirian economic system, many of which are replicated in comparable mining enclaves, skew the economy away from structures capable of supporting continuous wealth generation and service delivery in the post mining era. In this context the roles of different actors are continually confused. Landowners present themselves as both households and companies. And while the mining company strives to engage local companies on ‘‘commercial terms,’’ landowner companies demand exception and present themselves as displaced households entitled to compensation and regularly resort to subterfuge to leverage business opportunities. Landowners treat the mining company simultaneously as a firm, as a source

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of income, as a pseudo government that provides infrastructure and regulation, and as a financial institution that provides seed finance and business support. The additional roles and responsibilities assumed by the company in this environment provide landowners with commercial opportunities, but because the company sometimes treats these contracts more like insurance policies to ensure unfettered land access, business development is continuously conflated with compensation. Every time short-term operational needs are privileged over long-term goals of economic stability and sustainability, landowners become further dependent upon the company. This reliance is further evidenced as local ‘‘spin-off ’’ businesses are compelled to ‘‘spin’’ back toward the mine: the various factors which hamper broader economic engagement in nonmine sectors force local companies to invest their resources (including labor power) back toward the mine. In many respects migrants have become the scapegoats for tensions that have developed within the Lihirian population. For while antagonism toward them has been consistent, relations within clans and between different groups of Lihirians have become more fragmented. The initial ‘‘parcelling’’ of land within the pit, which meant specific owners received benefits and exclusive contracts, has extended to different portions of land as the mine has expanded, generating antagonistic interests between people who were formerly united as clan members. Moreover, as people became increasingly aware of the need to ‘‘make money’’ from the presence of the mine, so the competition for businesses has escalated. As different people vie for business support, so the emphasis on clan economic solidarity has diminished. The catch-cry at the early stages was ‘‘Lihirians first’’ – and aimed at ensuring that Lihirians were given preference in employment and promotion. It is now ‘‘My land, my business.’’ The larger clan groups have split into smaller lineage, family, and even individual business entrepreneurs. The fissures have in some cases set brother against brother. Competition is fierce and often acrimonious. As only some people are able to set up businesses and only some businesses succeed, the social and economic gaps between people widen. In short, ‘‘business development’’ has involved processes that have divided people and entrenched inequalities. In Lihir now there are still some people who have never enjoyed any substantial direct improvement in household living standards or income from the mining project – they remain subsistence gardeners. There are others who are wage earners and so have the benefit of a steady (and by PNG standards high) income while the mine exists. Those who, by chance or design, have managed to gain profitable

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businesses and contracts are well off – and a few of them have amassed fortunes that have enabled them to invest in national enterprises and real estate (some of it in Australia). But there are many whose businesses have struggled and failed. There are tensions between ‘‘haves’’ and ‘‘have-nots’’ that even now appear to be irresolvable. Corporate groups, specifically the ‘‘six clans’’ of Lihir, initially provided the ideological foundation and organisational structure for commercial engagement and notions of fair distribution of all benefits. The clan model determined the original agreements with landowners within the SML area and so retains its significance for both Lihirians and the mining company. But the imperatives of profitable business development cut through those imagined unities that were formerly the basis of Lihirian sociality. In this chapter we have concentrated on the early period of engagement with industrial capitalism while drawing attention to the change over time and enduring patterns. As we have shown, the refusal of some Lihirians to be encompassed by local structures and the morality of exchange and distribution, or ‘‘custom’’ – the conscious attempt to manage modernity – stems from the fact that Lihir society as a whole is being encompassed by the global resource economy. At present almost every business is dependent on the mining project in some respect, and so too is the expanding ceremonial economy. When the mine closes, there are very few that will be ‘‘sustainable’’ in their current form. The inequalities that mining has introduced might be tempered by the inevitable collapse or decline that will accompany mine closure, but by then, the social changes probably will have transformed Lihirian social formations and forms of sociality beyond current recognition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Veronica Bainton, John Owen, Deanna Kemp, Mark Mitchell, Tim Grice, and Michelle Fulcher for their comments on an earlier draft which has helped to bring greater clarity to the final version.

NOTES 1. Macintyre was contracted by the mining company to undertake social impact monitoring studies from 1994 to 2005. She also conducted independent research into social change funded by the Australian Research Council. Bainton undertook 18 months of Ph.D. research in Lihir from 2003 to 2004, followed by continuing

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research in Lihir from 2007 to 2010 through a research fellowship funded by a research services agreement between Lihir Gold Limited and The University of Queensland. Since 2010 Bainton has been employed by Newcrest Mining Limited to manage the social impact monitoring program for the Lihir operation. 2. These include the International Finance Corporation Performance Standards (2012), the International Council of Mining and Metals Sustainable Development Principles, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the Global Compact. 3. One man tried to sell one tonne of gold to a U.S. bullion company. He mocked up a logo and letterhead and the American company took the deal seriously. Unfortunately the only fax machine to which he had access was in the company’s community affairs department. He inadvertently left his own letter on the fax machine and the U.S. dealer faxed a reply to that address, so all information was available to the mining company and he was thwarted. 4. This is best captured in the naming of the local supermarket Ataniom, the Lihirian word for garden, which reflects the idea that as modern landowners people would ‘‘harvest’’ their needs from the store with money derived from the use of their ground. 5. Conversion rates for 1 USD/1 PGK: 1995 – .8; 2000 – 2.4; 2007 – 2.9. 6. We confess to taking this stance ourselves on occasion. 7. According to a study conducted by the NSW Department of State and Regional Development in 2001: ‘Despite what is commonly thought, relatively few small businesses fail. Over the 2 year period 1994–95 and 1995–96, an average of 23 200 small businesses or 6.1% ceased operating in Australia. Less than 10% of these closures were due to bankruptcy proceedings (in the case of unincorporated businesses) or companies being liquidated. The other businesses closed down for reasons such as the owner retiring, seeking a different lifestyle or dying. The failure of Australian businesses fell significantly during the 1990s. It is estimated in 1999–2000, there were 3.6 failures per 1000 enterprises.’ (See also Bickerdyke Lattimore, & Madge, 2000). 8. These include Anitua Mining Services, NCS Catering, NCS Properties, Anitua Security, Lihir Tyre Centre, Anitua Radial Drilling (see http://www.anitua.com.pg/). 9. It is important to note that while major landowner companies in PNG like Anitua are hailed as models of success by institutions like the World Bank, their success is highly contingent upon the support base provided by the mining company in their formative years. This support includes preferences for local contracts, and in the case of the Lakaka company (the earlier formation of Anitua), financial assistance to avoid bankruptcy. Where other companies have proven commercially unviable, the long term success (and ‘sustainability’) of primary landowner companies is frequently underpinned by the vested interests of mining companies.

REFERENCES Akin, D., & Robbins, J. (1999). Money and modernity, state and local currencies in Melanesia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Allen, M. (2013). Melanesia’s violent environments: Towards a political ecology of conflict in the western Pacific. Geo Forum, 44, 152–161.

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Bainton, N. A. (2009). Keeping the network out of view, mining, distinctions and exclusion in Melanesia. Oceania, 79(1), 18–33. Bainton, N. A. (2010). The Lihir destiny, cultural responses to mining in Melanesia. Canberra: ANU E Press. Bainton, N. A. (2012). Customary dispute handling mechanisms at the Lihir gold mine. Paper presented at the conference of the European Society for Oceanists, The University of Bergen, Norway. Bainton, N. A. (2013). Lihir social and economic impact monitoring report 2012. Lihir, Papua New Guinea: Newcrest Mining Limited. Bainton, N. A. (n.d.). Migrants, landowners and labourers in the Papua New Guinea resource sector. Unpublished manuscript. Ballard, C. (1997). It’s the land stupid! The moral economy of resource ownership in Papua New Guinea. In P. Larmour (Ed.), The governance of common property in the Pacific region. Pacific policy paper 19 (pp. 47–65). Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies and Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Project. Banks, G. (2007). ‘Money rain’: Indigenous engagement with business models in Papua New Guinea, Development Bulletin, 72(March), 36–39. Bataille, G. (1994). In A. Stoekl (Ed.), Visions of excess: Selected writings, 1927–1939. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bickerdyke, I., Lattimore R., & Madge, A. (2000). Business failure and change: An Australian perspective, productivity commission staff research paper. AusInfo, Canberra. Cox, J. (2011). Prosperity, nation and consumption: Fast money schemes in Papua New Guinea. In M. Patterson & M. Macintyre (Eds.), Managing modernity in the Western Pacific (pp. 172–200). St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Epstein, T. S. (1968). Capitalism, primitive and modern: Some aspects of Tolai economic growth. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Ferguson, J. (1999). Expectations of modernity: Myth and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkely, CA: University of California Press. Ferguson, J. (2005). Seeing like an oil company: Space, security and global capital in neoliberal Africa. American Anthropologist, 107(3), 377–382. Filer, C. (1998). The Melanesian way of menacing the mining industry. In L. ZimmerTamakoshi (Ed.), Modern Papua New Guinea (pp. 147–177). Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press. Filer, C. (1997). Compensation, rent and power in Papua New Guinea. In S. Toft (Ed.), Compensation for resource development in Papua New Guinea (pp. 156–189). Canberra: The Australian National University. Finney, B. (1987). Business development in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu, Hawaii: Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center. Gerritsen, R., & Macintyre, M. (1986). Social impact study of the misima gold mine, 2 volumes. Boroko, Port Moresby: Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research. Gerritsen, R., & Macintyre, M. (1991). Dilemmas of distribution: The misima gold mine, Papua New Guinea. In J. Connell & R. Howitt (Eds.), Mining and indigenous peoples in Australasia (pp. 35–53). Sydney: Sydney University Press. Gerritsen, R. & Macintyre, M. (1995). Social, political and economic impact and risk assessment. Report to EFIC. The University of Melbourne. Gewertz, D., & Errington, F. (1999). Emerging class in Papua New Guinea: The telling of difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Gregory, C. A. (1982). Gifts and commodities. London: Academic Press. International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM). (2008). A sustained commitment to improved industry performance. London: ICMM. International Finance Corporation (IFC). (2012). IFC Performance standards on environmental and social sustainability. International Finance Corporation. Kemp, D., Owen, J. R., & van de Graff, S. (2012). Corporate social responsibility, mining and ‘‘audit culture’’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 24, 1–10. Kirsch, S. (2004). Keeping the network in view: Compensation claims, property and social relations in Melanesia. In L. Kalinoe & J. Leach (Eds.), Rationales of ownership: Transactions and claims to ownership in contemporary Papua New Guinea (pp. 79–89). Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing. Kuehling, S. (2005). Dobu: Ethics of exchange on a Massim Island, Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. LiPuma, E. (2001). Encompassing others: The magic of modernity in Melanesia. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Macintyre, M., Mee, W., et al. (2007). Evaluating social performance in the context of an ‘audit culture’: A pilot social review of a gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 15, 100–110. Martin, K. (2007). Your own Buai you must buy: The ideology of possessive individualism in Papua New Guinea. Anthropological Forum, 17(3), 285–298. Minerals Council Australia (MCA). (2005). Enduring value: The Australian minerals industry framework for sustainable development. Retrieved from http://www.minerals.org.au/ focus/sustainable_development/enduring_value. Accessed on November 28, 2012. MMSD. (2002). Breaking new ground: Mining, minerals, and sustainble development. The Report of MMSD Project. Earthscan Publications, London. Moody, R. (2005). The risks we run: Mining, communities and political risk insurance. Utrecht, Netherlands: International Books. Newcrest Mining Limited. (2012). Newcrest sustainability report 2011. Retrieved from http:// www.newcrest.com.au/sustainability/current-sustainability-report Owen, J. R., & Kemp, D. (2012). Social licence and mining: A critical perspective. Resources Policy, 38(1), 29–35. Patterson, M., & Macintyre, M. (2011). Introduction: Capitalism, cosmology and globalisation in the Pacific. In M. Patterson & M. Macintyre (Eds.), Managing modernity in the Western Pacific (pp. 1–29). St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Sahlins, M. D. (1974). Stone age economics. London: Tavistock Publications. Salisbury, R. F. (1970). Vunamami: Economic transformation in a traditional society. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press. Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Strange, S. (1986). Casino capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Strathern, A. (1971). The rope of moka: Big-men and ceremonial exchange in Mount Hagen, New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wardlow, H. (2006). Wayward women: Sexuality and agency in a New Guinea society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

DIVIDUALS, INDIVIDUALS, OR POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALS?: RECENT TRANSFORMATIONS OF NORTH MEKEO COMMODITIZATION, PERSONHOOD, AND SOCIALITY Mark S. Mosko ABSTRACT Purpose – To provide an update on recent intensifications of commoditization among the North (Amoamo) Mekeo (Central Province, PNG) and to assess the extent to which in this context contemporary villagers qualify as ‘‘dividuals,’’ ‘‘individuals,’’ or ‘‘possessive individuals.’’ Methodology/approach – The empirical data presented in this chapter were collected by means of participant observation techniques conducted over a 40-year period. Here those materials are analyzed through a juxtaposition of the ‘‘partible’’ or ‘‘dividual’’ type of personhood foregrounded in the ‘‘New Melanesian Ethnography’’ (Strathern, 1988; Wagner, 1991) and models of the ‘‘individual’’ and ‘‘possessive

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individual’’ in Macpherson’s (1962) formulation of ‘‘possessive market societies.’’ Findings – Contrary to the canonical assumptions of ‘‘individualism’’ and ‘‘possessive individualism’’ which underpin most social-scientific theories of modernization, globalization, development, etc. in the non-Western world, North Mekeo villagers’ most recent intensive post-contact engagements with capitalism have tended to reproduce indigenous ‘‘dividual’’ patterns of partible personhood and sociality which incorporate seemingly ‘‘individualist’’ practices as momentary parts of overall, total ‘‘dividual’’ persons and processes. Research implications – Explanations of the globalizing spread of capitalism among non-Western peoples must pay heed to indigenous notions of personhood agency if they are to avoid ethnocentric distortions arising from presuppositions of the ubiquity of Western notions of individualism. Originality/value of chapter – This chapter demonstrates the analytical benefits of the New Melanesian Ethnography – particularly its key notion of partible personhood – and the advantage of focused long-term ethnographic fieldwork in accounting for processes of social change. Keywords: Commoditization; gift exchange theory; possessive individualism; dividual personhood and agency; Melanesia

In the early 1990s, the Amoamo North Mekeo peoples of Papua New Guinea experienced a pronounced flood of money and commodities into their community, thanks to remarkable and unprecedented success in producing and wholesaling betel pepper (awaka) for the lucrative Port Moresby market. From around 1994 the inflow of external wealth moderated somewhat as a result of relatively stable market conditions, but this was still well above national levels of annual per capita income. Since 2009, however, villagers’ already intense engagements with capitalism have been substantially enhanced in response to two new developments: a sustained drought in much of the Central Province, thereby underpinning historically high prices for betel, and the emergence of a new source of extraordinary sums of cash through the harvesting and sale of ‘‘eaglewood.’’ The resulting new glut of ‘‘hot’’ (tsiabu) money and money things has supported the development of numerous consumer and other excesses in

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accord with community members’ desires on a scale greatly exceeding those of the previous two decades: intensified gambling and alcohol consumption by women as well as men; regular use of marijuana by adolescent males; several deaths from alcohol poisoning; the abandonment of gardening by numerous families; a significant decline in food sharing among kin; intensified courting behavior (bakai); frequent fighting among the men in competition for women; greatly inflated bridewealth prestations; poor school attendance and performance among the children; and the commoditization of numerous kin and family relations, and so on. Yet, the community has little accumulated material wealth to show from nearly a generation of pronounced affluence, aside from a new church built of modern materials and a significant increase in the number of young children. This chapter explores the implications of this extraordinary case as regards the seemingly pronounced degree of commoditization in villagers’ on-going embrace of capitalist ‘‘marketing’’ (maketsi) and what appears to be a corresponding abandonment of many of their ‘‘traditions’’ (kangakanga). While falling well short of describing villagers’ encounters with the entirety of capitalism, or ‘‘Capitalism with a capital ‘C,’’’ I focus upon changes in modes of personhood and sociality as conceptualized analytically in terms of ‘‘dividual,’’ ‘‘individual,’’ and ‘‘possessive individual’’ modes of personal agency and as enacted by villagers through their understandings of the definitive tokens of capitalism – money and commodities, or moni (‘‘money’’) and moni kamutsi (literally, ‘‘money things’’) as they are known locally. In addition to other findings, I argue that, even in light of the excessive reach of their various recent transformations, North Mekeo villagers continue to qualify as composite dividuals with respect to the totality of their persons even as regards those specific dimensions of their recent activities which might be suggestive of ‘‘individualism’’ and particularly ‘‘possessive individual’’ (Macpherson, 1962). This is due partly to the fact that the alienated products of people’s labors, but not the labors themselves, and the exogenous money and manufactured goods that they receive in exchange for them are viewed as potent aspects of persons, analogous to indigenous wealth and ritual paraphernalia. Consequently, in this instance from Oceania, the Maussian anthropological theory of gift exchange and the New Melanesian Ethnography, appropriately modified to account for processes of social change, hold greater explanatory power than the theory of ‘‘possessive individualism’’ and ‘‘possessive market societies’’ (Macpherson, 1962; Sykes, 2007a, 2007b) premised instead on the logic of commodity exchange.

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BACKGROUND Since World War II, the Austronesian-speaking Mekeo peoples of the Central Province of Papua New Guinea have been key beneficiaries of Port Moresby’s steady growth as an urban center and the national capital. Blessed with exceptionally fertile and abundant land and residing in fairly close proximity (roughly 150 km) to town, Mekeo villagers have been able nearly, and famously, to dominate certain dimensions of the lucrative urban ‘‘betel nut’’ (technically, areca nut) market.1 Due to a variety of factors, such as access to transport, variable microclimatic conditions and other environmental factors, not all Mekeo communities have been able to participate in the areca market equally. The North (Amoamo) Mekeo, who are the subjects of this chapter, for example, have for decades been excluded from the areca trade due to an infestation of rhinoceros beetles that attacked their areca palms.2 But in the late 1980s circumstances enabled them to specialize in the mass production and sale of betel pepper (known in town as daga or ‘‘mustard’’) and thus to earn incomes surpassing those of their areca-growing neighbors and most other Papua New Guineans. Annual per capita income among North Mekeo has remained among the highest of any rural population in the country over recent years. According to the Papua New Guinea Rural Development Handbook (Hanson, Allen, Bourke, & McCarthy, 2001, p. 296), national per capita rural income for 2000 was PNGK 71.26. For North Mekeo, the comparable figure is roughly seven times that at PNGK 500 per person per year (Michael Bourke, personal communication). I have described elsewhere (Mosko, 1999) the dramatic developments which coincided with the relatively sudden intensification of betel production and sale by two Amoamo villages over 1990–1994 – a time when those two communities virtually monopolized the Port Moresby wholesale market – and villagers’ quite different responses when that market subsequently collapsed. In strict monetary terms, the earlier period was marked by an extraordinary increase in cash incomes and an unprecedented level of consumption of manufactured goods imported from town. Then beginning in April 1994 through 1997 there was a precipitous collapse of the Moresby betel market and a drop in villagers’ cash incomes which resulted in an intensification of evangelical Christian enthusiasm including successful efforts by the community to devote their greatly reduced cash surpluses to the construction of a new church building. It is clear that both of these earlier developments were conditioned at least partly by North Mekeo villagers’ differential engagements with capitalism

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through their varying participation in the betel pepper trade, but it is hard to imagine how these two responses by the same community could be any more extreme, at least as compared with one another. On the basis of regular observations made on nine fieldtrips between 1995 and 2009, for example, the degree of villagers’ participation in betel marketing, commodity consumption, and Christian worship was more modest, with comparably minor fluctuations of intensity in each of those areas. It was therefore a surprise to find upon arriving in October 2011 that people were engaging in maketsi production, exchange and consumption at levels significantly surpassing the excesses of the early 1990s. In a string of writings (Mosko, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2012b), I have outlined several parameters of North Mekeo social change, including commoditization, through the lens of the New Melanesian Ethnography (hereafter, NME; Josephides, 1991) – a relatively recent elaboration of the classic Maussian theory of gift exchange concentrating chiefly on the gendered character of social relations in traditional Melanesian societies. Most employments of the NME have followed the seminal formulations of Strathern (1988) and Wagner (1991), among others, by restricting their analyses to non-changing synchronic systems. In the works cited above, I have formulated a modified version of the NME specifically adapted to situations of social change which maintains that, through gift transactions with exogenous agents – the reciprocal elicitation, detachment, and attachment of the parts of ‘‘partible’’ or ‘‘dividual’’ persons and relations – villagers have been able to acquire and internalize novel personal capacities for their own projects and relations. Accordingly, up to about 2006, I have argued, the local interactions of North Mekeo people with outsiders and even with one another which had involved foreign money and money things drew strongly upon indigenous notions of ‘‘dividual’’ personhood and agency. In short, villagers’ engagements with moni and money things had until recently served to amplify the preexisting patterns of sociality and, most notably, had not yet generated a mode of personhood which could be readily recognized as an instance of the sort of ‘‘individualism’’ presupposed in most social-scientific theories of development, modernization, or globalization, whether for Melanesia or the rest of the developing world. In particular, unlike the canonic ‘‘possessive individuals’’ of ‘‘possessive market societies’’ (Macpherson, 1963) which, in Western discourse, are based on the categorical distinction between subjects and objects, North Mekeo had been treating moni and money things as detachable or partible – hence inalienable – aspects of their very persons, attributing to them enhanced ‘‘hot’’ (tsiabu) powers analogous to the ritual

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‘‘charms’’ (toli), ‘‘spells’’ (menga), and ‘‘medicines’’ (fuka) which underpinned the indigenous ritual system including ‘‘magic’’ and ‘‘sorcery.’’ Putting this into a familiar Oceanic comparative perspective, the North Mekeo engagements with capitalism that I described previously approximate Sahlins’s notion of develop-man, as distinct from ‘‘development’’ (Sahlins, 1992; see also Gregory, 1982; cf. Robbins & Wardlow, 2005). The most recent excesses of North Mekeo commoditization, however, suggest that there have been further transformations in the ways villagers regard money and money things in connection with the character and agency of their persons and relations. While these transformations might appear superficially to affirm the emergence of ‘‘possessive individualism’’ and ‘‘commodity exchange,’’ similar to reports from other parts of the region (Sykes, 2012), I shall argue instead that this is misleading and, furthermore, that there is no necessarily singular route or destination by or toward which indigenous notions of personhood and agency respond in Pacific peoples’ encounters with capitalism. Ironically, the modes of exchange and sociality which have emerged from North Mekeo people’s most recent engagements with capitalism evince aspects of gift reciprocity and dividual personhood in marked deviation from the widespread presuppositions in the West of an inherent link between individualism and commoditization.

RECENT CHANGES IN VILLAGE SOCIALITY To clarify the nature and extent of these transformations and their effects on the character of village sociality, I provide the following examples. For wholesale producers of betel pepper, the period 1994–2008 was marked by price fluctuations within a fairly narrow range of between K5 and K30 per 10 kg wrapped bundle. During 2009–2011, however, betel bundles fetched prices ranging between K25 and K120, more often than not at the higher end of that scale. It is now common for village kin to ‘‘buy’’ and ‘‘sell’’ (kaua, ke maketsi) areca nut and betel pepper to one another at home in the village. This may seem like a relatively innocent and minor development, but in traditional North Mekeo morality the informal sharing of betel and areca is perhaps the consummate expression of open and free generosity and sociality. Previously people who regarded one another as relatives and friends were expected to share areca and betel whenever requested, or to offer it to consociates without their asking. Nowadays, however, when begging for a bit of betel or

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areca, it is not uncommon to be told, sari apounga, bwo namo aunga ana maketsi, or ‘‘Very sorry, this is for marketing only.’’ This change in behavior regarding the exchange of betel and areca is something that would have been unimaginable when I began my North Mekeo fieldwork in the mid-1970s. Since around 2008, many village men have taken advantage of opportunities to sell quantities of exotic wild aromatic woods (gufu and faika) harvested from the local forest for sale to Chinese dealers in Port Moresby for exorbitant prices. Over any two week period, a small team of two to four men camping in the bush, for instance, could earn between K5,000 and K15,000. Together, the recent sales of betel and aromatic woods have greatly increased per capita incomes over the previously affluent 1990– 1994 levels, according to villagers themselves. More importantly is the fact that villagers are now able to acquire unprecedented amounts of wealth in fairly short order, albeit intermittently. This dramatically expanded cash flow has stimulated a considerable enhancement in the quantity and quality of alcohol consumption as compared with drinking patterns during the years of relatively modest and stable betel pepper prices and even during the earlier 1990s boom time. Older villagers still prefer the long-standing drink of choice, South Pacific Lager. When cash flows were relatively modest earlier on, village youths indulged in home brewed alcohol, either ‘‘jungle juice’’ (fermented fruit juice) or stim (locally distilled alcohol). With their recently inflated earnings, however, the new preference among village youths is a hard liquor manufactured in Port Moresby called Coffee Punch with an alcohol content of 38%. Coffee Punch is typically drunk as straight shots taken from the capped upside-down cut-off tops of plastic soda bottles. The actions of drinkers of Coffee Punch are reputed to be the same as other alcohol drinkers, only more extreme – more aggressive, more violent – and virtually impossible for others to control. The consumption of alcohol, which for decades had been largely limited to men, has been opened to village women, both young and old – a process initiated in the early 2000s but intensified during the current boom. Women continue to prefer beer over Coffee Punch, however, and their behavior when drinking, despite the increase in quantities consumed, do not seem to have followed the patterns of men as per relative age. With the increase in alcohol consumption, there has been a dramatic escalation in nighttime noise and other disturbances, especially outbreaks of fighting mainly among young men. Most of this violence has moved from fisticuffs, sticks, and brass knuckles to bush knives. Two cases of severe laceration occurred less than a week apart during my last visit. It is not

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uncommon to see small drinking parties of two to five young men cruising the village at night with bush knives in hand. Not infrequently, these fights involve familial and clan brothers and other kin and in-laws against one another. As reported to me, most fights emerged from jealousies over women. As I have documented elsewhere (Mosko, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2012a), the imposition of colonial peace early on resulted in the intensification of competitive courting known as bakai where men used their magical courting charms (toli) and spells (menga) secretly to seduce one another’s girlfriends, sisters, daughters, and wives. It was during my initial period of fieldwork in the mid-1970s that I came to realize that the tenor of village politics among clan elders had been set by those men’s and women’s illicit alliances in their youths in consequence of bakai escalation. The point is, in the current situation the increase of secret bakai courting and suspicions are a direct result in cultural terms of the greater power and influence (tsiabu or ‘‘heat’’) of money and money things (see below). I was told by more than one informant that nowadays most men and women have more than a single ‘‘wife’’ or ‘‘husband’’ – one the official spouse, the other a secret, adulterous one – continuing the previous post-contact pattern. Gambling over money with cards and bingo has become a daily occupation for many villagers, young and old (Mosko, 2012a). Periodically, individual families will host large-scale card gambling and bingo contests where considerable sums of cash and money things are transacted, often in the tens of thousands of kina (the PNG national currency). Where earlier men and women tended to participate in gambling separately – men gambling with cards, women with bingo – many women have become avid card gamblers like the men, playing in their own games or joining in games with male players. When the cash stakes are very high, however, women leave the men to play alone (see below). The development of mixed-gender gambling has evidently provided new contexts for men and women who are not married to each other to interact publicly. Typically on these occasions sponsors of the gambling events provide quantities of beer for the participants. These factors combine to increase suspicions and jealousies over competitive courting and extramarital sexuality, with consequent outbreaks of fighting during or after the gambling contests. Male village leaders including clan chiefs and elders, church officials, resident primary and elementary teachers, and others have been decidedly unsuccessful in curbing even the more disruptive of these activities mainly because many of them actively participate in the illicit courting, drinking,

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gambling, and fighting themselves. One of the key traditional ritual powers of ‘‘peace chiefs’’ (lopia), for example, was the ability to separate warring forces and establish peace (Hau’ofa, 1981; Mosko, 1995). Nowadays very few villagers listen to the chiefs, and because of that, the chiefs have stopped trying to intercede. In a similar vein, I have often heard church leaders described, when they are delivering their sermons, as kebifonge ‘‘lying,’’ as they are suspected of being as guilty of the indicated sins as the parishioners they are chastising. Relations between teachers at the local primary school and the parents have become dysfunctional with frequent quarreling. The teachers accuse the parents of failing to support them and their efforts to educate the children by failing to pay the school fees. The parents counter that the teachers frequently fail to show up for classes, spending their time gardening or travelling to Port Moresby to market their betel or to collect their pay. In 2011 none of the grade 8 students were allowed to sit high school qualification exams due to the fact that their classes did not meet the minimum number of days. To get away from all the nightly noise and distractions, numerous households have relocated permanently to isolated homesteads upstream or downstream from the village on abandoned garden sites. The village and its residential clan groupings, in other words, are well along in dispersing their members. Despite the recently increased flow of wealth into the community, there is little evidence of any significant enhancement to village infrastructure of just a few years ago. There are only a very few new houses erected with iron roofs replacing the thatched roofs of earlier years. There is still only one large canoe and outboard motor in operation for transporting passengers and cargo between the village and the coastal highway. Many families are relying on food from old gardens without having planted new ones. The few new gardens that have been planted are much smaller than those planted earlier. Consequently, as in the early 1990s, nearly everyone has now become greatly reliant on rice, tinned meats, and other consumable money things to provide daily sustenance. By casual observation, the regular eating of convenience foods purchased in town or in the village is much more prevalent among young children and adults than previously. There is also a marked increase in the quantity (and corresponding decline in the quality) of cheap imported plastic toys in the hands of young children. It was reported to me that many young children are regularly rewarded with money to buy lollies and convenience snacks when they disturb their parents and break their concentration while gambling.

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All but one of the several earlier village trade stores are permanently closed or open only intermittently with the development of ‘‘table marketing’’ (tebil maketsi). Here numerous households copy the Port Moresby pattern of reselling ‘‘black market’’ goods – store-bought items such as alcohol, areca nut, cigarettes, lollies, noodle packets, sugar, and other food stuffs – from small tables erected in the front of or underneath their raised dwellings. It is my understanding that virtually all households engage in table marketing upon the return of members from town bringing surplus goods purchased for this purpose. Villagers, even close relatives, now routinely buy and sell wholesale 10 kg bundles of betel pepper with each other in order to accumulate a number of bundles sufficient to make the trek to town financially viable. This is said to be necessary because of a felt shortage of betel pepper arising from two main causes: an increase of night time theft from the plantations, and declining production due to the exhaustion of the vines. Church fundraising has greatly diminished in response to complaints over officials’ hypocrisies and mismanagement of funds. Persons attending weekly church services consist almost entirely of women and children, as Sunday mornings are a peak time for men’s gambling sessions. These developments provide various kinds of evidence of the impact that people’s recent engagements with capitalism have had upon the patterns of traditional sociality. Villagers themselves summarily describe these processes in terms of the ke kani ‘‘breaking apart’’ or ‘‘fragmenting’’ of kangakanga (‘‘customs’’ or ‘‘traditions’’) and of social relationships at numerous scales and the kaftia ‘‘taking hold of’’ or ‘‘adoption’’ of European (nao) practices. It should not be assumed, however, that villagers view these transformations in entirely negative terms. While complaints about any of the activities described above can be heard frequently enough, there is a clear sense also that the community as a whole welcomes the regional ‘‘fame’’ (aua fangai) that has become attached to it through the recent and previous indulgences of its members (see Mosko, 2002). Even so, in anthropological perspective, it is an unanswered question as to whether, on the one hand, the recent excesses qualify contemporary North Mekeo persons as ‘‘possessive individuals’’ and their community as a ‘‘possessive market society’’ in accordance with the classic formal criteria of those notions as set out by Macpherson (1962) or, on the other hand, the current situation, despite the noted changes, continues to reflect the characteristics of dividual personhood as consistent with an economy dominated by gift exchange.

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MACPHERSON’S MODELS OF SOCIETY AND PERSONHOOD In seeking to answer this question, it will be useful to consider the critical dimensions of Macpherson’s classificatory scheme (1962, pp. 46–70) for formally different models of society and the kinds of personhood associated with each. For the sake of brevity, I shall concentrate on those features which bear directly on the character of contemporary North Mekeo personhood in the context of recent commoditization. For Macpherson, there are three types of society: most famously, (1) the ‘‘possessive market society,’’ and, less frequently examined by others, (2) the ‘‘simple market society,’’ and (3) the ‘‘customary or status society’’ (1962, pp. 46–70). When Melanesianists in particular have asserted that their research subjects have become ‘‘individualists’’ in the context of embracing modernity, development, globalization, etc., it has typically been Macpherson’s ‘‘possessive individual’’ that has been nominated as informing their claims (e.g., Robbins, 2007; Sykes, 2007a, 2007b). Unfortunately, these appeals to the authority of Macpherson have gravely misconstrued his ideas. The often-cited diagnostic of possessive individualism within Macpherson’s model of the possessive market society is ‘‘its possessive quality y found in its conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them’’ (Macpherson, 1962, p. 3; Sykes, 2007a, p. 213). Of critical importance for the possessive individual as ‘‘proprietor of his own person or capacities’’ in the sense that ‘‘each individual’s capacity to labour is his own property and is alienable’’ (1962, p. 54). The possessive market society within which possessive individuals by this definition operate accordingly construes the labors of individuals in particular as alienable commodities: Exchange of commodities through the price-making mechanism of the market permeates the relations between individuals, for in this market all possessions, including men’s energies, are commodities. In the fundamental matter of getting a living, all individuals are essentially related to each other as possessors of marketable commodities, including their own powers. All must continually offer commodities (in the broadest sense) in the market, in competition with others. (1962, p. 55, emphases added) Everyone is a possessor of something, if only of his capacity to labour. (1962, p. 57) Only in a society in which each man’s capacity to labour is his own property, is alienable, and is a market commodity, could all individuals be in this continual competitive power relationship. (1962, p. 59)

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There is thus a categorical distinction inherent to the notion of ‘‘possessive individualism’’ which differentiates the individual or person as subject from his/her possessions (including his labors and the products of his labors) as alienable objects. Interactions and relations between individual subjects consist of transactions over the objects that they possess or own, including their labors. Finally, the alienability of labor is to be encountered ‘‘only in fully market societies’’ (1962, p. 51). For Macpherson, this means that ‘‘where labour has become a market commodity, market relations so shape or permeate all social relations that it may properly be called a market society, not merely a market economy’’ (1962, p. 49, emphasis added). The important implication here is that when labor has become commoditized for some but not all of a given society’s relations, we have neither possessive individuals nor possessive market societies. With Macpherson’s second type of capitalist society, ‘‘the simple market society ... all individuals have land or other resources on which they may get a living by their labour’’ (1962, p. 51). Here land and the products of labor on the land may be exchanged as alienable objects through market mechanisms but not labor itself: The productive and other functions of society will thus be performed by individuals in search of rewards that can only be had by using their energies and resources. Since individuals seek the maximum return for their work, and since division of labour is more efficient than is each doing everything for himself, individuals will exchange products of their labour and resources for goods produced by others. There will thus be a market in products y . There is no reason in this model for the market in products to be extended to a market in labour y the satisfaction of retaining control of one’s own labour is greater than the difference between expected wages and expected returns as an independent producer. (1962, p. 52, emphasis added)

There is again a categorical distinction between subjects and objects, but is only the products of an individual’s labor and land but not his/her labor itself which are considered to be alienable objects of proprietary interest. With Macpherson’s third model, the ‘‘customary or status society,’’ y there is no unconditional individual property in land y hence no market in land y The whole labour force is tied to the land y The members of the labour force are thus not free to offer their labour in the market: there is no market in labour. (1962, p. 49, emphasis added) y in the status model the natural powers, i.e. the labour, of individuals are freely transferable. (1962, pp. 50–51)

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As distinct from the models of the possessive market and the simple market societies, with customary or status societies there is no categorical distinction between subject and alienable object. The customary or status society also differs from the simple market and fully market society types in that persons are ‘‘given and permitted only to have a scale of reward, appropriate to the performance of [their] functions, the appropriateness being determined by the consensus of the community or by the ruling class’’ (1962, p. 49, emphasis added). Since there are no markets, in other words, persons are rewarded, compensated, or reciprocated for their labors and products by customary gifts, and their labors and the products of those labors by implication are construed also as customary gifts. It is fairly easy to affirm, then, that this last of Macpherson’s societal types corresponds closely with the sorts of precapitalist societies of Melanesia which were once (if not still) characterized by economies of gift exchange. There is one important post-Strathernian qualification, however. Writing more than a quarter century before the publication of The gender of the gift (Strathern, 1988), Macpherson refers to the persons symptomatic of customary or status societies as ‘‘individuals.’’ But since there are no markets of alienable labors or products in this context, the term ‘‘individual’’ in the sense of a bounded non-divisible being is inappropriate and misleading; hence here the ‘‘dividual’’ or ‘‘partible person’’ is much the more accurate expression. It would not be a difficult exercise as well to demonstrate that (with the possible exception of Martin, 2007) none of the treatments of supposed ‘‘possessive individualism’’ described from the Western Pacific in the recent special issue of Anthropology Forum (Sykes, 2007), for example, whatever their analytical merits otherwise, correspond with Macpherson’s possessive market society simply because there is no associated alienation of labors. Similarly, despite the extent of commoditization observed up to the present, there is no evidence of North Mekeo villagers alienating their labors or their lands. While the alienation of human labor through wage employment and the sale of land is ubiquitous in Papua New Guinea’s urban centers, it continues to be comparatively rare in village settings across the country. Thus it can be concluded that at least in rural regions of Melanesia where land and the products of labor but not labor itself may possibly be alienated, there are no ‘‘possessive individuals’’ as defined by Macpherson. Such usages are thus unwarranted. In the terms of Macpherson’s models, therefore, analysts seeking to characterize the nature of personhood in contemporary rural Melanesia and elsewhere in the Pacific are left with a formal choice between persons as

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‘‘individuals’’ of whom only some of their constituent parts (i.e., products of labor and land) are alienable (cf. Macintyre, 1984) and persons as ‘‘dividuals’’ typified by the inalienability of all their constituent parts. In the remainder of this chapter, I address this choice by a closer examination of the newly emergent persons exemplified in the recent North Mekeo excesses, and how their capacities have been connected historically and culturally to their persons.

RECENT CHANGES IN PERSONAL AGENCY AND THE RITUAL USE OF MONEY AND MONEY THINGS First of all, there are indications that money and money things appear to have become further differentiated from traditional items of wealth as compared with their treatment in earlier periods. In particular, many of my informants reported that while they continue to feel comfortable sharing (ngafengafe) meals of cooked subsistence foods with friends and relatives as expressions of their love, generosity, and regard for those relations, they felt varying degrees of reluctance to entertain the same people with rice, tinned meats, other manufactured foods, or money things generally – items that they had acquired through purchase with money. This is particularly relevant when it is appreciated that the sharing of food is regarded as the epitome of kin relationship and among the most basic of local moral values (see below). Even more worrisome for the people I consulted is the giving of cash even to their closest kin. This seemingly profound change in a Melanesian society traditionally instituted on principles of gift exchange is best exemplified when viewed in conjunction with the new category of village leader which has emerged only in the past five or so years – the imi apongai, or (literally) ‘‘big-old-important boy.’’ Traditionally, the counterpart term, au apounga, ‘‘big [or old, important] man,’’ applied, among the living, to clan chiefs, officials, and elders and, among the dead, to deceased ancestors now existing as invisible tsiange spirits who are viewed as being embodied in their living descendants. When respected women passed through menopause, they were analogously seen as papie apounga [literally, ‘‘big woman’’] and included in the generic au apounga ‘‘big-man’’ category.3 To realize the full potential of becoming an au apounga, a man or woman had to possess capacities for acquiring exceptional quantities and qualities of food and other wealth and of sharing it generously with family and kin. Those capacities were generally of two

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sorts: the bodily capacity of physical labor or ‘‘work’’ (pinaunga) and the possession and effective control of secret ritual knowledge, or ‘‘magic.’’ Men below the age of about 45 or 50 could not qualify as au apounga mainly because, while they might be effective laborers, they were unlikely to have acquired the magical spells and practices from their elders who monopolized them; hence, they were still regarded as imi bebelatsi or ‘‘little boys.’’ The key diagnostics of current big-boys as distinct from earlier big-men and little-boys are that they tend to be young men with substantial cash incomes who, while not handing out cash freely, have sufficient resources to be generous with garden foods and traditional wealth and also to procure certain expensive money things that they utilize so as to benefit others, often through active participation in the excesses described above. For example, today’s big-boys might own generators, TVs, or DVD players and sufficient fuel to broadcast movies for children at night for free. This is a change from my pre-2009 visits where people had to pay 50 toea (roughly 25 Australian cents) to attend any of those screenings. A young man might nowadays be classed as a big-boy if he owns a chainsaw or outboard motor that he allows others to use for personal or community projects, assuming they supply their own fuel. A big-boy currently might simply be a man who runs a trade store or who has a history of hosting large-scale gambling contests that are interpreted as in some way contributing services to the community at large. Thus far, no explicit counterpart category of ivio apoutsi, or ‘‘big girls,’’ has emerged, as far as I could discern, but it seemed obvious to me that a few middle-aged women had informally achieved a similar status. Big-boys thus reproduce many elements of classic Melanesian gift exchange and sociality. Since they recently emerged from the social landscape, however, they have generated novel patterns of interacting with one another and others. For example, they are recognized as being more able than other drinkers to offer a beer or shot of Coffee Punch to members of their drinking party of the moment, but for this same reason big-boys are perceived as tending to form small exclusive drinking parties among themselves. As it was explained to me, big-boys tend to feel comfortable drinking and otherwise socializing with one another, but they and others who are not big-boys are likely to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed (meangai) when drinking together or being in close proximity for long periods. This situation is not unconnected with the big-boys’ qualification of being in possession of unusual amounts of money and money things. That is, big-boys undoubtedly constitute a new and important form of local leadership, and to that extent they exemplify the modern standard of the ideal village person, one who is engaged in relations involving the distribution of traditional and

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commoditized products of their labors. But the connections between their recent emergence, their effective utilization of traditional and modern forms of wealth, and their participation in the excesses enumerated above were foreshadowed in the ways that money and money things had for long been assimilated to indigenous understandings of personhood and agency. Similar to my descriptions of practices in the early affluent 1990s, money and money things as recently deployed by big-boys and others continue to be regarded as those persons’ hot ritual charms, analogous to men’s traditionally secretive ritual or magical toli charms used for hunting, fishing, gardening, courting, warfare, etc. both in the past and in the present. The only major difference is, to elicit desired reactions from others, earlier agents had to separate themselves including their ritual paraphernalia from their ordinary daily relations and affairs by physical distance and ritual fasting and abstinence (ngope ‘‘closing’’; see Mosko, 1985). This was necessary because the effects of traditional ritual practices were generally nefarious to agents themselves and to others with whom they lived in ordinary intimate relations. Thus practitioners had to ensure that their hot charms and spells were insulated from entering their own bodies and those of their family members, and they had to ensure that the toli charms and spells did not fall into the possession of others who might desire to use them too. For related reasons, big-boys are taking similar precautions when they desire not to give their money and money things away, as they do with cooked foods and other ordinary items of traditional wealth. It is thus necessary to digress here and consider not only the nature of that with which big-boys and other villagers have been engaging historically (i.e., the key tokens of capitalism – money and commodities) but also the makeup of those persons who are doing the engaging; namely in this latter regard, the nature of persons and their agencies as understood and epitomized in indigenous as well as historically transformed terms.

TRADITIONAL NORTH MEKEO PERSONHOOD AND AGENCY Tsiabu ‘‘Hot’’ Agency North Mekeo are one of several Austronesian-speaking groups in southeast coastal Papua New Guinea who have attracted considerable ethnographic interest due to the presence of a complex traditional system of clan-based

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‘‘chiefs’’ and official ‘‘sorcery’’ specialists based on a regime of magic and sorcery practice.4 As the main Mekeo ethnographies uniformly attest, indigenous modes of magico-ritual agency are conceptualized in terms of tsiabu or ‘‘hot’’ powers (Bergendorff, 1996; Hau’ofa, 1981; Mosko, 1985; Stephen, 1995). Thus hot beings and entities including spirits as well as living people are construed as possessing the ability of attaching qualities, characteristics, or dispositions in, or extracting them from, other beings and entities. As I have described in numerous prior publications, the hot capacities which villagers use in virtually all spheres of customary activity are classified as etsifa ‘‘cleverness’’ or ‘‘skill,’’ ranging from cooking, gardening, courting, and procreation to feast performance and the proper conduct of bridewealth, warfare, and sorcery. The knowledge, practices, and paraphernalia involved in each kind of hot etsifa skill are regarded as components of the persons as agents who embody and transact them in exchanges with others or patients. Items of indigenous skill are understood to have been transmitted over generations from creator beings and ancestors through successive acts of reciprocal gift-giving, thereby embodying the hot capacities of those persons who previously possessed them and in whose persons they currently reside. The term for ancestors, au apoutsi, as noted above, refers literally to ‘‘big,’’ ‘‘old,’’ or ‘‘important people,’’ but is also inclusive of living clan chiefs, sorcerers, and elders, both male and female, who embody the knowledge and skills of dead ancestors which enable them to use their skills in elicitive relations with others. Much of the knowledge and skills that today’s villagers have inherited from their ancestors is shared among all peoples of the region. The most highly valued knowledge and skills, however, are those which are transmitted through relations of hereditary succession. The hot powers of these skills and knowledge are thus extraordinary, and for the most part are kept secret and out of the possession of persons unqualified to utilize them. Indigenous North Mekeo hot cleverness corresponds closely with the New Melanesian notions of the dividual and personal partibility. The knowledge and cleverness of etsifa skills are detachable from and attachable to persons in numerous respects. Persons are seen as partially and differentially composed of such elements. Persons acquire those elements through transactions with other persons in relations of procreation, nurturance, inheritance, or gift-giving of other sorts. Those elements of persons are hot to the extent that they, through their detachment from one person as agent and corresponding attachment to another as patient, are capable of eliciting desired responses in the form of further detachments from the latter (Gell, 1997; Strathern, 1988). In the course of such exchanges, items transacted retain the personal or

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inalienable identities of those who previously possessed them. The hot capacities associated with previous possessors of items of personal cleverness and skill are cumulative, such that any given item of knowledge or power is understood to embody personal elements of all agents who previously employed it. Lastly, none of these transacted capacities correspond with the alienable exchange of labor in market-like transactions.

Ngaka ‘‘Vital Essence’’ The indigenous elements of persons which have the potential to be hot in these ways are instances of a quality or capacity labeled ngaka, a term referring literally to the oil extracted from shredded coconut.5 However, in its more general meaning, ngaka refers to the mysterious essence of life, or ‘‘vital essence,’’ which is the critical ingredient or component that creates and animates all beings and entities endowed with life. Aside from shredded coconut, ngaka is found in all life forms, including animals, plants, and the blood, bodies and souls of all humans including spirits. Ngaka is also present in numerous features of the landscape that are also considered to be ‘‘alive’’ or ‘‘living’’ (mamauni), such as land or soil, water, winds, and celestial bodies, and it is through the appropriate circulation of ngaka within and between different species that life since the time of creation has been organized and sustained. Even though all members of the living world are equally animated by ngaka, the ngaka that they embody is different in its composition, qualities, characteristics, and capacities, depending on the ancestry of the specific kind(s) of ngaka at issue. While all of creation consists ultimately of personal contributions or detachments of the creator being, Akaisa (see Mosko, 1985), different created species were endowed in the beginning with dissimilar kinds of ngaka, each of which is hot for particular activities or possessing particular sorts of agency, whether in isolation or in combination with beings and entities constituted of different kinds of ngaka. Thus plants and their hot properties differ from one another in accordance with the distinctive contributions which they embody from the time of creation and transmitted through subsequent plant generations. Animal species differ also in accord with their differential allocations of divinely obtained ngaka. The distinctive differences between different groups of humans are similarly based on unique ancestral allocations of hot ngaka. Now ngaka of specific kinds can be transmitted in diverse ways: through procreative detachments of the sexual parts of parents to children during

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sexual intercourse; through the ingestion of ngaka-laden foods; through the material or physical transfers of ngaka-laden entities from one being to another; through bodily work (pinaunga) whereby the laborer’s exertions or sweat (momonge) transfer his/her embodied ngaka into the products of that labor, which can be subsequently transferred through gifts to yet other beings, whether directly or through the mediation of spirits. The ngaka of a particular person at any one time might thus consist of the vital essence he/she received from his/her parents in the mixing of their detached sexual fluids (ilaila); through the distinctive ngaka of foods that they consumed over the course of their life; from the conversion of the bodily labors of his/her relatives into the foods that he/she has consumed; from the receipt of ngaka in the form of medicines, charms, knowledge that has been given to him/her either through indoctrination or through ritual transfer as a victim or patient of spiritual agency. It should be stressed that these interpersonal continuities of ngaka premised on elicitive detachments and attachments include the basic criteria by which villagers are conceived to be related to one another as either the same or different (e.g., same/different ‘‘blood’’ (ifa), clan, same/different lineage, same/different gender, same/different ritual qualification such as ‘‘chief’’ or ‘‘sorcerer’’ of ‘‘peace’’ or ‘‘war’’). Thus as humans, all people share some similar ngaka with each other, but because they have different ancestors who embodied the different kinds of ngaka assigned to them and passed on genealogically or through exchange, they are grouped into different clans, lineages, genders, and other statuses with correspondingly distinct hot ritual capacities. But it is also through inter-specific transfers of ngaka that humans are seen as sharing affinities or being related to beings and entities of the nonhuman world. Different subpopulations of villagers are distinguished from one another, for example, because of the differential ngaka they embody resulting from the species that constitute their distinctive diets. North Mekeo living upstream are different from their downstream relatives due partly to the fact that they subsist chiefly on garden foods rather than sago. It should be noted also that after generations of living on particular portions of land, ingesting the specific plants and animals that are grown on that ground and burying their dead there, human groups are partly differentiated one from another in accord with the differential ngaka components of their persons that they share with their environments. It is on the basis of similar ngaka discriminations that people are viewed as related to ‘‘spirits’’ (tsiange) of various kinds. Although it might appear in the above illustrations that ngaka is essentially substantive in character, it

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should be appreciated that it consists just as much in non-substantial qualities. It is for this reason that invisible non-substantial spirits, both ancestral and otherwise, possess ngaka, and it is due to that possession of ngaka that they are regarded as being or possessing hot ritual capacities that can be exploited in a variety of magical practices. The hot potencies of more substantial entities such as human bodies, plant foods, animal tissues, land, etc. derive from the invisible, non-substantial aspects of the ngaka they embody (cf. Bamford & Leach, 2007). The ngaka of which people and other living beings and entities are composed and which sustains their various modes of life, however, is only one of its two fundamental forms, viz. the ngaka that is alive and thus ‘‘clean’’ (eikua). When living beings ‘‘die’’ (kemae), the ngaka becomes ‘‘dead’’ (mae) and ‘‘dirty’’ (iofu) as their bodies decompose. Death is understood as a ‘‘cooling’’ (ekekia) process where the dirty, dead ngaka elements that previously supported life disintegrate (iauwoka). When the stage of complete dismantling is reached, those ngaka components become clean again as, for example, when bones are dry after the flesh and blood have rotted away. But in the case of humans, before that stage is reached, wet dirty dead things, when transferred to or ingested by a still-living other human, are hot for engendering sickness and death rather than life in the recipient. This dual aspect of ngaka’s hot potency thus accounts for those kinds of personal agency which are antithetical to as well as supportive of life, such as many kinds of magic and sorcery and the rituals of mourning and death. Alternatively phrased, the capacity of ngaka to contribute to life and death means that it has the capacity of instilling vitality to social relations or killing them. It is for this reason also that traditional magicians and sorcerers took steps to ritually close off themselves and their close kin from the inadvertent effects of the charms and spells they were manipulating in relation to intended patients. Finally, it should be noted that the entire range of activities constituting indigenous sociality is understood as essentially one of hot elicitive interpersonal gift exchanges of ngaka. The items that people produce and transact with one another – food, sexual substances, material wealth, images, magical spells, violent acts, poisons, rituals, etc. – consist of hot ngaka-laden components or parts of their persons. What North Mekeo are doing when they interact is exchanging potent bits of themselves. This means that, in the critical meanings of gift exchange theory, the NME and Macpherson’s customary or status society, there is an absence of the cultural distinction between persons and things or subjects and objects which informs the Western notion of individualism (see above). Accordingly, as

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dividual or partible persons, North Mekeo persons can be seen as composed of the inalienable contributions of one another. This means also that before the arrival of Europeans North Mekeo had little experience of a universe of alienable things, capacities, or other possessions (i.e., money, labor, commodities) – the canonic hallmark of capitalist systems of production and market exchange. Also, the sense under modern full market systems whereby possessive individuals are owners of their own persons for which they owe nothing to society was utterly foreign.

THE PERSONHOOD AND AGENCY OF MODERN BIG-BOYS AND THEIR MONEY AND MONEY THINGS Seen against this cultural background, the most recent excesses of North Mekeo commoditization described above might easily be interpreted as radical transformations of indigenous patterns of dividualism and gift exchange into (possibly dysfunctional) instances of individualism and market exchange. Closer scrutiny, however, suggests that such a conclusion is misguided. As regards big-boys’ and others’ reluctance to share money and money things as opposed to their prototypical generosity with subsistence foods and other forms of traditional wealth, the latter items are still viewed by villagers as retaining the hot ngaka vital essence that originates at least partly in the labor of the persons who produced and earlier possessed them. Also, when big-boys and other people reciprocate cooked foods and traditional wealth items for which they have toiled, they are even now effectively exchanging elements of themselves that have the capacity of sustaining life in others. Traditional products of labor thus incorporate the hot ngaka of the people who fabricated them and, once exchanged, make it available to sustain the life of the persons who consume them or in one way or another attach them to their persons. It is these gift exchanges, whether they involve blood, customary behaviors, appearances, names, ritual aptitudes, competencies or, prototypically cooked food, which epitomizes villagers’ relations as kin. In their dealings with traditional forms of wealth, big-boys remain dividuals. As already noted, views of money and money things in regard to inalienable ngaka, however, are nowadays different and varied. A few of the people I interviewed claim that money and money things do not possess

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ngaka at all, or at least not as they know it. Statements along these lines are consistent with claims that money and money things are ‘‘foreign entities’’ (kamu ikotsi) to Papua New Guineans because they originate from beings other than the deities and ancestors of village people. But the majority of my interlocutors proclaimed that the, to them, obvious hot capacities of those items must embody the ngaka derived from the clever European, Asians or other persons who labored to manufacture them. To the extent that money and money things are viewed as bearing ngaka, they remain fetishized (cf. Mosko, 2002) in the sense of containing mystical hot powers obtained from other persons that are amenable to being transferred to still other persons and affecting their behavior. This aspect of the ngaka of money and money things coincides with Macpherson’s criterion for customary or status societies wherein the work authoritatively allocated to constituents of society are ‘‘enforced by y custom’’ (1962, p. 49). However, it is widely assumed that hot money and money things do not have the capacity to have attached to them the personal ngaka of villagers who possess them once they are given away. It is thus critical for big-boys and others in the contemporary context to hold onto their monetary wealth, keeping it close to their persons or at least to manage it strategically in order to influence other persons around them. In other words, virtually everyone affirms that when they come into people’s possession, money and money things are hot and potent in having the capacity of changing other person’s minds in either of two ways: on the one hand, of making those other persons as victims or patients desire or become attracted to the possessor of money and money things or to submit to his will and desires; or on the other of making the money and money things themselves desirable to acquire. The hot capacity of money and money thing in the first respect is quite similar to how traditional courting and hunting magic and certain kinds of sorcery, once internalized, instill particular desires in patients (Mosko, 1999, 2007). The outward demonstration of success in any undertaking, as in this case the ability to attach money and money things in great quantities to oneself, is a sign of having hot mastery of that skill or knowledge in ways not dissimilar to the operations of Polynesian mana. In this respect, big-boy’s limiting of generosity with money and money things is completely consistent with the complementary necessity of being generous with food in pursuit of establishing the relations of fame and renown that are essential to being recognized as a big-boy. The attraction of hot money and money things in themselves is regarded as similar also to how exposure to valuable items of traditional wealth, merely by seeing them or hearing them spoken of, instills in people the desire

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to procure them for use in the their own personal projects. In many instances, however, this takes the form of conspicuously consuming money things as evidence of one’s ability in future to produce more of them (Mosko, 1999). For unlike traditional toli charms with which they are compared, money and money things are clean as concerns physical contact so it is not necessary to close them off ritually from oneself and intimate others. Because of this, also, women and children who could never manipulate traditional dirty toli charms can utilize money and money things freely. Indeed, and as another indication of the dividuality intrinsic to the ritual character of monetized relations between dividual persons, North Mekeo peddlers of betel pepper in Port Moresby have adapted their toli charms for hunting, courting, and gambling to change the minds of non-Mekeo buyers so as to elicit high prices.6 A number of my associates noted that since their arrival, the circulation of money and money things in the village has had the effect of breaking up or effectively killing preexisting relations that had been constituted through transactions involving clean, life-giving ngaka. The implication here is that, although money and money things, not having been obtained from the bodies of dead humans, are clean – with the exception of imported poisons, they will not sicken or kill you if they are literally eaten – the foreign ngaka or ngaka-substitute that they embody can sometimes be hot in ways analogous to dead and dirty ngaka (see above) or simply cold insofar as they are incapable of creating and sustaining relationships. In this regard, one of my more astute informants remarked that, since its arrival, moni, and by implication money things, have ‘‘spoiled everything’’ (gaba mokoi autsi moni ebalifua). There are several facets to this inability of money and money things to form or sustain lasting relationships and their occasional capacity of ending them. I was told many times, for example, that if you give money or money things to another person, even a close kinsperson, you should not be surprised if the recipient fails to reciprocate. This is because money and money things, lacking the ability to attach or incorporate personal identities, do not have the hot capacity of fixing in people’s minds or feelings the obligations that would be necessary for reciprocal countergifting in future. When money and money things are involved in their relations, villagers are renowned for forgetting their promises for repayment. This contrasts with the hot capacities of ngaka-laden traditional gifts of food, pigs, shell wealth, subsistence labor, etc. which are almost certain to be remembered and reciprocated by those who receive them. As much as everyone disapproves of misuses of moni and money things, even those who

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give them away are inclined to forget or ignore them much more readily than when they involve exchanges of food and other traditional wealth. It is widely appreciated, therefore, that those few persons who do fail to honor traditional debts are subjected to considerably more intense gossip and slandering (meke efiu) than persons who default on repaying cash for money or money things loaned or given to them.7 On the other hand, people who are unhesitatingly generous with ngakabearing foods and other traditional wealth to the benefit of their relatives and village associates can expect to be granted abundant praise and fame by community members (Mosko, 2002), and those who are generous with money and money things receive disproportionately less acknowledgment. This remains true in the current context with big-boys despite the excesses of commoditization which have occurred. I was told by several self-described big-boys that others praise them chiefly for their generosity with food. If they were kind and munificent with money or money things – for example, showing videos at night for free, offering free canoe transport, etc. – people would not feel strongly compelled to praise them, and they would not even be regarded as big-boys for those actions alone. To be praised as a big-boy, one needs to be generous primarily with food. Liberality with money and store goods can enhance that fame, but only if it is combined with kindness in the area of food. But also, since money and money things lack the characteristic of inalienability, there is no incentive to give them away for the sake of achieving fame, and every cultural incentive to keep them for that purpose. These aspects of big-boy status and agency are convincing testimony of the extent to which money and money things are viewed and deployed in village exchanges largely in accord with preexisting notions of traditional hot inalienable wealth. The reluctance of big-boys to give away money and money things while they are much more liberal in distributing cooked food might impress upon an outside observer unversed in indigenous notions of hot agency, ngaka and associated ritual practices, however, that money and money things are being quarantined from gift exchanges – perhaps as a preliminary step leading toward the development of a possessive individual, a ‘‘proprietor of his own person [and] capacities, owing nothing to society for them’’ (Macpherson, 1962, p. 3). This conclusion, I suggest, ignores the crucial ethnographic fact that, in their capacities as hot modern ritual toli charms, money and money things must be kept close to one’s person in order to affect desired outcomes in the actions and reactions of others. The use of money and money things in this way as toli with extraordinary hot powers is different from other, more visible kinds of gift transactions among

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dividual persons in being conducted invisibly, a definitive criterion of those traditional skills where agency associated with attachments from distant others, not spirits in this case but unfamiliar, remote foreigners. To acquire their money and money things, big-boys and their family members and close kin undeniably but only occasionally engage in the market exchange of the products of their labor – their betel pepper and eaglewood. But even success in those activities based in town away from the village is not untouched by the regime of ritual hot transactions, since most successful marketers employ, or are assumed to employ, ‘‘lucky charms’’ (laki tolina) to change the minds and elicit the best prices for their produce from urban buyers (Mosko, 2012a). It is widely assumed also that village table marketeers are relying as much on the hot ritual powers of their lucky charms with toli as on competition with one another over prices. What is to be made conceptually of this dual engagement of big-boys, as contemporary epitomies of North Mekeo personhood in both gift and commodity forms of exchange? In the former case, they appear as dividuals, but in the latter one they seem to be individuals. I shall devote my concluding remarks to answering this question, returning to the methodological parameters of Macpherson’s comparative scheme.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS At the outset of his analysis of modern market systems, Macpherson saw fit to construct the three models of society I have summarized above: customary or stable society, simple market society, and possessive market society (1962, pp. 46–61). These he acknowledged to be ideal types designed for assimilation to the variety of known societies, highlighting their distinctiveness with respect particularly to the possessive market society of modern capitalism inspired by Hobbes (1962, pp. 46–48). Macpherson himself was of the view that his models ‘‘would not be sufficient or appropriate for general sociological or historical analysis’’ (1962, p. 47). Very likely, his hesitancy in this regard was based on an awareness that empirical societies often, if not inevitably, manifest complex admixtures of features which are inherently contradictory when viewed from the perspective of mutually exclusive ideal types – exactly the situation presented by North Mekeo big-boys appearing to be dividuals in certain respects and individuals in others.8 Rather than retreating from employing Macpherson’s models here, however, I shall suggest that they might well illuminate the complexities of

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contemporary Melanesian realities in ways which have not till now been appreciated even by those who have proclaimed the emergence of possessive individuals in recent historical developments. First, as I have argued above, without the crucial alienation of labor in market exchanges or indeed in all their social relations, rural Melanesians are by definition not ‘‘possessive individuals.’’ In the case of North Mekeo big-boys, I am thus more concerned with clarifying the relation between their dividualism and their non-possessive individualism, if you will. As dividuals, North Mekeo big-boys continue to be and interact as composite beings, constituted of the elicitive contributions and relations of others persons and entities, human, nonhuman, and spiritual. The hot possessions and capacities that they externalize in their exchanges with others are appreciated as originating in prior transactions with still other persons, and when they are given away they are understood to retain some inalienable aspects of those persons’ identities and capacities. There is no evidence here of a rigorous distinction between persons and things, or subjects and objects. For that reason, the big-boy is not the sole proprietor of his own person and capacities, as he remains in many respects indebted to others for his possession of them, and they are similarly obligated to him for the components of their persons and capacities that they received by eliciting detachments from him. Within Macpherson’s comparative scheme, big-boys might qualify as (non-possessive) individuals when they transact the products of their labor (but not their labor itself) and their land in impersonal but simple market transactions. As we have seen, North Mekeo, like most rural Melanesians, have not yet alienated their lands, so to that extent big-boys would qualify as individuals only to the extent that they transact the products of the labor and land – money and money things – but not their persons and capacities as such. Thus in this respect big-boys do appear to be differentiated as subjects from the objects that they transact through market mechanisms. So how are these two quite contradictory kinds of personhood and agency managed by big-boys? An obvious answer is that they do so by acting as dividual and individual agents in temporal alternation with patients of the appropriate categories – respectively, those mutually constituted with them through exchanges of traditional wealth as kin, for example, and those who are construed as strangers or foreigners by virtue of direct monetized transactions involving money and money things. However, for big-boys this alternation is not quite so starkly schizophrenic or contradictory as it might at first sight appear.9 First of all, money and money things, as I have described above, although they are appreciated

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as being acquired through market transactions with others, whether of the village or town, are seen as specifically embodying the inalienable ngaka vital essence of the distant or unknown persons who manufactured them. In this respect, money and money things in the personal possession of big-boys and other agents function similarly to the toli charms of indigenous ritual, magic, and sorcery whose hotness consists in transfers and elicitations of desired responses in targeted patients. As such, money and money things have the capacity of transferring ngaka, similar to the life-giving clean and life-denying dirty types of traditional charms, from wealth items in the possession of big-boys’ persons to others, regardless of whether the money and money things are materially transferred or only the ngaka that they embody. Thus the reluctance of big-boys to distribute money and money things and the generosity with which they feed their family members and close kin are both key expressions of dividuality, not the individualism intrinsic to persons of Macpherson’s simple market societies. Similarly, the capacities of money and money things to enhance big-boys’ personal fame and renown – whether held and displayed or given for the sake of projects benefitting the wider community – also serve as inalienable components of big-boys’ dividual identities both constituted of and circulated among other persons. By this I mean that the seemingly individualistic moments of a big-boy’s career are themselves indices of the overall dividuality of his total person.10 The big-boy’s alternation between acts of generosity with traditional wealth toward kin and the withholding of hot money and money things for use as toli charms is therefore a modern transformation of the pattern of ritual agency distinctive to traditional chiefs, ritual experts, and other magicians. In the past, prominent villagers were expected to be generous with the ordinary products of their labors and land, while occasionally wielding the extraordinary and powerful hot influence of their secret toli charms and spells over others. In undertaking these latter activities, however, the practitioner had to ritually separate himself from his ordinary relations in order to safely draw upon the ngaka contained with his ritual charms. Once suitably separated from ordinary village affairs, the magician was equipped to transfer that ngaka from the charms attached to his/her person to the intended patient in the hope of eliciting the appropriate reciprocal counter-action. Once completed, the magician would have to prepare him/herself for returning to ordinary affairs, so that the hot powers of his charms and spells were kept separate from his ordinary life and relations. In short, the contemporary big-boy’s generous giving of ordinary traditional wealth and his strategic reluctance to give away money and

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money things are not merely methodological liabilities arising from the mixing of features of disparate ideal types. They are part and parcel of a profound ritual process. The times when big-boys refuse to share their money and money things are moments when they are ritually attaching the ngaka of mysterious powerful foreign agents to themselves, for later use as personal detachments in their own ritual projects. Finally, what about the alternate moments when big-boys or other North Mekeo simply sell their products or purchase manufactured goods in town or the village using cash as the medium of exchange? How does this fit into the ritual formula that I have outlined here? Well, if villagers indeed look at their purchases and sales leached of all meanings of hot ngaka, then I suppose they exhibit a momentary bit of exogenously originating nonpossessive individualism separate from their indigenously embodied dividualism. However, for as long as North Mekeo have been participating in the urban marketing of their produce or the acquisition of money things, they (men and women) have undertaken those actions within the same ritual scenario that is seen to be generative of fame and renown; that is, the detachment, attaching, giving, and receiving of hot components of themselves and others that have characterized the sociality of their ancestors. In other words, as long as villagers employ their wealth, even money and money things, as fetishized charms to elicit the fame or reactions of others that they desire or that they profess to desire, they remain overall dividual beings. Viewed this way, even moments of seeming non-possessive individuality are expressions of on-going Melanesian dividuality.

NOTES 1. The term ‘‘betel nut’’ actually refers to the fruit of the areca palm, properly labeled ‘‘areca nut.’’ The ‘‘betel’’ that is an essential ingredient of the chewing of areca is the katkyl of the betel pepper vine. To avoid confusion, in this chapter I refer to what is popularly called ‘‘betel nut’’ as areca nut, and reserve the term ‘‘betel’’ to refer to betel pepper. 2. The term ‘‘Mekeo’’ refers to a number of culturally and linguistically related communities at the western end of the Central Province who, in precolonial times, were organized into a number of discrete political ‘‘tribes.’’ This chapter concentrates on one of those groups, the Amoamo North Mekeo living on the upper reaches of the Biaru River, as distinct from the Central Mekeo who occupy the coastal plain traversed by the Angabanga river. 3. The term au can have numerous referents, most often ‘‘man,’’ but also can be extended generically to ‘‘persons’’ inclusive of women and men in a way similar to how in traditional English, the term ‘‘man’’ was once inclusive of persons of both

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genders. Among Mekeo, however, au can also refer to items which in Western terms would be regarded as ‘‘things,’’ as in the expressing ‘‘this thing’’ (namo aunga). This is a straightforward example of how, in North Mekeo understandings, the European distinction between subjects and objects is absent. 4. The earliest professional anthropologist to visit the Mekeo and neighboring Roro peoples near the turn of the 20th century, C. G. Seligmann, remarked, for example, ‘‘the belief in magic and sorcery y certainly bulks more largely in the daily life of the people of this area than in the other parts of British New Guinea with which I am acquainted’’ (1910, p. 278). In several recent publications, however, I have argued that the intensity of Mekeo and Roro magical and sorcery practice observed in the post-contact era is in significant part a response to a variety of encounters with Europeans in the proto- and early-contact periods (see Mosko, 1999, 2005, 2009). 5. Something of the importance of ngaka is conveyed in the fact that it is a reflex of the proto-Austronesian version of the word for the ‘‘cream’’ or ‘‘essence’’ extracted from shredded coconut (Malcolm Ross, personal communication). 6. Although she does not tie it to the agency of possessive individuals rather than dividuals, Sykes (2007c, p. 264) reports a similar kind of marketing magic (lulleparat) among the Lelet of New Ireland. 7. I suspect that fellow Melanesianist ethnographers will have been struck by the same bewilderment as myself when, after seeking strenuously to honor traditional debts involving indigenous currencies and wealth, villagers exhibit a much more casual attitude in repaying debts involving money. It is not simply a matter of the ethnographer being so much wealthier than the average villager that he/she doesn’t mind the loss, but that the two kinds of wealth embody distinct implications of personhood and agency. 8. This very question has come to be of considerable importance in contemporary Melanesian anthropology and ethnography. I refer here not only to the present debates over whether Melanesians in either traditional or changing contexts qualify as dividuals or individuals, but also to the somewhat differently configured controversy over the conceptual differences between the partible person model of the NME and the ‘‘relational-individual’’ (e.g., LiPuma, 1998; Strathern & Stewart, 2000, 2008). As I have addressed the latter issue in several previous publications, I concentrate here on issues contained within the parameters of Macpherson’s framework. 9. The complex situation where Tolai ‘‘Big Shots’’ participate selectively in expressing both generosity and acquisitiveness described by Martin (2007, pp. 289–293) is very similar to that of North Mekeo ‘‘big-boys’’ described here, except that in Martin’s analysis Big Shots’ ‘‘money power’’ is automatically presumed to be a token of ‘‘possessive individualism’’ supposedly devoid of any ritual capacities or properties. 10. In several recent publications examining Weber’s, Weiner’s, Burridge’s, Dumont’s, Robbins’s, and others’ theories of ‘‘individualism’’ and ‘‘possession,’’ I have identified basically the same confusions as are encountered here with reference to Macpherson’s models, namely that the (non-possessive) ‘‘individual’’ in rural Melanesian contexts is best seen as a momentary phase or aspect of the ritual processes that constitute the dividuality of villagers as total persons (see Mosko, 2000, 2002, 2010a, 2010b, 2012b).

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The field research on which this chapter is based has been generously funded by the National Institute for General Medical Sciences, the Marsden Fund (New Zealand), the Australian Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Research School for Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. I am greatly indebted to the many North Mekeo who have shared their knowledge, wealth, and energies with me and my wife over the years, most notably Kaiva Muniapu, Pafifi Komoli, Mangemange Muniapu, Peniaimo Peniaimo, Ameaua Wangu’u, Adolo Mangemange, and Martin Ae. I am grateful also to Edvard Hviding, Kate Barclay, and Fiona MacCormack for helpful comments and criticisms of earlier drafts.

REFERENCES Bamford, S., & Leach, J. (2007). Kinship and beyond: The genealogical model reconsidered. London: Wiley. Belshaw, C. (1951). Recent history of Mekeo society. Oceania, 22, 1–23. Bergendorff, S. (1996). Fangu city: A modern Mekeo clan in Papua New Guinea. Lund: Lund University Press. Gell, A. (1997). Art and agency: An anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon. Gregory, C. (1982). Gifts and commodities. London: Academic. Hanson, L., Allen, B., Bourke, M., & McCarthy, T. (2001). Papua New Guinea rural development handbook. Canberra: Land Management Group, Australian National University. Hau’ofa, E. (1981). Mekeo: Inequality and ambiguity in a village society. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Josephides, L. (1991). Metaphors, metathemes, and the construction of sociality: A critique of the new Melanesian ethnography. Man (N.S.), 26, 145–161. LiPuma, E. (1998). Modernity and forms of personhood in Melanesia. In M. Lambeck & A. Strathern (Eds.), Bodies and persons: Comparative perspectives from Africa and Melanesia (pp. 53–79). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Macintyre, M. (1984). The problem of the semi-alienable pig. Canberra Anthropology, 17, 109–121. Macpherson, C. (1963). The political theory of possessive individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, K. (2007). Your own buai you must buy: The ideology of possessive individualism in Papua New Guinea. In Interrogating individuals: The critique of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. Anthropological Forum, 17(Special Issue), 285–298. Mosko, M. (1985). Quadripartite structures: Categories, relations and homologies in Bush Mekeo culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Mosko, M. (1999). Magical money: Commoditization and the linkage of maketsi (‘market’) and kangakanga (‘custom’) in contemporary North Mekeo. In D. Akins & J. Robbins (Eds.), Money and modernity: State and local currencies in Melanesia (pp. 41–61). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Mosko, M. (2000). Inalienable ethnography: Keeping-while-giving and the Trobriands case. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 6, 377–396. Mosko, M. (2001). Syncretic persons: Agency and personhood in recent charismatic ritual practices among North Mekeo (PNG). In J. Gordon and F. Magowan (Eds.). Beyond syncretism: Indigenous expressions of world religions. The Anthropological Journal of Australia, 12(Special Issue), 259–276. Mosko, M. (2002). Totem and transaction: The objectification of ‘tradition’ among North Mekeo. Oceania, 73, 89–109. Mosko, M. (2005). Peace, war, sex, and sorcery: Non-linear analogical transformations in the early escalation of North Mekeo sorcery and chiefly practice. In M. Mosko & F. Damon (Eds.), On the order of chaos: Social anthropology and the science of chaos (pp. 166–205). New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Mosko, M. (2007). Fashion as fetish: The agency of modern clothing and traditional body decoration among North Mekeo of Papua New Guinea. The Contemporary Pacific, 19, 39–83. Mosko, M. (2009). Black powder, white magic: European armaments and sorcery in early Mekeo Roro encounters. In M. Jolly, S. Tcherke´zoff & D. Tryon (Eds.), Oceanic encounters: Exchange, desire, violence (pp. 259–294). Canberra: Australian National University E-Press. Mosko, M. (2010a). Partible penitents: Dividual personhood and Christian practice in Melanesia and the West. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 16, 215–240. Mosko, M. (2010b). Partible penitents: A response to comments. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 16, 253–259. Mosko, M. (2012a). Laki charms: ‘Luck’ and personal agency North Mekeo social change. In C. Humphries and G. Da Col (Eds.), Future and fortune: Contingency, morality, and the anticipation of everyday life. Social Analysis, 56(2) (Special Issue), 19–38. Mosko, M. (2012b). Unbecoming individuals: The partible character of the ‘individual’ Melanesian Christian person. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA. Robbins, J. (2007). Afterword: Possessive individualism and cultural change in the Western Pacific. In K. Sykes (Ed.). In Interrogating individuals: The critique of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. Anthropological Forum, 17(3) (Special Issue), 299–308. Robbins, J., & Wardlow., H. (Eds.). (2005). The making of global and local modernities in Melanesia: Humiliation, transformation and the nature of cultural change. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Sahlins, M. (1992). The economics of develop-man in the Pacific. Res, 21, 13–25. Seligmann, C. (1910). The Melanesians of British New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stephen, M. (1995). A’aisa’s gifts: A study of magic and the self. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Strathern, A., & Stewart, P. (2000). Arrow talk: Transaction, transition and contradiction in New Guinea Highlands history. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press.

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Strathern, A., & Stewart, P. (2008). Introduction. In P. Stewart, & A. Strathern (Eds.), (pp. xi–xxxvi). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Strathern, M. (1988). The gender of the gift. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sykes, K. (2007a). Interrogating individuals: The theory of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. In Interrogating individuals: The critique of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. Anthropological Forum, 17(Special Issue), 213–224. Sykes, K. (Ed.). (2007b). Interrogating individuals: The critique of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. Anthropological Forum, 17(3) (Special Issue), 299–308. Sykes, K. (2007c). The moral grounds of critique: Between possessive individuals, entrepreneurs and big men in New Ireland. In Interrogating individuals: The critique of possessive individualism in the Western Pacific. Anthropological Forum, 17(Special Issue), 255–268. Wagner, R. (1991). The fractal person. In M. Godelier & M. Strathern (Eds.), Big men and great men. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ENVY, DESIRE, AND ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT AMONG THE BUGKALOT (ILONGOT) OF NORTHERN LUZON, PHILIPPINES Shu-Yuan Yang ABSTRACT Purpose – This chapter aims to understand how the Bugkalot, or the Ilongot, as they are known in the previous anthropological literature, engage with capitalism in ways that are deeply shaped by their indigenous idioms of personhood and emotion. Methodology/approach – Long-term intensive fieldwork including five weeks of pilot visits to Bugkalot land in 2004 and 2005, and fifteen months of residence from 2006 to 2008. Findings – The development of capitalism in the Bugkalot area is closely linked with the arrival of extractive industry and the entry of Igorot, Ilocano, and Ifugao settlers. Settlers claim that they have played a centrally important role in developing and ‘‘uplifting’’ the Bugkalot, and that before their arrival the Bugkalot were uncivilized and didn’ t know how to plant (irrigated) rice and cash crops. However, the Bugkalot deny that they are at the receiving end of the settlers’ tutelage. Rather, they

Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 199–225 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033010

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perceive the acquisition of new knowledge and technology as initiated by themselves. Envy and desire are identified by the Bugkalot as the driving force behind their pursuit of a capitalist economy. While the continuing significance of emotional idioms is conducive to the reproduction of a traditional concept of personhood, in the Bugkalot’s responses to capitalism a new notion of self also emerges. Originality/value of chapter – Different notions of personhood are intertwined with local ideas of kinship and economic rationality. The Bugkalot’ s attempt to counter the politics of development with their own interpretation of economic change highlights the importance of indigenous agency. Keywords: The Bugkalot (Ilongot); development; economic change; emotional idioms; personhood

In the past two decades, the notion that capitalism is natural or inevitable has come under sustained criticism in the social sciences (Curry, 1999, 2003; Emigh, 2004; Gibson-Graham, 2006a, 2006b; Hart & Hann, 2009; Hefner, 1998). These critiques have challenged the discourse of the structural imperatives of a hegemonic capitalism in which noncapitalist alternatives are destroyed or subsumed in a dependent relationship with capitalism. In contrast with theories of growing capitalist homogeneity, economic development is no longer projected as a linear trajectory toward capitalism, and the direction of change is perceived to be uncertain, dynamic, and diverse. Even when transitions to capitalism occur, historical and ethnographic studies have highlighted each case’ s historically and culturally specific characteristics (Douw, Huang, & Godley, 1999; Hann & Hart, 2011; Yang, 2000), or pointed to the structural role of difference in the mobilization of capital and labor (Tsing, 2009). Therefore, some scholars (Hefner, 1998; Smart, 1999) propose to speak of ‘‘capitalisms’’ as plural because of the term’s value in connoting local variations. The long-standing and seemingly natural tendency for capitalism to occupy the economy, according to Gibson-Graham (2006a), is partly an artifact of the discourses and habits of thought fostered by academic theories of political economy in fields such as Marxism, development studies, and globalization studies. In other words, our theories themselves endow capitalism with so much dominance and ability to ‘‘penetrate’’ that it becomes impossible for us to see the range of economic difference that

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actually inhabits social life. In order to loosen the hold of the naturalized hegemony of the capitalist economic discourse, advocates of a postdevelopment approach have called for the rejection of development and the construction of different economic imaginings (Escobar, 2001, 2007, 2012; Rahnema & Bawtree, 1997). Development, critical anthropologists like Ferguson (1994) and Escobar (2012) suggest, is a hypocritical claim to moral superiority on the part of the rich that obscures the economic realities of our world; or, as Patterson and Macintyre (2011, p. 10) poignantly put it, is ‘‘yet another semantic escape to meaningfully colonise the postcolony.’’ Although the reductionism, universalism, and emphasis on Western concepts of rationality characteristic of modernization theory and marketdominated assumptions of development have been heavily criticized in the academy, these tendencies can still be easily found in practice. In my fieldsite Gingin, a Bugkalot village described by the provincial government as ‘‘one of the most farflung and depressed barangay [smallest administrative unit in the Filipino government] of Dupax del Norte Municipality’’ (Nueva Vizcaya Provincial Government, 1996), older forms of modernization theory still reign supreme and a capitalist market economy is held by government agencies and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as the model for development.1 The perceived primitiveness and irrationality of Bugkalot culture is commonly seen by the Igorot, Ifugao, and Ilocano settlers and government officials as a prime explanation for their poverty and as a hindrance to development. The missionaries of the New Tribes Mission (NTM), the dominant church in the Bugkalot area, also comment on the Bugkalot’s ‘‘irrational consumption caused by their ‘ridiculous cultural tendency’.’’2 The pervasiveness of such a discourse indicates a language of power, which operates by presenting economic conflicts and competition for land and other natural resources as matters of culture and worldview (cf. Dove, 1999). This chapter will show how these processes unfold in a so-called ‘‘transitional’’ society where a capitalist market economy is emerging. I will first give a description of the Bugkalot’s traditional subsistence economy, and briefly explain the importance of emotional idioms such as anger and envy in this egalitarian society. Then I will show how the arrival of extractive industries and labor migration brought the Bugkalot into the orbit of capitalism. The arrival of settlers has been followed by more state attempts at incorporation and development. The encroachment of settlers and state appropriation are justified within the discourses of civilization and development, which attribute negative cultural differences to the Bugkalot and view them as development deficits. The Bugkalot, however, perceive

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the pursuit of a capitalist economy as a process initiated by themselves, and understand it as being driven by emotional factors, in continuity with their pre-capitalist economy. In their attempt to accord themselves capacities to shape economic change, market imperatives are often subordinated to the social imperatives. As pointed out by Dilley (1992, p. 2), representations of exchange are predicated on the recognition of particular forms of personhood and types of social agency. This chapter attempts to show how different notions of personhood are intertwined with local ideas of kinship and economic rationality to form a culturally specific form of modernity.

TRADITIONAL SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY The Bugkalot live at the headwaters of the Cagayan River in Northern Luzon, the area where the Sierra Madre mountain range meets the Caraballo Sur. Since the sixteenth century, the name Ilongot has been used in the colonial and ethnographic literatures to designate this Austronesianspeaking people. They have also been known by various names given to them by other peoples: ‘‘Italon’’ by the Gaddang; ‘‘Ibilao’’ by the Isinai; and ‘‘Abaca,’’ derived from the name of the mountain river system where they were encountered (R. Rosaldo, 2003 [1978]; Worcester, 1906).3 All these names entered documentary records, and only at the beginning of American colonial rule was the official classification of Ilongot instituted. However, these people call themselves and their language Bugkalot.4 Traditional Bugkalot subsistence is based on shifting cultivation and hunting, supplemented by fishing and gathering of forest products. Rice is the main crop and has important social values. It is regarded as the quintessential food, as the Bugkalot use the term ‘‘cooked rice’’ (ekanen) to refer to food in general. Sweet potato, cassava, corn, millet, beans, tobacco, banana, sugar cane and a variety of vegetables are the major subsidiary crops. Neither irrigation nor draft animals were traditionally used in cultivation. The Bugkalot traditionally reside in dispersal local clusters with a population of some 65 persons divided among about 10 houses. Marriage is monogamous and post-marital residence is uxorilocal. A household may include one to three family units, living under a single roof in an unpartitioned structure, each with its own hearth and sleeping area. The domestic cycle is simple: sons marry out and daughters stay home, leaving the parental household when younger daughters marry, hence each household may be comprised of (a) a single family (the spouse set along with offspring and/or adopted children), (b) parents with one married

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daughter, (c) parents with two married daughters, (d) two married sisters (R. Rosaldo, 1970; M. Rosaldo, 1972). The household is the dominant unit of labor in Bugkalot horticulture. In horticultural labor, cooperation between households is occasional, specific to a particular task, and must be sought out through requests of kin and neighbors (R. Rosaldo, 1979, p. 30). The household is also the unit of food consumption. While co-resident women often work the same gardens, such cooperation is not obligatory. More important than joint labor is their more or less equal contribution to the household economy. Food is served in equal portions to all individuals present at a meal (M. Rosaldo, 1972, p. 15). Local communities or settlements are united through close ties of bilateral kinship among men and women of the senior generation. Socially, the community functions as the unit of meat production and distribution. While men may hunt individually, most men join in communal hunts once or twice a week. The catch is usually butchered in a single household; part of it is cooked and consumed immediately, and the rest is divided into shares. These shares are distributed by allotting roughly an equal amount to each of the married couples in a number of households. Over time, the recruitment of workers and the pattern of distribution for collective hunts has been a major constituent of local-level politics (R. Rosaldo, 1979, p. 38). Traditionally, land was freely available and rights to it were short-term. The general principle in claiming land rights among the Bugkalot is to be the first person to occupy the land by clearing it through the slash-and-burn method. Before the intrusion of settlers into the Bugkalot territory, land was in abundant supply, and the Bugkalot did not recognize among themselves exclusive ownership right to land (M. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 4). Like many shifting cultivators in the Philippine uplands, usufruct is more important than ownership of land (Gibson, 2011; Zialcita, 2001). Because population density in their territory was low and virgin land was always available, the Bugkalot did not bequeath land.5 The usual sexual division of labor is that men hunt, fish, forage, and clear first-year swiddens while women do most of the routine gardening. Men clear the forest, pollard and chop down trees, and burn the clearing. Women’s agricultural activities include weeding, scraping the earth (to control weed growth), planting (dibbling and dropping the seed), shooing birds, and harvesting. Conceptions of gender are both reflected and defined in subsistence practices. The symmetry and complementarity of male and female activities, along with a marked symbolic parallelism between the male and female domains, are elaborated metaphorically in Bugkalot magical spells (M. Rosaldo, 1975; M. Rosaldo & Atkinson, 1975).

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The availability of land and the relative autonomy of the relations of production contributed to the maintenance of self-sufficiency. However, the Bugkalot have long traded in the lowlands. They exchanged forest products such as dried meat, beewax, and wild honey for cloth, salt, cooking pots, knives, brass wire, beads, and other valuables. It is also recorded that as early as the eighteenth century they traded tobacco for cloth and metal objects (Perez, 1904, p. 63, quoted from R. Rosaldo, 1970, p. 3). Trade relations were tense and uneasy, with the Bugkalot feeling cheated and resentful. There was a great deal of outspoken dissatisfaction with the lowland Christian traders (Jones, 1907–1909, book V, pp. 32–33). Men held a monopoly on ta-g’ at (trade, barter, exchange), which involved dangerous travel across hostile terrains as headhunting violence knew no bounds, the Bugkalot even targeted each other. The lowlanders killed the Bugkalot, too. Thus, only very brave Bugkalot men traded in the lowlands. Trade relations did not become ‘‘trade partnerships’’ or result in any kind of ‘‘peaceful symbiosis’’ (R. Rosaldo, 1970, p. 2). In fact, the Bugkalot stand out among comparable shifting cultivators of the Philippines in that they never entered into symbiotic relationships or debt-bondage with wet-rice farmers in the nearby lowland (R. Rosaldo, 1979; R. Rosaldo & M. Rosaldo, 1972). The Bugkalot’s determination to avoid debt-bondage and hierarchical relationship of any kind, including colonial incorporation (Yang, 2011a), is closely related to their egalitarianism. The Bugkalot uphold strong egalitarian norms and values. The idea of a hierarchy based on wealth, spiritual power, headhunting bravery, or knowledge and wisdom, is culturally alien and suppressed. All humans are said to be the ‘‘same’’ (anog’ ot); none stand out above the others, and no one can command another what to do. This sense of ‘‘sameness’’ and autonomy of one’s fellow human beings has led to a social life that is governed by persuasion and negotiation rather than by coercion and dominance (M. Rosaldo, 1973, 1980, 1991; R. Rosaldo, 1980). The necessity of equality and cooperation is epitomized in a distribution system that is indifferent to age, sex, or any other attributes of status. The notion of debt was nonexistent, and sharing did not entail an obligation to return. Maintaining the autonomous and egalitarian world of the Bugkalot is a constant and competitive process; equality is not ascribed but achieved. Concern for reputation and equality leads men and women to strive and desire for things that other people have. In local cultural idioms, the concept of liget (anger/energy/passion) is of central importance. Liget suggests the passionate energy that leads young men to labor hard, to kill, marry, and reproduce (M. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 27). Typically born of envy (apet), liget

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grows through the heart’s reflections on the successes of an ‘‘equal’’ and ‘‘clutching’’ as it notes that one has less than the other person (ibid., p. 46). In horticulture, it is envy that stimulates industry and spurs people on to labor. Some Bugkalot say that when two women of the same household work separately they clear a larger area for planting and reap a greater yield of rice than if they were to work together (R. Rosaldo, 1979, p. 31). As a motivational force in work, envy plays an important role in the processes of economic change, which will be discussed in what follows.

LOGGING, MIGRATION AND THE ORBIT OF CAPITALISM The transition from traditional subsistence economy to a market economy and emergent rural capitalism in Gingin started to take place in the 1970s. The earliest manifestations of incorporation into capitalism were the arrival of extractive industry and labor migration. A large-scale migration of settlers to the Bugkalot area began in the late 1950s. The original impetus for migration was state-supported relocation projects for Ibaloi, Kankanai, Kallahan, and Ifugao peoples directly impacted by the construction of the Ambuklao Dam (1956) and the Binga Dam (1960) in the Province of Benguet.6 The well-known bounty of the Sierra Madre and the availability of patches of land in the mountain range were attractive to the people of the Cordillera. Although officially only a few were entitled to be resettled with government support, many of the disenfranchised migrated with the others on their own (Aquino, 2004, p. 177). Because of the encroachment of settlers, the Bugkalot started to lay claims to previously cleared areas and to parcel their common land into individual shares as an attempt to resist these settlers more efficiently (M. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 4, 1991, p. 157; R. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 277). However, this incipient notion of private land ownership did not provide an efficient defense mechanism. In fact, it might even have facilitated the loss of their land to the subsequent settlers. Because the Bugkalot did not perceive land as scarce or think of it as something permanently ‘‘owned,’’ they easily exchanged tracts of land for radios, guns, dogs, blankets, salt, sugar, cloth, cooking utensils, etc. At my fieldsite Gingin, a settlement located at the center of the Bugkalot area, the Igorot, Ifugao, Ilocano, Bicol, and Visayan settlers started to arrive in the 1970s with the logging boom. By this time, most people of Gingin had already converted to Christianity after more than one decade of evangelism,

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and headhunting was in decline.7 The extraction of timber came from the Nueva Vizcaya side. The logging route originated in the highway town of Bambang, going through Malasin, Dupax, Belance´, Binnuangan, Giayan, before reaching Gingin. Skilled loggers from as far away as the Bicol region and the Visayas were brought in by the logging companies. Some loggers, road builders, and drivers stayed in Gingin after their jobs at the logging companies were finished. Several of them courted Bugkalot women, married, and acquired land from their affines. However, a majority of them, like settlers in other frontier societies in the Philippines (Li, 2002; Lopez, 1987), tended to regard indigenous land as state land, and treated it as open access. The arrival of settlers, the ‘‘territorial spearhead of the state’’ (de Koninck, 1996), was soon followed by state attempts at incorporation of the Bugkalot. In 1976, the first elementary school was established in Gingin. But in the first year, no lowland teacher dared to come because of the notorious reputation of the Bugkalot as headhunters. From 1978 to the mid-1980s, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) launched several development projects in Gingin, including (re)settlement projects, irrigation, and wet-rice cultivation aimed at increasing agricultural productivity in the uplands. These development projects were related to the green revolution in the lowlands, and they were also driven by the government’s persistent desire to involve the Bugkalot in sedentary agriculture in order to make them more controllable. Shifting cultivation is regarded by the government as not merely inferior to the system of irrigated rice cultivation, but explicitly as something bad – irrational, destructive, unenvironmental, and uncontrollable (cf. Dove, 1985). These ideas persist among government officials despite much evidence to the contrary (Conklin, 1957; Thrup, Hecht, & Browder, 1997). The settlement project was originally intended for the Igorot and the Ifugao displaced by the construction of the Ambuklao and the Binga Dam in the Cordillera. Gingin was chosen as a settlement site because the government regarded it as state land, basically treating the Bugkalot as squatters. The indigenous residents of Gingin found the DAR’s project, which aimed at bringing in more settlers, troubling. As one DAR official who had lived in Gingin for eight months at the beginning of the project told me, the Bugkalot were highly suspicious of the settlers, and they were afraid that the settlers would poison the water to kill them all and get their land. Thus, they asked their relatives, who had migrated to Lipuga, Pelaway, and Cawayan during World War II in order to flee from the Japanese soldiers invading the area, to move back to Gingin as a strategy of defending their territory against the settlers. As an elderly woman Apun Maria succinctly

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answered when I inquired about the reason for their return: deg’ in (land).8 Free housing provided by the DAR for all Gingin residents was not the most important incentive. They decided to move back to Gingin because the lands here were ‘‘fat’’ (oabe, fertile) and beautiful (okedeng). Extractive industry brought the first opportunities for wage labor employment in Gingin. Some Bugkalot men began to work as day laborers in road construction or sawmills, but the wage was low and the employment was too unstable to provide a dependable livelihood. Shifting cultivation was still the base of the household economy, but sedentarization and population growth have shortened the fallowing period considerably. Although some Bugkalot spoke with nostalgia for the aesthetic beauty of work exemplified in pollarding, chainsaws, a time-saver and one of the emblems of modernity, were favored over axes and machetes in cutting down the trees. The impact of development and economic change was gendered. Men were more associated with wage-earning, the acquisition of commodities, and the introduction of wet-rice cultivation. The construction of irrigation system and rice paddies was men’s aspiration and responsibility. Men diverted some of their time and energy to agricultural development from hunting, which had diminished due to the depletion of game as a result of logging. However, the scale of wet-rice cultivation among the Bugkalot was much smaller compared to that of the Igorot, Ifugao, and Ilocano settlers because Bugkalot men traditionally had little to do with the production of rice. In the mid-1980s, the DAR left Gingin in fear of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, who burnt the DAR’s office in Belance´ in 1986 and terrorized the region. Although it was not uncommon to see the NPA interacting and forming reciprocal relationships with local people in the remote mountainous areas of the Philippines (Kwiatkowski, 2008; Shimizu, 2011, p. 6), the Bugkalot had violent encounters with the NPA and even perceived them to be assisting the land grabbers (Yang, 2011b). After peace and order were restored in the area, the DAR returned in the early 1990s to surveying and titling the land, all part of the ongoing resettlement project. The legal foundation of land titling was provided by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 (Republic Act No. 6657). The DAR did not have enough staff or resources to survey the whole area of Gingin, so those who wanted land titles had to take the initiative themselves and apply. Land titles acquired under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 are different from those under other schemes based on communal tenures (Brown, 1994); they are private properties, which are alienable. Settlers were very keen on obtaining land titles, which they considered a guarantee of

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their land security. Some Bugkalot applied for land titles, but many did not see the usefulness of a piece of paper that carried an obligation to pay taxes to the government and, as a result, did not apply for land titles.9 In the 1980s, the nearest lowland town, Bambang, became the main trading center of commercial vegetable gardening in the Cagayan Valley (Sajor, 1999, p. 107). However, the cultivation of cash crops did not spread to Gingin until the turn of this century due to transportation barriers and the lack of capital. The first person to plant cash crops was an Igorot from Baguio, whose sister married a local Bugkalot man. From 1997 to 2002, he borrowed his brother-inlaw’s land in Ganipa, about one hour’s hike from Gingin proper, to grow string beans, pepper, and tomatoes. At that time, jeepneys did not come to Gingin but to Ganipa only. Also, the schedule was not regular. Frequently, he had to use carabao (water buffalo) to haul his products to Giayan for transportation to the market. In 1999, a man of mixed Ilocano and Igorot descent, newly married to a Bugkalot girl, moved to Gingin and started to plant sweet beans in Manog’ atog’ , a sitio (local cluster, settlement) of Gingin about one hour’s hike from the main settlement. In 2003, Ilocano and Igorot settlers started to plant cash crops in gardens near Gingin proper. In 2005 and 2006, more Bugkalot joined them to produce cash crops. The cultivation of cash crops is labor and capital intensive. Labor is not a problem, but getting the capital to obtain seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural tools to start commercial vegetable gardening is a highly challenging task for the people of Gingin. Few of them, mostly barangay officials, were able to get development funds from the DAR or the Department of Agriculture (DA) in the form of interest-free loans. The purpose of providing interest-free loans to the Bugkalot, as a DAR official explained to me, is ‘‘to bring them closer to the government.’’10 However, the majority of aspiring commercial gardeners were not beneficiaries of these interest-free loans, and they had to improvise and use kinship and other social ties. Some settlers had relatives in the Cordillera or the lowland working abroad and acquired remittance as their capital.11 The Bugkalot, however, had to sell their carabaos or pawn (sangla) their lands or guns to the settlers to get start-up funds. The scale of cash crop cultivation has therefore typically been small. In their attempts to obtain capital to start commercial vegetable gardening, the people of Gingin began to use their land titles as collateral to apply for bank loans. In 2004, Rofoldo, an Ilocano settler who married a local Bugkalot woman, used one of their land titles to apply successfully for a loan of 30,000 pesos (around USD530) from the Cooperative Bank of Nueva Vizcaya located in Solano. The loan came from the government’s

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National Livelihood Support Fund, which was later renamed National Livelihood Development Corporation. Rofoldo’s success in getting a bank loan caused quite a stir in Gingin. Despite the fact that the interest charged by the bank was unreasonably high, at the annual rate of 16%, soon many people made inquiries to him about the process of applying for bank loans.12 Later in 2004, a young Bugkalot woman who married an Ilocano used her carabao as collateral to get a loan of 10,000 pesos, and with this capital, she was able to open a small grocery store. In 2005, at least 11 Bugkalot were successful in getting bank loans. In concurrence with this sudden and sharp increase of cash in their daily lives, land grabbing among the Bugkalot themselves began to happen and caused an increase in social tensions in Gingin (Yang, 2012). The apparent embrace of the market economy is reflected in the Bugkalot’s enthusiasm for cash cropping. Because of their desire to obtain pecuniary benefits from capitalist ventures, however, they are exposed to the risks and opportunities of market participation. Some people failed to repay their bank loans and as a result lost their land. At first, those Bugkalot who failed to repay their bank loans sold their lands to fellow Gingin residents, either settlers or Bugkalot who had owned land in Pelaway or Lipuga and had received large sums of compensation after the building of the Casecnan Dam, and then used the money to repay their bank loans. However, more and more people chose to ignore the repayment of their bank loans simply because they couldn’t find the money. The bank decided not to grant new loans to Gingin residents in 2008, but at this time, the number of loans had grown to 38 and the total amount reached 1 million pesos (about USD19,000). Today, residents of the Bugkalot area earn their livelihood by various means. These include shifting cultivation on newly clearly forest land; production of cash crops; gathering and selling of forest products, such as rattan; tree crop holdings, usually small in scale; and wage labor in extractive industries. As in other parts of the Southeast Asian uplands (Li 1999a, p. xviii), these systems of production and the livelihoods they provide are more often found in combination than as separate pure forms.

DISCOURSES OF CIVILIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT On the Bugkalot’s road to incorporation within the global economy, the arrival of extractive industries and settlers played a key role. The settlers justify their encroachment into the ancestral domain of the Bugkalot by

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presenting themselves as bearers of civilization and progress. While the Bugkalot think Igorot and Ifugao settlers have more in common with them than the lowlanders, and point to shared cultural practices such as chewing betel nut, wearing a g-string, and dancing with outstretched arms, the settlers consider the Bugkalot to be more ‘‘primitive’’ and ‘‘less industrious’’ than themselves (cf. R. Rosaldo, 1970, p. 14). It is very common to hear sentiments such as the following: ‘‘Before the Igorot came here, the Bugkalot were not civilized. The Igorot are the ones who teach them how to plant rice, how to garden.’’ ‘‘The Bugkalot are lazy. They only like hunting. They have no rice field, no garden.’’ The notion that wet-rice cultivation is more ‘‘advanced’’ and shifting cultivation more ‘‘primitive’’ has a long history in the Philippines. It is one of the criteria for the colonial classification of ethnic groups. These classificatory systems lent themselves to policy regimes based on a perceived hierarchy of civilization. Dean Worcester, the Secretary of the Interior (1901–1913) who set up the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, praised the Ifugao and the Igorot for being very skillful in raising rice, which they grow on ‘‘wonderful’’ terraces with strong retaining walls, while the Ilongot ‘‘cultivate forest clearings in a haphazard sort of way’’ (Worcester, 1909, p. 1209). The Igorot and the Ifugao were incorporated into the colonial state much earlier than the Bugkalot, as they became Christians and gave up headhunting during the American colonial period. Although they were also subjected to the discourse of evolutionary civilization under colonial rule, they now see themselves as more progressive than and superior to the Bugkalot. Even after the adoption of irrigated rice and cash crop cultivation by the Bugkalot, the perception that the Bugkalot are ‘‘lagging behind’’ remains strong among the settlers. The alleged laziness and the irrationality the settlers consider inherent in Bugkalot culture are commonly seen as the reasons for Bugkalot underdevelopment. For example, when Topdek needed to find some money for his son who was studying in the lowland, he tried to borrow from an Igorot woman who lived in Manog’ atog’ . She said that she had no money to lend him, but offered to harvest Topdek’s ginger and galiang (a kind of taro) for sale to Bambang. She paid 800 pesos for the whole lot of ginger and 8 or 10 pesos per piece for galiang, depending on the size. Topdek received nearly 1,500 pesos in total. However, after gathering two sacks of galiang and three sacks of ginger and selling them to her cousin, who owned a vegetable buying station in Bambang, she made a profit of roughly the same amount. She told me that she was able to use the opportunity and make a profit because: ‘‘The Bugkalot are lazy. They don’t

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know how to secure money. Why didn’t Topdek harvest his ginger and galiang himself and sell them in Bambang? He would have gotten much more money that way.’’ I protested against the Bugkalot’s alleged laziness, since I knew the reason why Topdek’s family were not able to harvest ginger and galiang themselves was because they were busy harvesting upland rice. She laughed and added: ‘‘That’s because they are irrational. Why do they harvest rice one by one (one stalk at a time)? It’s so inefficient.’’ Working in swiddens is devalued by the settlers. In their opinions, it lacks intensity and does not constitute industry or diligence. The Bugkalot’s culturally specific way of harvesting rice one stalk at a time (denseyet) with a finger knife (lasab) is often mocked by the settlers and said to typify their inefficiency and irrationality. The settlers criticize the Bugkalot for their irrationality not only in production but also in consumption. Both the ways in which the Bugkalot divide food in equal portions to everyone present at a meal, from toddlers to the elderly, and their tolerance of frequent uninvited visitors who turn up expected to be fed is regarded as evidence of Bugkalot’s irrationality. Igorot, Ifugao, and Ilocano women who married Bugkalot men lament how difficult it was for them to persuade their mother-in-laws not to give the same amount of food to small children, and how annoyed they were by the Bugkalot’s habit of turning up uninvited for a meal and making importunate demands to share what they have. ‘‘In this way nobody can become rich,’’ they complained, ‘‘if the relatives keep coming and asking for things.’’ Mundane commensality in everyday life is a culturally deep expression of egalitarianism among the Bugkalot (Yang, 2011c). However, for the settlers sharing is an onerous cultural habit that needs to be remedied because it constitutes a hindrance to wealth accumulation and economic development. The settlers admit that they also share, but they emphasize ‘‘not to such an extent.’’ According to the settlers, the extremeness of sharing among the Bugkalot is an economic drag that impedes rational planning for the future. This is also the perspective of the NGOs that come to teach the Bugkalot ‘‘how to plan for the future’’ and ‘‘how to help themselves so they don’t become a burden to others.’’13 The Cordillera-Caraballo Mission is an NGO with Christian background and support. It operates mainly in the Cordillera and is run by the Igorot. In 2007, it started to expand to the Sierra Madre region and sent four people to Gingin to explore the possibility of promoting coffee cultivation here. Some settlers and Bugkalot already planted a small amount of coffee trees in the area, but mainly for self-consumption. This NGO intends to promote

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large-scale coffee plantation, to be ‘‘the bridge between farmers and capitalists,’’ and find a market for locally produced coffee beans. ‘‘The Bugkalot have a lot of catching up to do,’’ according to Gary Tindaan, the leader of the Cordillera-Caraballo Mission, ‘‘so they are in need of our help in adapting to the modern world.’’14 In his view, the source of the Bugkalot’s poverty and underdevelopment is their deficiency in selfinterested calculation and making optimal economic decisions. Parts of their cultural ethos such as demand sharing are detrimental to accumulation and result in apparent difficulties regarding the funding of cash crop production. They also need to improve in areas of time management and planning for the future. Gary said that he thought the Bugkalot were ‘‘existentialists’’ because ‘‘they live for the present only; they don’t think about tomorrow.’’ He observed that Bugkalot women pounded rice before lunch and they usually only pounded for one meal, indicating that they ‘‘live for the present’’ and don’t store for the future or plan ahead. Another clear example of their ‘‘living for the present,’’ he added, was the Bugkalot’s conspicuous consumption. The Bugkalot frequently sold their land to the settlers in order to acquire modern things like televisions or generators, he said, and when some Bugkalot made a profit from cash crops, they did not think about how to invest wisely in future production, but spent their hard-earned money on televisions, cell phones, and even motorbikes. Gary asked me, in a village without electricity and cellular service, ‘‘don’t you think the Bugkalot are crazy to waste their money on these things? They need to learn how to secure money and save for the future. They must change their attitude in order to join the mainstream.’’ The myth of the lazy native (Alatas, 1977) and the myth of the profligate native (Drayton, 2000) have been used to justify dispossession in the colonial period. These ideologies of colonial capitalism are hard to dispel among government agencies and the NGOs promoting agricultural development because they now feed into Filipino middle class assumptions about the working class. Class discourse continues to constitute a kind of racial ‘‘othering’’ when negative cultural differences are attributed to the Bugkalot and identified as hindrances to development. Development programs often do not achieve their intended goals. The Cordillera-Caraballo Mission’s coffee cultivation project was short-lived; it was abandoned (‘‘suspended’’) in less than six months. In 2008, however, the NGO began another project. They attempted to lobby Smart and Globe, the two largest cellular service providers in the Philippines, to build a communication tower in Gingin. Gary persuaded a local Bugkalot to offer a piece of his titled land as the construction site and acquired the approval

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of all barangay officials. He refused to admit that their coffee project was illconceived in the first place, and held on to his paternalistic claims that their intervention will improve the Bugkalot’s economic sense and help them to join the mainstream. My Bugkalot friend who worked for the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) commented that ‘‘almost every development project has failed.’’15 However, ‘‘development’’ involves a self-confirming logic: to the extent that livelihoods are not improved, projects fail to produce, services are poor, and people recalcitrant, these only prove that more ‘‘development’’ is needed (Ferguson, 1994; Li, 1999b, 2007). The Bugkalot of Gingin are not unaware of the reductionism and paternalism inherent in these discourses of development, and they counter the claim to expertise in optimizing the lives of others contained in these discourses with their own view of how they acquire new knowledge and technology in the processes of economic change.

THE ACQUISITION OF NEW TECHNOLOGY AS AN EMOTIONAL PROCESS: A COUNTER-DISCOURSE The Igorot, Ifugao, and Ilocano settlers claim that they have played a centrally important role in developing and ‘‘uplifting’’ the Bugkalot, and that before their arrival the Bugkalot were uncivilized and didn’t know how to plant (irrigated) rice and cash crops. Local government officials and NGOs workers, who are predominantly Igorot, Ifugao, and Ilocano, share this view. However, the Bugkalot characterize the settlers’ attitude toward them as one of enbebengen or en-aamit (devaluing, belittling, discriminating), an attitude that intends to make the recipient enbetang (ashamed). There are a lot of outspoken dissatisfactions about this. The Bugkalot do not see the settlers as the agents of civilization and modernity, and deny that they are at the receiving end of the settlers’ tutelage. Rather, they perceive the acquisition of new knowledge and technology as a process initiated by themselves for emotional reasons. Envy (apet, apig’ ) and desire (g’ amak) are identified by the Bugkalot as the driving forces behind their pursuit of a capitalist economy. I have described above how, among the Bugkalot, it is envy that stimulates industry and spurs people on to labor. They also use the emotional idiom of envy to explain how they have obtained new technologies of irrigated rice and cash crop cultivation. The first person to open rice paddies

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in Gingin was Apun Tino, a Tagalog missionary for the New Tribes Mission who moved here in 1959. In the late 1970s, when the DAR brought development programs in Gingin and supplied agricultural tools, seeds, and fertilizers to promote irrigated rice cultivation in order to increase agricultural productivity in the uplands, Apun Tino was the first person to respond to the opportunity and opened his rice paddies. He described how the Bugkalot treated his endeavor with suspicion and even mockery at the beginning, but became envious after they saw his first harvest and followed his example, building their own rice paddies: When I opened my rice paddies, I had no carabao to plough the land and haul the stones for constructing the walls of the rice terraces. I had to build them with my bare hands. The Bugkalot did not believe that I could build rice terraces in this way, and they often laughed at me when they passed by my land. I was determined to prove to them that it could be done. I worked terribly hard and often until late at night. When the moonlight was good, I went home after 10 o’clock. It took me several months to finish the job. The Bugkalot’s attitude changed when they saw my first harvest from rice paddies. Sangpol and Siklab’s father Tobeng were so impressed by the bounty of my harvest; they became envious (meaapet) and built their own rice paddies.

I wondered how could technological acquisition be so straightforward and seemingly effortless? And Apun Tino answered that the Bugkalot were horticulturalists, so it was not difficult for them to learn new agricultural knowledge.16 The same applied to cash crop cultivation. When I enquired about how the Bugkalot began to plant cash crops, envy was given as the motivating reason. The first person to plant sweet beans in Gingin was Joe, a man of mixed Ilocano and Igorot descent who married a Bugkalot woman. He acquired capital from his Igorot mother, who was working abroad and sent back remittances. In 1999, he planted sweet beans in Manog’ atog’ , and kept his first harvest as seeds for planting future crops. In 2006, the market price for sweet beans was high and he made very good profits. His Bugkalot wife Linda explained to me that other Bugkalot then followed her husband’s example to plant sweet beans in this way: ‘‘When other people saw Joe’s sweet beans, they became envious (meaapet). They wanted to have their own sweet beans, so they followed Joe’s example to plant sweet beans.’’17 The Bugkalot have long recognized angry envy as a motivating force in work (M. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 44). Anger is the product of envy, and envy is created when the ideals of sameness and equality are breached (M. Rosaldo, 1991, p. 154). Envy and the striving to eliminate difference or inequality lead to the formulation of a certain kind of agency and personhood: what the Bugkalot call equal humans (anog’ otsin too), each with the same worth and

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autonomy. When the Bugkalot interpret the acquisition of new technology and their engagement with capitalism as a process initiated by themselves for emotional reasons, rather than by the settlers who encroach into their territory, they accord themselves capacities to shape social formations and assert themselves as agents contributing to the making of change. In the Bugkalot’s engagement with capitalism, motivation is more important than the technical process. The impulse to re-establish equality is more important than gaining more money or learning to be modern per se. Their culturally formed desires and wants are reflected in their patterns of production and consumption, as well as in land disputes. I have discussed elsewhere (Yang, 2012) in detail the issue of land conflict in Gingin, and suggested that land grabbing among the Bugkalot themselves must be understood in the context of the expansion of capitalism and the commoditization of land. However, this does not mean that utilitarian reasons or economic needs should be prioritized in explaining land disputes. The Bugkalot consider envy (apet, apig’ ) the most important motivation for land grabbing. It is said that when the Pasigians of Yamu, ‘‘the number one land grabber in Gingin’’ (ibid., p. 92), saw others with things they did not have, such as chainsaws, televisions, and generators, they become envious (meaapet, en-apig’ ), so they grabbed other peoples’ lands in order to sell them to the unknowing settlers, satisfying their desires for these things. Again, when the Pasigians saw other people able to get big loans from the bank with their land titles, while they themselves had no land title, they were envious, so they grabbed other peoples’ land. We can also see the continuing significance of emotional idioms in the land dispute between Lisa and Dengpag. After Gading-an died, Lisa started to till one of his parcels of land in Yamu. The land was steep and stony and was not considered good land, but Lisa liked it because of its close location to Gingin that would save her a lot of time hiking to oma (swidden) every morning. She hoped to acquire the land by clearing and cultivating it, as the Bugkalot had done before. Nobody objected when she opened her oma there. However, after Lisa reaped a bumper harvest, Dengpag told her that Gading-an had given the land to him before his death, and he demanded its return. He did not cultivate it or sell it but left it fallow, and he was said to be ‘‘just envious of Lisa’s good harvest.’’ Most economic work on the emotions focuses on the role of the emotions in sustaining or preventing cooperative interactions (Elster, 1996). Although economists occasionally use emotional terms such as envy, shame, or guilt, their interests usually lie in the interconnection between emotions and material self-interest, and in formulating a cost–benefit model of emotions.

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The emotion of envy is usually modeled as costs in the context of the Ultimate Game (Elster, 1998), since the standard view of the relations between rationality and emotion is that emotions interfere with rationality (Elster, 1996, p. 1394, 2004). However, the role of emotions cannot be reduced to that of shaping the reward parameters for rational choice (Elster, 1998, p. 73). In the Bugkalot’s case, envy motivates and shapes choices, including choices that may be considered ‘‘rational’’ because they lead to the generation of wealth. It is closely linked to the culturally grounded notion of personhood, and acquires meanings through its association with social interaction and activity in daily life. While the continuing significance of emotional idioms is conducive to the reproduction of traditional concept of personhood, in the Bugkalot’s engagement with capitalism a new notion of self also emerges.

RELATIONAL PERSONHOOD AND THE MODERN INDIVIDUAL The Philippine government and local NGOs see development as ‘‘joining the mainstream,’’ as progress along the linear trajectory of modern forms of economic rationality and self-interested calculation. Most development practices are powered by market forces and models (Gudeman, 2001, p. 158), and the notion of the modern individual – the rational, self-interested maximizer – is implied in these models. The idea that Bugkalot culture, especially the habit of demand sharing and a distribution system that is indifferent to age, sex, or any other attributes of status, constitutes an obstacle to development and rational planning for the future, is derived from such models. The settlers or better-off Bugkalot often complain about their Bugkalot relatives who make a demand to share what they have, saying: ‘‘they just want to be given, rather than to earn themselves.’’ Demand sharing is criticized as dependency and considered by the ‘‘progressive’’ individuals to be a Bugkalot cultural custom that needs to be changed, like headhunting. In order to circumvent the demands of kin, a new notion of ‘‘abusive relatives’’ was created by church leaders. Kinship obligations of mutual assistance and reciprocity are still recognized as positive values; however, if demand sharing occurs too frequently, it is labeled as abusive (abuso, adopted from Tagalog). The missionaries and church elders often advise the congregation to be economically independent and, through the Christian moral ethos of self-discipline and

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self-examination, not to be a burden to their kin. Christianity is deployed ‘‘to foster an individual locus of agency and responsibility’’ (Tomlinson, 2011, p. 155). So far, however, this doesn’t seem to have been very effective. Grocery stores owned by the Bugkalot often become insolvent because relatives do not pay their debts. It is also quite common to see people demand to share food or resources when they could feasibly provide these for themselves. For example, Elsa was wealthy enough to own a TV, but she went to her uncle’s house twice a week to do her family’s laundry and stayed for lunch because her house was not equipped with water hose. Again, on the evening Edward bought a motorbike and caused quite a stir in the village, his mother went to her neighbor’s house to ask for salt. It is difficult to circumvent the demands of kin. Those who refuse to share are easily labeled as selfish and stingy (besi, demut). The Bugkalot have an expression, ‘‘money is not your relative’’ (awana katan-agimo ma pilak), which means that money is for spending and not holding on to. This saying is not anti-commoditization or condemning of profit-oriented motives, but it does express a feeling that market imperatives should be subordinated to social norms. In the past, patterns of food distribution defined and altered social units, and refusal to share was considered a denial of social relationships, which operated in terms of shame and insult. The consequence of not sharing was anger and revenge (M. Rosaldo, 1980, pp. 77–78). Anger and indignation spring from a relational model of personhood in which people are understood to have a range of legitimate claims on others for support (cf. Wardlow, 2005). These emotional idioms still find resonance in the contemporary context of social change, and the Bugkalot are careful not to arouse anger in others. There have been cases of sabotage caused by anger at material disparity and the desire to re-establish equality. In Bugkalot traditional concept of the person, individuality is recognized. Of central importance to their notion of personhood is g’ inawa (heart). Heart is at once a physical organ, a source of action and awareness, and a locus of vitality and will. It provides a ground that links thought, feeling, and physical well-being, and ties natural and social processes to the development of the self (M. Rosaldo, 1980, p. 36, her spelling: rinawa). The Bugkalot acknowledge continuities between the person and its experienced milieu, which means that all peoples are potentially the same, differing primarily according to differences in their social situations (ibid., p. 225). People’s hearts differ according to age, sex, character, experience, and knowledge; as a result, no two hearts are the same. However, Bugkalot talk of hearts is less concerned with the ‘‘inner self’’ than with the affective quality of the social

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world, and emotional idioms always acquire meaning with reference to their social use and situation. Thus, the individuality recognized by the Bugkalot can be described as ‘‘socially embedded individuality’’ (Errington & Gewertz, 1995, p. 117), which should be understood as very different from that characteristic of the recent West wherein individuality was marked, at least ideologically, by the sense of self-sufficiency that allowed a person to remove himself or herself from social contexts (ibid.). Modernity emphasizes progress and renewal through identification with the triumphs of Western-style economics, politics, material culture, science, and aesthetics (Berman, 1992, p. 33). In the capitalist-centered development discourse, each person should be independent, self-sufficient, and autonomous, take responsibility for himself or herself, and accumulate wealth for the future. This is a concept of essentially atomized individuals who pursue self-interest with calculation and means-to-ends reasoning, which differs from the Bugkalot’s concept of relational personhood. While we still cannot find among the Bugkalot Macpherson’s image of the individual who is ‘‘essentially the proprietor of his own person and capacities, owing nothing to society’’ (Macpherson, 1962, p. 3), in the process of their engagement with capitalism, something like possessive individualism is emerging. The Bugkalot are now familiar with the notion of the rational maximizer who aims at accumulation assumed in the development discourse, and their attempt to constrain sharing and relationality is reflected in the newly created concept of ‘‘abusive relatives.’’ The negotiation of these notions is indicative of the emergence of the possessive individual. It is highly contested and has been slow to take strong hold among the Bugkalot. As Sykes (2007, p. 213) points out, ‘‘possessive individualism advances by outlining the terms of its own critique.’’ However, the recognition that there is more than one way to constitute a person in a contemporary context shows that ‘‘possessive individualism can root itself in relational soil without draining it of the nutrients by which it feeds ‘‘traditional’’ social forms’’ (Robbins, 2007, p. 304).

CONCLUSION Economic change, as Hefner (1990, p. 2) observes, is never just a matter of technological diffusion, market rationalization, or ‘‘capitalist penetration.’’ Deep down, it is also a matter of community, morality, and power. I have shown how development continues to play a role in strategies of cultural and social domination because development still ultimately embodies a global

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imaginary of modernization (Rojas & Kindornay, forthcoming, p. 13, quoted from Escobar, 2012, p. xvi). The Bugkalot are aware that the claim to expertise in optimizing the lives of others inherent to development regimes is a claim to power (Li, 2007, p. 5), and they counter the politics of development with their own interpretation of how they acquired new knowledge and technologies in the processes of economic change. They deny that they are passive recipients or beneficiaries of development programs, and assert themselves as the agents contributing to the making of change. Envy and desire, emotional idioms central to Bugkalot traditional concept of personhood, are identified by the Bugkalot as the driving force behind their pursuit of capitalist economy. The primacy of emotional idioms as interpretative frameworks of economic change has contributed to the reproduction of traditional forms of personhood and sociality. The Bugkalot’s apparent embrace of capitalist economy has not led to a ‘‘break in embeddedness’’ (Granovetter, 1985, p. 482). The economy is still very much entangled with the social and the cultural; it has not become a separate, differentiated sphere. The Bugkalot saying ‘‘money is not your relatives’’ (awana katan-agimo ma pilak) expresses the subordination of market imperatives to kinship and social norms, and the inseparability of the moral and the material. Building on the foundation of a relational concept of the economy (Curry & Koczberski, 2009), the Bugkalot have created a localized capitalism with vestiges and transferences of tradition. Their engagement with capitalism has followed a path of what Sahlins (2005) calls ‘‘develop-man’’: capitalism has been indigenized to enrich the local culture. Among the Bugkalot, the relationship between capitalist and noncapitalist systems and practices cannot be seen as a sharp divide, replacement, or a seamless integration. It is a more of a relationship of co-existence, with variable interplay or articulation. For most of the time the former is subordinated to the latter. However, the juggle between capitalist and noncapitalist practices and values also creates new predicaments. Land grabbing among the Bugkalot themselves is an obvious violation of kinship norms. Sharing is also increasingly regarded as a burden by some Bugkalot, especially those aspire to expand their capitalist ventures (Yang, 2011c). More alarming is their exposure to what Li (2010, p. 388) calls ‘‘mechanisms of dispossession’’: they have debt, the interest the bank charges is too high, the price fetched by their commodities is too low, the cost of inputs exceeds outputs, they cannot make ends meet. These dispossessory effects of the capitalist processes emerging ‘‘from below’’ (ibid., p. 396) are entrenching the Bugkalot at a disadvantaged position within the global economy.

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NOTES 1. The original meaning of barangay in Tagalog is boat. It is the smallest administrative unit in the Philippines. 2. Interview with Pastor Tino took place in Gingin on November 3, 2007. However, other missionaries such as Pastor Romy also made similar comments. 3. Keesing (1962, p. 70) considered ‘‘Italon’’ and ‘‘Ibilao’’ also local names derived from the mountain river system in which the Ilongot were encountered. 4. Because Bugkalot is an endonym, I will use Bugkalot. But when I quote previous studies or what people have said, I will keep the name Ilongot. 5. The population density in the Bugkalot area, according to R. Rosaldo’s estimate (1979, p. 29), is less than 1.6 persons per square kilometer. 6. The Bugkalot do not distinguish between Ibaloi, Kankanai, and Kallahan, and refer to them as Igorot (‘‘golot’’). 7. The first non-Bugkalot to settle in Gingin was Florentino Santos, a Tagalog missionary for the New Tribes Mission. He was one of the earliest missionaries to evangelize the Bugkalot. In 1954, he arrived at Taang (now Pelaway) to spread the gospel. In 1959, he married a Bugkalot woman and they moved to Gingin at the end of the year. Because of his special status as a missionary and the fact that he gained permission to move there from one of Gingin’s beg’ angat (big one, elder), Dangsal Gumiad, he was perceived differently from other settlers. The missionaries brought airstrips and mission stations which became ‘‘trading centers’’ for the Bugkalot. 8. In order to protect the Bugkalot’s privacy, most names mentioned in this article are pseudonyms. 9. In fact, those who obtained land titles did not bother to pay taxes either, that is, until they wanted to use land titles as collateral to apply for bank loans. 10. Like the Lihirians (Bainton & Macintyre, 2013), the Bugkalot also have a tendency to see interest-free loans as gifts. 11. McKay (2003, 2005) discussed how remittance changed land-use patterns and local landscape among the Ifugao of Cordillera. 12. Such a high interest rate, according to the bank manager, is justified because the bank has to pay 9.5% interest to the National Livelihood Development Corporation. 13. Gary Tindaan, the leader of the Cordillera-Caraballo Mission, and his fellow NGO workers explained their purpose of coming to Gingin to me on May 8, 2007. 14. Interview with Gary was conducted in Gingin on May 8, 2007. 15. Interview with Lasin took place in Belance´ on April 2, 2008. 16. This reminded me of Worcester’s remarks that contrary to his expectation, Ilongot children have proved to be bright, learning to speak English and to do industrial work quickly in two American schools established for them (1909, p. 1209). 17. I often worked with Linda’s family in their swiddens during my fieldwork, and she made such a comment to me several times.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The fieldwork among the Bugkalot on which this chapter is based was generously funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan and the

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Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. I thank the Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University, for assistance during my research. Previous versions of this chapter have been presented at the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) 2011 and 2012 Annual Meetings and the 12th European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) Biennial Conference. I thank the participants, especially Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, Holly High, Henrietta Moore and Mark Mosko, for their helpful comments. I am very grateful to the editors of this book, Kate Barclay and Fiona McCormack, for their insightful suggestions. I would also like to thank Kyonosuke Hirai, who read the manuscript and gave me critical feedbacks. My biggest debt is to the people of Gingin who opened their lives to me.

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BAIAS, BISNIS, AND BETEL NUT: THE PLACE OF TRADERS IN THE MAKING OF A MELANESIAN MARKET Timothy L. M. Sharp ABSTRACT Purpose – This chapter examines the interactions among wholesale betel nut traders within Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) flourishing, contemporary, and indigenous betel nut trade. It explores the nature of the ‘‘social embeddedness’’ of the trade and how particular ‘‘place-based’’ practices and ideas shape people’s engagements with markets. Methodology/approach – Multisited ethnographic research focused on betel nut traders. Findings – This chapter highlights how local ideas about sociality and exchange shape the copresent rivalry and companionship that characterize interactions among Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders. Traders travel long distances and take great risks to buy betel nut. They travel together, share resources, and trade in the same places, and through this they become part of one another’s social networks. This creates the expectation that traders will cooperate, consider other traders in their actions, contribute to each

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other’s safe-keeping, and act collectively in their interactions with producers. This does not preclude competition, however. Traders compete for profits, but the competiveness of their interactions is also influenced by a concern for status. This copresence of companionship and rivalry, which pervades Hagen sociality more broadly, is central to shaping the trade as a whole. Originality/value of the chapter – Betel nut is the most important domestic cash crop in PNG, and selling betel nut is a prominent livelihood activity for rural and urban people. This chapter reports some of the findings of the first detailed study of the betel nut trade in PNG. Keywords: Marketplaces; trade; betel nut; social embeddedness; middlemen; Papua New Guinea

INTRODUCTION Engaging with capitalism, markets, and the outside more broadly has, for Papua New Guineans, entailed rethinking and renegotiating their relationships and interactions with both known and unknown others; how they produce, transact, arrange and renumerate labor, distribute, accumulate, possess, and consume. The local responses have been diverse, but they have all involved some reconfiguring of the exogenous such that outside ideas and institutions become inflected with particular ‘‘place-based’’ practices and understandings (Curry, 2005, p. 233). This chapter examines the flourishing, contemporary and indigenous long-distance betel nut trade into the central highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) as one example of a context in which such ‘‘place-based’’ negotiations have occurred.1 In particular I focus on the wholesale betel nut traders from the Mt. Hagen area, who are the central actors within the highland trade, and their interactions with one another.2 These interactions among traders strongly influence the trade as a whole including their transactions with producers and their customers. My concern here is, however, the internal dynamics of competition and cooperation within the diverse collectivity of traders, and not the transactional dynamics between buyer and seller. My interest is in the ‘‘social embeddedness’’ of the trade, the way in which social and economic concerns are inextricably entangled (Granovetter, 1985; Polanyi, 1944). In this case I show how particular ideas and practices that pervade Hagen sociality more

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broadly have become imbued within the trade, shape the interactions among traders, and have contributed to the making of a contemporary Melanesian market. This research follows a wider concern within anthropology and geography about the nature of social change, the processes by which indigenous people become ‘‘encompassed’’ within broader social, political. and economic structures, the nature of the articulation between the endogenous and the exogenous, and the strength of local agency within these processes (Carrier & Carrier, 1989; Curry, 2003; LiPuma, 2000; Salisbury, 1970; A. Strathern, 1979). Papua New Guineans have often enthusiastically embraced the new opportunities and resources offered by a changing economy, but they have done so in diverse ways, and with diverse outcomes. Preexisting social ties have been used in new ways and to new ends, just as new resources have been used to achieve ‘‘old’’ ends (Curry, 1999; A. Strathern, 1972b, 1979). Papua New Guineans have also both extended and collapsed social distance in order to claim, or deny others access to, new forms of wealth, and they have referenced preexisting ideas and practices, simultaneously broadening and constricting their scope (Bainton, 2009; Kirsch, 2001; A. Strathern 1982; M. Strathern 1999). Social relations have been transformed in the process, and new social forms have emerged (Martin, 2010; Robbins & Akin, 1999). Papua New Guineans, concerned about how emerging and transformed modes of interaction may undermine social relations and social reproduction, have remade ostensibly introduced institutions and structures to reflect and sustain local ideas of sociality (Curry, 2003; Curry, Koczberski, Omuru, & Nailina 2007; Robbins & Akin 1999, pp. 14–15; Sexton, 1986). This is visible in the way marketplaces, for the most part a colonial introduction, took on distinctly Melanesian qualities as people incorporated locally grounded ideas about trade, exchange, sociality, gender, group relations, and emerging ideas about development, into these new institutions (Benediktsson, 2002; Brookfield, 1969; Epstein, 1968, 1982; Gewertz, 1983; Hide, 1993; Maclean, 1989; Modjeska, 1985). These responses highlight that incorporation within a broader political economy is not simply a linear progression and unidirectional penetration (Westernization) in which preexisting economic forms are displaced and subsumed in a singular trajectory to an equally singular modernity. Instead both introduced and indigenous practices and understandings have been reconfigured as they are reinterpreted and defined in relation to each other (Carrier & Carrier, 1989; Foster, 1992; Gregory, 1982; LiPuma, 2000). In some places Papua New Guineans have made efforts to partition exogenous

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and endogenous forms, for instance in the way that bisnis and kastam have been conceived as distinct socioeconomic spheres. Elsewhere introduced and indigenous forms have been married such that they become understood through a single logic (Foster, 1995; Mosko, 1999, 2013). The latter is evident in the Mt. Hagen area where business and entrepreneurship, rather than being locally perceived as antagonistic to long-term social reproduction, have been melded with preexisting sociopolitical agendas (A. Strathern, 1991). It is these hybrid conceptions of business, emergent in Mt. Hagen, that frame how Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders have understood and sought to shape the betel nut trade. Today, money has become a pervasive feature of life in PNG. For many Papua New Guineans money is now both necessary for their livelihoods and for their social reproduction, and it is to this end that they have sought to engage with capitalism in its variety of forms. The challenge is how best to engage. In contemporary PNG trading betel nut has emerged as a prominent and potentially lucrative cash earning activity. It is a means to attain money, and all the possibilities that it offers. For Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders, among many other grassroots Papua New Guineans, participation in the trade represents a local capitalism that is a viable alternative to those more well-trodden capitalist engagements such as smallholder export cash crop production and wage labor. It is a trade that Papua New Guineans themselves have created, and in which they have considerable agency, but which nonetheless possesses some of those same power asymmetries evident within global capitalism. It is then through examining the relationships of competition and cooperation among Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders that I explore one dimension of the social construction of markets and local capitalism within contemporary PNG.

THE ‘‘GREEN GOLD’’ OF THE GRASSROOTS Betel nut (buai in Tok Pisin3) is a stimulant consumed widely throughout PNG. Its consumption involves chewing together three ingredients: betel nut itself, betel pepper, and slaked lime.4 In PNG the sale of these three substances is big business. Betel nut is by far the country’s most important domestically marketed cash crop (Allen, Bourke, & McGregor 2009, p. 286), its sale is a significant source of income for both rural and urban people. In the early 1990s the betel nut trade nationally was estimated to be worth K115 million annually (Gibson, 2001), to contribute to the incomes of a third of rural Papua New Guineans, and to put as much money into lowland

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rural people’s pockets and bilums (string bags) as cocoa (Allen et al., 2009, pp. 284–287; see Mosko, 1999). Since then the trade has continued to expand. Today around 90 tons of betel nut and 7 tons of betel pepper each week pass through the country’s largest betel nut marketplace, Kaiwei marketplace in Mt. Hagen. At wholesale prices this is worth around K35 million per year, and even more by the time it is sold to consumers. This trade cannot be considered marginal either at the level of the national economy or in terms of household livelihoods. Despite the importance of the betel nut trade, because of its ‘‘informal’’ nature, it remains noticeably absent from, or largely undervalued in, many accounts of the PNG national economy by economists and planners. Betel nut has taken on strong associations with money and is often referred to as ‘‘green gold.’’ Many are lured by the prospect of ‘‘easy money’’ and a ‘‘one-day fortnight’’ (earning in a single day what one would normally earn in a fortnight in wage employment). The trade can certainly be lucrative, but also very risky. Stories abound of traders who have made their fortunes and purchased a vehicle from the profits of a single buying trip, and of those who have lost everything, including their lives. For most people in the trade, however, betel nut provides a more modest income that is used to pay for daily living expenses and school fees. Despite the potential profits that can be earned from selling betel nut, as a livelihood activity it is often disparaged as ‘‘rubbish’’ work and considered something for the ‘‘grassroots.’’5 From the betel nut palm to the chewers’ mouth, the betel nut trade is controlled exclusively by Papua New Guineans. This distinguishes the betel nut trade from many other markets in which Papua New Guineans are involved. The trade itself is an indigenous innovation based on an indigenous crop, and driven by indigenous demand, but it clearly does not exist in isolation from the national and international economies. ‘‘Betel people’’ (buai na daka lain),6 those involved in betel nut’s production, exchange, and distribution, routinely frame the trade in relation to other parts of the national economy. Traders discuss how in the highlands people chew more betel nut during the seasonal coffee flush, and on the fortnightly payday, when people have more money (cf. Allen et al., 2009, p. 313; McGregor & Bourke, 2009, p. 282). They also talk of betel nut’s capacity to travel to those ‘‘money places’’ associated with large-scale resource extraction, and to return with money for the grassroots. The money they earn facilitates their participation as consumers in other markets. Trading betel nut is also typically seen as an alternative, or supplement, to participation in export cash crop markets and wage employment; part of

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a raft of ‘‘informal’’ livelihood activities upon which people rely ‘‘13 days a fortnight.’’

THE EMERGENCE OF THE HIGHLANDS BETEL NUT TRADE Betel nut, a socially and culturally important substance for many coastal and lowland societies in PNG, was not traditionally consumed in the central highlands where the betel nut palm and the betel pepper plant will not grow, and where the shells or coral needed to produce the lime are not found.7 However, since the 1960s and particularly from the 1980s, highlanders in increasing numbers have begun to chew betel nut, a significant cultural innovation that has been likened to the adoption of steel and tinned fish (Jackson, 1976, p. 179). A complex and large-scale long-distance wholesale trade has emerged to connect the lowland producers with these new highland consumers. This chapter is concerned only with the highlands trade and not the significant long-distance and localized trade in betel nut, or its nonmarket exchange, elsewhere in PNG. The highlands betel nut trade is not an expansion or adaptation of earlier movements of the stimulant, but is a new phenomenon that emerged in the context of a rapidly changing economy as the highlands became more closely entangled in processes of colonialism and capitalism. Pacification by the colonial administration contributed to freer movement of people in the highlands and initially saw the elaboration in intensity, volume, and scale of customary trade networks (Healey, 1990). Greater mobility also allowed people to take advantage of the new economic opportunities, notably the sale of labor, export cash crops, and fresh food. Highlanders gained both direct and indirect exposure to life beyond the highlands, including through contract labor (Ward, 1990). Highland men became more confident to travel beyond the boundaries of their own tribes and provinces, and increasingly, and more importantly, did so independently for trade. The greatest impetus for the expansion of the betel nut trade came with the completion of the allweather Highlands Highway in the late 1960s, part of an effort to ‘‘develop’’ the highlands and open it up to global markets. The highway enabled more reliable vehicle travel between the highlands and the lowlands and as a result greatly facilitated the movement of betel nut. Another significant factor for the trade’s emergence was the development of the coffee industry, and particularly the growth of smallholder

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production, which led to money becoming a part of the lived experience of large numbers of highlanders. Money soon became important to people’s livelihoods as items like cooking oil, kerosene, salt, soap, pots, steel axes, and school fees (among an expanding list of consumer items), which could only be obtained with cash, became considered necessities. For many betel nut now fits into this category. Money’s ready exchangeability for other things further facilitated the trade. Another important lineage of the trade was the establishment by the colonial administration of fresh food marketplaces in the highland’s growing urban areas in the 1950–1960s. In the precolonial highlands, trade was common but the institution of the marketplace was absent. Instead trade was episodic and a largely individual affair that occurred in private meetings usually between trade partners. Traders traveled short distances while trade goods, predominantly valuables rather than staples, traveled in chain-like steps over longer distances (Healey, 1990; Hughes, 1977; Jackson, 1976; Keil, 1977). Selling in marketplaces then presented a new mode of exchange to highlanders, and another key means for earning cash. Marketplaces were where betel nut was first sold in the highlands, and they continue to be the major points of sale for betel nut today. These marketplaces are often dedicated betel nut marketplaces, due to the fact that betel nut sales are routinely banned in many of the government controlled fresh food marketplaces (due to litter and hygiene concerns). Marketplace selling, including of betel nut, also expanded as Papua New Guineans replaced Europeans as the drivers of demand in these spaces, and as rural people sought alternative sources of income in response to depressed export cash crop prices (Connell, 1997, p. 311).

THE STRUCTURE AND OPERATION OF THE HIGHLANDS BETEL NUT TRADE Wholesale traders, baias in Tok Pisin, are the central actors in the betel nut trade. Traders, who are overwhelmingly highlanders, regularly travel between the highlands and lowlands usually spending around a week on the road for each trip. They purchase betel nut in lowland marketplaces and transit points, and some venture into remote areas to buy from producers at the ‘‘house door.’’ The largest of the wholesale traders are known as hevi baias (literally ‘‘heavy buyers’’), who, as their name suggests, buy in large volumes and invest considerable amounts of money – the largest invest up to

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K60,000 in a single trip. They are financiers and coordinators who usually employ others to travel, buy, and sell on their behalf. The majority of traders, however, are smaller players, who either trade using their own money or operate as buying agents for the hevi baias. Betel nut, betel pepper, and lime are produced widely throughout lowland and coastal Papua New Guinea, however only particular locations are important in the supply of the long-distance trade into the highlands.8 Most betel nut entering the highlands comes from the coast around Wewak and the Yuat River in East Sepik Province, the middle stretches of the Ramu River and elsewhere in Madang Province, the Markham Valley and the Finschhafen area of Morobe Province, and on the lower flanks of Mt. Lamington in Oro Province (Fig. 1). Betel pepper originates from Karkar Island (Madang) and the Markham Valley (Morobe) and the lime is sourced from the Morobe coast. The geographic and climatic diversity of Papua New Guinea means that different source areas are at their greatest production periods at different times throughout the year. As a result, the supply of betel nut reaching the highland marketplaces fluctuates, with the highest supply between February and June and the lowest supply between September and October. This seasonality provides the underlying pulse of the trade. Traders follow the flush periods normally exhausting the nearest supply areas first before traveling further afield. After the traders have made their purchases, the bags of betel nut are transported back to the highlands. The bags are loaded onto canoes, fiberglass dinghies and ships, minivans, trucks, and occasionally aircraft. The traders themselves are betel nut’s constant companion as it is transported down rivers and along the coast and then up the Highlands Highway to large wholesale marketplaces in the highland urban centers (Fig. 1). The risks associated with transport are great. Boats, overloaded and in poor weather, capsize at sea; vehicles crash as a result of speed, fatigue, alcohol, overloading, poor vehicle maintenance, and the derelict standard of the Highlands Highway. Bags of betel nut are lost and traders die; such is the lure of the ‘‘green gold.’’ Once in the highland marketplaces betel nut is resold several times. It is first sold as whole bags, which are then broken down into smaller and smaller units for subsequent sales. In Mt. Hagen, wholesale traders sell the bags, weighing approximately 28 kg and usually sold for around K200, to marketplace vendors. These vendors, who are predominantly women, then sit down in the same marketplace and resell the betel nut either in smaller bags (of approximately 5 kg) or in small, usually K2, piles of say 4–12 nuts.

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Betel Nut Trade Routes in PNG. Source: Adapted from Allen et al. (2009, p. 391). Data compiled by R. M. Bourke and author.

The customers of these marketplace vendors then resell the betel nut in small roadside marketplaces in both urban and rural areas, from small stalls in residential areas, or from their pockets in the urban business districts. This final group of sellers sell individual nuts, along with enough betel pepper and lime for a single chew, to the end consumers (Fig. 2). A diverse range of intermediaries are also involved in transacting, facilitating transactions, laboring, and transporting. This proliferation of intermediaries and the extent of wholesaling contrasts starkly with the preponderance of producersellers in Papua New Guinea’s fresh food marketplaces (see Bourke, 1986; Brookfield, 1969). At the center of the highlands betel nut trade lies Mt. Hagen (‘‘Hagen’’ to most) – PNG’s third largest urban center and the economic hub of the highlands region. Hagen’s Kaiwei betel nut marketplace attracts customers from a wide catchment including the Western Highlands, Enga, and Southern Highlands provinces. The effect of supply, demand, and price at Kaiwei reverberate throughout the rest of the network to the extent that producers in distant production areas know the name of this place and its importance even though they may never have ventured into the highlands.

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Unsurprisingly then it is traders from Hagen who are the most dominant group. They are the most prominent traders present in the lowland marketplaces and production areas, both in the number of individuals present and in terms of the scale at which they trade.9 To understand the betel nut trade one must understand ‘‘Hageners’’ (mipela Hagen) – the Melpa and Temboka speakers from the Mt. Hagen area (cf. M. Strathern, 1972b, pp. 3–4, 1975, pp. 15–19) – and especially Hagen men, and the way that particular culturally grounded ideas about exchange and sociality have become embedded in the trade.

Fig. 2. Betel Nut and Betel Pepper Supply Chain. Note: Owner transactors refer to those who own the betel nut which they are selling. Nonowner transactors refer to those who buy and sell betel nut on behalf of another person.

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BETEL NUT TRADERS, BISNIS, AND SOCIALITY IN HAGEN In Hagen, betel nut trading has been encompassed within the ideology of bisnis (self-employed enterprise). Hageners embraced the new opportunities presented to them by a rapidly changing economy following the entry of Europeans into the highlands in the 1930s, and it was through bisnis that Hageners most enthusiastically sought to engage with capitalism. Hageners, particularly those living in more central areas, quickly grew disinterested in the most peripheral roles within capitalism including low-skilled wage employment and contract laboring on plantations which they perceived to ‘‘pull’’ wealth only to the employer and not themselves (M. Strathern, 1972a, pp. 33–39; A. Strathern, 1982, p. 144). This was coupled with a strong desire for autonomy; that they should be their own bosses. In Hagen, A. Strathern (1982, p. 144) notes, there is: a very strong value placed on staying at home and carrying out one’s own ‘‘business’’ of coffee-growing, pig rearing, running a tradestore and/or a vehicle: in short, anything which is of the ‘‘self-employed’’ type and largely enables one to stay on one’s own ground. (also see M. Strathern, 1972a)

A key reason for the enthusiasm with which Hageners have taken to bisnis stems from its capacity to facilitate the competition for prestige which is an important dynamic of Hagen sociality, and long the ‘‘motor of history’’ there (Stewart & Strathern, 2005, p. 132; also see A. Strathern, 1971, 1972b, p. 491). In the past, moka gift exchanges provided a key context in which prominent men (big men) vied for prestige by amassing and redistributing wealth (pigs and shells) (A. Strathern, 1971). Big men gained renown from the indebtedness the exchanges created, but also through demonstrating their efficacy, their ability to influence large numbers of supporters, and to coordinate and have ‘‘pull’’ on networks of exchange. Big men drew their primary support from their clan, but they also nurtured extra-clan networks. These enabled them to grow in eminence and to avoid the over-extraction of kin resources, but they also made relationships inherently unstable (A. Strathern, 1969, 1971, p. 221, 1978). The success of a big man hinged on effectively managing and manipulating these relationships. These ideas were readily transferred into new contexts, and bisnis became an important arena for competition and achieving prestige (Ketan, 2004; A. Strathern, 1972a).10 The ease with which this transition occurred was due

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to the cultural value of personal achievement through wealth accumulation and exchange which, Finney (1973) suggests, made such highland groups ‘‘preadapted’’ to capitalism. Bisnis reinforced the idealized role of males in Hagen as ‘‘transactors’’ (M. Strathern, 1972b).11 It also provided a source of money to be invested into socially reproductive exchanges. Money was diverted into moka, which initially effloresced, and following its decline in the 1990s, compensation and bridewealth payments (Stewart & Strathern, 2005, p. 125; A. Strathern, 1979). That the proceeds from bisnis were often redistributed into social networks confounds typical profit-oriented models of entrepreneurship (A. Strathern, 1972b). Bisnis also offered a new way for Hagen men to demonstrate their efficacy. By establishing a large coffee block, or acquiring a tradestore or a vehicle, a man could demonstrate his ability to attract the support of others in his pursuits. In contrast, to be without effective relations, influence and wealth was to be ‘‘rubbish.’’ Betel nut traders echoed the concern for status imbued in bisnis. Thomas, a betel nut trader, who also aspired to raise his status in local politics, explained: ‘‘If a man has a small business y a man is successful; others think they must emulate his success. [They think to themselves] If I remain a man of no account his success will humiliate me.’’ Another trader, Ben, explicitly connected this to the expansion and success of Hagen businesses throughout PNG: ‘‘if a Hagener sees another Hagener with a big bisnis, he will think to himself, ‘I am as good as him, but he has beaten me y he has done this so I must do the same’ y They compete. In this way Hageners have started their own businesses.’’ Hageners are indeed said to ‘‘copycat’’ (cf. Bainton and Macintyre, 2013).12 The concerns about status that underlie Hagen, and more broadly Papua New Guinean, ideas of bisnis emphasize that profit is not the only driver; ‘‘bisnis is not business’’ (Banks, 2006; see also Allen, 1976, p. 249; Curry, 2005; A. Strathern, 1972b). The competition that is such a prominent feature of Hagen sociality is nevertheless underpinned by cooperation and support. It occurs within a context in which people conceive of themselves as comprised of their relationships with others (M. Strathern, 1988). Through interactions in exchange, coresidence, and shared substance people are not only made, but they are linked into social networks of obligation, debt, and reciprocity. It is these social relations that compel traders, and other entrepreneurs, to behave in particular ways, and which heighten the animosity and aggrievement felt by others when they do not (A. Strathern, 1972a, 1972b; M. Strathern, 1999; cf. Martin, 2007). They also provide the basis for a highly contextual and relational morality. As Read (1955, p. 260) commented of another highland

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group, ‘‘moral obligations are primarily contingent on the social positioning of individuals,’’ that is, on particularistic relationships with others. In Hagen the clan group and its lower segmentary divisions are the most important groupings in terms of political and social action, and where solidarity and cooperation is greatest (A. Strathern, 1971, pp. 15–36; M. Strathern, 1972b, pp. 6–12). Alongside concern for personal prestige, there is also strong concern for group reputation: ‘‘the name must not go down,’’ they say (Ketan, 2004). In both gift exchange and bisnis there is pressure to cooperate with, and support, one’s clansmen so as to out compete other groups, yet at the same time within the clan, numerous big men may vie for eminence. The clan then provides both the basis for cooperation and the locus of competition. The aim of the big man is to stand out within his society, to align the interests of others with his own, to demonstrate personal efficacy. But to do this he must show concern for others, redistribute wealth, and promote the group – such that ‘‘many’’ may be evinced as ‘‘one’’ (M. Strathern, 1991).13 Although only a small number of the grassroots entrepreneurs trading betel nut might be considered big men, nevertheless the complex interplay between the social pressure to conform and cooperate, the spirit of competition and the concern for status in Hagen all clearly manifest in the actions of Hagen’s betel nut traders. It is through this interplay that I explore one aspect of the nature of grassroots bisnis in Hagen, and the market interactions within one of the most significant markets in contemporary PNG.

TRADERS AS COMPANIONS AND RIVALS Traders are grassroots Papua New Guineans, travel hardened, tough bargainers, and entrepreneurially driven by the promise of ‘‘green gold.’’ The adventure, risks, and potential rewards of trading make the life of a trader as addictive as the stimulant itself: ‘‘it gets in your blood and makes it hard to give up.’’ Traders are predominantly men. Women do trade, and a number of women are among the largest traders in Hagen, however most have male relatives or workers who travel for them. Men regularly contend that women do not have the strength to trade away from home; they perceive women to be unable to physically assert themselves in conflicts, and to be less skillful negotiators. It is then largely men who travel in search of betel nut. In this context a fraternity of traders has emerged among whom there is considerable rivalry, yet also strong expectations that they will

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support one another (cf. Gell, 1992, p. 158). This is true of traders at large but it is especially true among the community of traders from Hagen. Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders are connected to one another in diverse ways. The clan and tribe affiliations that are central to social action and identity in Hagen are important reference points for traders; they indicate which other traders are more or less likely to be trustworthy, however the alliances among traders extend well beyond these social groupings.14 Traders are mostly known to one another, sometimes in enduring relations of kinship and friendship but often only as save fes (known faces). They identify with one another as Hageners and as traders but it is particularly as fellow travelers and as traveling companions that they bond (cf. M. Strathern, 1975). This is because traveling together to trade can provide a context within which social solidarity and trust may be expressed; qualities that are characteristic of kinship and friendship (cf. Healey, 1990, p. 349). Kinship (and friendship) relations are reaffirmed through, among other things, sharing (particularly food) and cooperation in work, exchange and warfare/conflict. Kin are morally obligated to each other, they are people who can be trusted and from whom support can be sought (A. Strathern, 1971; M. Strathern, 1972b; A. Strathern & Stewart, 2000, pp. 21–41). But at the same time that kinship becomes defined by these qualities, it is the existence of these qualities that makes kin, that is, it is by behaving in the manner of kin that persons may become rendered as kin (Robbins & Akin, 1999). Many of those same features which act to bind kin and friends to one another also connect Hagen’s betel nut traders. When traders travel together (raun wantaim) they share food, transport, resources, and information, they sleep in the same places, they fight alongside each other, ensure one another’s safety, work together, and cooperate in the marketplace. It is thus common for traders to emphasize their travels together as the basis of the moral expectations that they have of one another. In Hagen it is said that friends ‘‘go around together,’’ and it follows that those who travel together are friends (A. Strathern & Stewart, 2000, p. 25). These friendships, and the expectations they entail, are commonly framed within idioms of kinship. For instance, traders often express the sentiment that they should travel as if they were brothers, and are thus compelled to show solidarity. But the rendering of fellow traders as brothers is not a romanticized idea of trader mutuality, for in Hagen ‘‘brothers’’ should be supportive but they are also said to be jealous of each other (A. Strathern, 1971, p. 26). Traders, like clansmen, are both companions and rivals; people from whom both cooperation and competition is expected.

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Traders cooperate and collude with one another, but at the same time they recognize the context of their interactions, a market, and each of their interests in attaining and benefiting from trading ‘‘green gold.’’ While traders do compete (resis) with each other they typically feel they should do so with regard to their fellow traders. This does not, however, constitute a generalized morality that encompasses all traders, rather their obligations to one another are highly contextual and relationally particular (cf. Read, 1955, p. 260). As in any social group, the relationships among traders are comprised of diverse associations of variable intensity and durability. Traders thus routinely interact with some traders with whom they possess considerable solidarity and friendship, and with other traders for whom they hold no particular affection or obligation. This shapes the dynamics of cooperation and competition among traders. It is important to recognize that instances of cooperation among one group of traders may at the same time present itself as competition with another group of traders. Among traders these group boundaries are often unstable and alliances ephemeral. The following highlights some of the different dimensions of the copresent rivalry and camaraderie that exists within the collectivity of traders, in particular the different motivations, expectations, tensions, and negotiations that occur within the trade. Competition, Cooperation, Collusion, and Sanctions It is when traders are traveling and buying in the lowlands that they most clearly emerge as a group. Traders regularly cooperate with each other in their collective interests and it is common for traders to collude to suppress prices in the lowlands. For instance if they believe that producers in a particular village are demanding too high a price for their betel nut, traders may make an agreement among themselves to stop buying in that village. The traders reason that when the producers see no one coming to buy, no traders coming to ‘‘feed’’ them, they will be forced to reduce the price demanded. Traders obviously have a common interest in cooperating to control the prices paid to producers, and there is pressure upon traders to act with a level of solidarity, to share information, and be honest with one another. One trader, Mark, explained: When I come down river and I meet other traders who buy in the same village I tell them the price I paid: ‘‘you must follow this price or reduce it, don’t increase it.’’ Because sometimes the producers are clever, they trick us.

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It is in all traders’ interests to suppress rises in the buying price and to prevent traders who are venturing into the area from accidentally paying too much and establishing higher expectations among producers. Traders then for the most part follow the prices set by others. Acting in such a way also promotes friendships and obligations and becomes the basis for trust. The same trader continued: I speak truthfully [with other traders] because we buy in the same village. When I have a need, like if I am short of fuel or money, then they help me. When they are short I will help them, so we must be honest in our work. When we come to sell we sell in the same place, then afterwards we will travel as brothers. Whatever troubles we meet, we meet together.

Traders try to avoid competing with each other on buying price. In the lowland marketplaces traders do not enter into auction style bidding against one another. One trader is allowed to negotiate with the producer, and only if negotiations are abandoned does another trader try his luck. Traders also cooperate on setting the selling price in the highland marketplaces. This price is shaped by the interaction between supply and demand, but it also incorporates consideration for other traders. Jack, a small betel pepper trader, explained how he decides on a price: Before I sell my [betel pepper] baskets, I keep an eye out and look around. It wouldn’t be good if they put their price at K70 and I put my price higher at K90 or K80 so [customers] won’t buy my baskets. Or it wouldn’t be good if they marked theirs at K40 and I came down lower to K30 or K20 and they wouldn’t be able to sell their baskets. So we assess it and together we set one price that others can buy at.

The expectations for traders to cooperate when selling are more explicit when traders have worked together when purchasing in the lowlands. Lewis, a Hagen hevi baia explained: We came on the same trip, the expenses involved were the same so we have to get the same price. It will be bad if some people get less, because if you give a lower price then all the customers will come to you y it is not allowed because we as a group have to sell at the same price.

Lewis’ comments refer to a buying trip to Popondetta in which there had been considerable coordination and assistance between him and two other hevi baias. They had shared transport and accommodation, and assisted each other with labor and other resources over a week, and had worked together to keep the price low. These three hevi baias had also worked together intermittently over several years. By contrast Jack had no such pact or a history of mutual assistance with fellow traders but nonetheless the

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traders all had a vested interest in avoiding a selling war. Thus collusion between traders is both an action which is focused on getting the upper hand where the locus of competition is between buyer and seller, and equally a strategy for not restricting the opportunity for other traders to also make a profit. But within a market there is of course an incentive to act in terms of individual interest, which may or may not align with the interests of traders at large. At the same time, trader interactions can be intensely competitive; ‘‘a survival of the fittest’’ one trader explained. Traders ‘‘race’’ (resis) to secure supply; throwing themselves into the water to meet the arriving betel nut and betel pepper boats in a bid to reserve the load, even though, as highlanders, they can barely swim and are terrified by crocodiles. Such is the competition to get betel nut. In these situations smaller traders will often ally themselves to out maneuver a hevi baia, and make space for themselves in the market. Information is hidden from rival traders and at times deliberately misleading information is given. Traders also compete on price in both their buying and selling markets. They may increase the price they pay in the lowlands marketplaces to push out other prospective buyers. In the highlands marketplaces they will drop their price to ensure a faster sale. Traders may also try and poach supply from other traders by ruining an agreement between producers and the other traders by offering to pay more. It is not that traders behave in contradictory ways but their actions are shaped by the market dynamics and their particular relationships with those other traders present. Trading can provide the context for people to work together, develop trust and goodwill toward one another but for traders who do not have such a basis for their relationship there is less compulsion to act in each other’s interests. The impact of competition is particularly evident in relation to securing transport. One hevi baia, Lewis, described how the competition among traders led to an escalation of the charter rates for a medium-sized fishing boat, Lucy II, to do a return trip between Lae and Popondetta: We were giving the owner K5000 at the start y Then others saw that I was bringing betel nut and they went and enquired. ‘‘How much is Lewis giving?,’’ the owner: ‘‘K5000,’’ the trader: ‘‘I will give K5500. Get my name on the list.’’ Because there was only one vessel that was taking betel nut and many traders, there was considerable demand for Lucy. The prices gradually increased from K5000 to K15,000.

When this occurred Lewis found another boat to make the trip however he soon faced the same problem. Traders reflect that this must be expected within a market; they recognize that all traders are attempting to create

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space for themselves and this may entail competition, nevertheless, traders do become frustrated and disputes are frequent. This is evident in the pressure traders place on each other, when buying in the lowlands, not to agree to pay a higher price in order to obtain a purchase. When traders increase prices without regard to the interests of other traders, frustration and conflicts arise. Traders are quick to sanction any trader who acts to the detriment of the broader group’s interests. One trader, Ben, emphasized that traders should work together and should act as equals and in consideration of others. When we are on the road, or we see a trader, we tell them to buy around a certain price. There can’t be someone who buys at a different price. If a man buys at another price then a group of traders will get together, approach him and ask: ‘‘Why did you buy at that price? How much money do you have? What is the colour of your money? We have the same type of money as you! Where do you think you sleep? Do you think you have descended from the sky to buy? What kind of house do you sleep in? You sleep in the same kind of house as us, we are at the same level! You must follow what we say, you must be empathetic. We have also risked our lives to come; we have travelled a long way.’’

Sometimes altercations between traders can become violent. A trader from Hagen gave this account: I hit a man from Wabag at Base Camp.15 I had gone down and bought for K70 [per bag], returned to Hagen sold out and returned on a second trip. People were buying for K60 and some for K70. Those from Wabag and Tambul who intend to sell at Porgera, they have wealthy people to sell to. They had bought for K130 y ‘‘Only yesterday I paid K70. You have increased the price hey!’’ I was angry so I hit a Wabag trader y Their vehicle was loaded and they were ready to leave. I got a large coconut log and blocked their way. I told them ‘‘give me K200 and your vehicle can pass, if not the vehicle and the betel nut will stay here.’’

The failure of traders to consider the thoughts and feelings of other traders is one of the most common causes of conflict between traders, nevertheless traders, particularly hevi baias, frequently act without reference to others if they think they can get away with it (cf. M. Strathern, 1985, p. 125). There is an obvious tension between the smaller traders and the hevi baias who by virtue of size are able to ignore some of the behavioral boundaries that constrain others. For example, Nathan, renowned as a hevi baia, moni man (literally, money man), and a price leader in the betel pepper trade, is accused by other traders of regularly using his cash resources to pay higher prices to remove competition by smaller traders who cannot match what he pays. As a result he achieves a near monopoly. A small trader explained: ‘‘If y [Nathan] hears that we are buying for K40 a basket, he

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will offer K60.’’ The smaller trader exclaimed, ‘‘em i no givim spes long mipela’’ (literally, he doesn’t give space to us – there is no room in the market for us). That larger traders are not letting smaller traders into the market is a common complaint. Another trader grizzled: ‘‘[Hevi baias] block us. If we are coming by boat or dinghy, they can hire a ship y they do not worry about money. They can pay twice as much and still make money y They have ruined the market.’’ Larger traders may be able to ignore moral boundaries but smaller traders lack the economic and political muscle to do similarly or to sanction them. Clearly traders do not always act cooperatively and in each other’s interests, but acting individually to the detriment of other traders, if discovered, does have consequences.

The Safe-Keeping of Others The solidarity among traders is not simply about managing prices and reducing transaction costs. In PNG traveling with large amounts of money, and being known to do so, as betel nut traders do, is a risky undertaking. Criminals (raskols) are a significant concern for betel nut traders, and many have horrific tales and sometimes the scars to prove it. Traders thus rely on other traders for support and protection, and in distant marketplaces even relatively weak social ties may become important associations. It is when traders are away from home, and therefore at most risk, that they are under the greatest pressure to consider other traders in their actions and in particular to look out for one another’s safety. Sillitoe and Kuwimb (2010), in relation to another highland society, describe: ‘‘When people are together, perhaps as travelers, they are expected to look out for one another’s welfare; if one suffers a serious injury or is killed, the others are held responsible and are expected to compensate the unfortunate’s kin.’’ Traders from Hagen felt that as ‘‘brothers’’ they should meet troubles together, something they said distinguished them from others. While others, they said, will think of self-preservation, Hageners will ‘‘fight and die together.’’ To ‘‘fight’’ and ‘‘die’’ is productive and reinforcing of broader social and trading alliances. To not do so can place stress on these same relations as the following story highlights. In early 2008 two traders, James and Colin, traveled to Madang Province together in search of betel nut. James and Colin’s relationship was amiable without being particularly close. They belonged to different clans, with adjacent territories, of the Mokei Depi tribe section. As is common among traders, they traded independently but traveled together. On the return trip

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they reached Young Creek on the Highlands Highway just before it steeply ascends into the highlands. Here Colin decided to leave James and to return to Madang to buy more betel nut. James, who was driving his own vehicle, continued into the highlands alone. While passing through the Eastern Highlands James’ car left the road and he was killed. Some say it was the result of a raskol hold up, others suggest the outcome of alcohol and fatigue. Both have claimed the lives of many traders. Following James’ death suspicion fell upon Colin. People questioned; why had he left the vehicle at Young Creek? Was foul play involved? It was a common sentiment that they should have traveled together and supported one another. James’ relatives demanded compensation from Colin’s group. Colin’s group paid K3000 to James’ wife, but denied culpability. This was not considered sufficient by James’ kin who believed he had a greater level of responsibility to look out for his travel companion. In response Colin’s family gave an additional K1000, this time enclosed in a bible, an indication that Colin was being honest and had no part in James’ death. This was accepted by James’ wife who is said to have slept with the bible under her pillow. While suspicion remained, it was considered that God would pass judgement on Colin’s honesty. Later that year Colin was bringing a boat load of betel nut back from the East Sepik when his boat capsized. Colin drowned. For some this indicated a connection between Colin and James’ death. This event reinforces the broader implications for traders if they fail to meet the social expectations of how they should act toward one another as fellow traders and as traveling companions.

Not Being ‘‘Rubbish’’ and ‘‘Burning Money’’ The competitive aspects of trader relations are motivated by concern for monetary profit as well as social status, two things that are intimately entangled in Hagen. As highlighted earlier, trading betel nut has emerged as another arena of competition in Hagen, one which fits within the broader category of bisnis. Traders directly compare their own success in relation to other traders, not wanting to be out done by them. Thomas, a betel nut trader, explained: If a man starts trading betel nut, and has only a small amount of money, like if he is carrying K3000, K2000 or K4000 and he buys 20 bags, 10 bags or 15 bags. If he sees another trader travelling and buying lots, he will feel ashamed. [He will think to himself], ‘‘I am only buying a small amount and this bugger is carrying lots of money and buying

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lots. I too must think the same way, make lots of money and buy at the same level he is buying. If he is buying 50 bags, I must get 50 bags.’’

As in the pursuit of moka, to be seen to be inferior is shameful. This is not a desire for equality; rather it is the desire to not be underneath anyone, to not be ‘‘rubbish.’’ It is also not simply about what another trader has accumulated, but instead it is to show oneself as equally efficacious. Accumulation may be one aspect of this. Trading success in itself can be proof of one’s mettle. Certainly hevi baias achieve a name for themselves as prominent actors in the trade but this is limited to those others in the trade. Traders admit that while they may be known in the marketplace, people further afield don’t recognize them. For those traders most driven by social ambition, reinvesting the profits from betel nut into more widely recognized markers of status such as vehicles, tradestores, and permanent material houses is necessary. These concerns about status have contributed to driving the trade but they have also at times manifested in negative ways. Traders occasionally act maliciously in their attempts to gain the upper hand in contests with other traders. They go beyond what is considered socially acceptable competition between traders and out of jealousy deliberately set about ‘‘burning’’ the money (paiaim moni) of other traders. In this way traders, rather than growing their own trading activities to make themselves commensurate with another trader, seek to make other traders commensurate with themselves. One trader explained: ‘‘a trader will see another making a lot of money y one time they arrive the trader will think ‘you behave like this and you get more money. I must devise a way to make you lose your money.’’’ This is referred to as jelas pasin or jelas resis (literally, jealous behavior or jealous competition) (cf. Bainton & Macintyre, and Yang, 2013). Traders, for instance, spoke with a glint in their eye of ways in which they might impede another trader’s passage back to Hagen and how they might ‘‘burn’’ his money and along with it his name. One trader reported paying security staff at a wharf to prevent his competitor entering the wharf area until the ship, upon which his competitor had wanted to travel, had departed. The trader, left behind, had no other way to transport his betel nut to Hagen, and in the end his betel nut was left to rot. Traders also bribe police officers to stop and search other vehicles transporting betel nut, to either delay them so that they miss their ship or to delay their arrival at the marketplace in Hagen: ‘‘We bribe them with some money and tell them, ‘this vehicle coming afterwards, you must check it. The driver doesn’t have a license or he is overloaded with betel nut. Charge him.’’’ Police are more

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likely to act upon such infringements, and detain a vehicle, if a trader has persuaded them to do so. Arriving in the marketplace first gives traders a greater chance of selling for a higher price. Conversely, traders who arrive later typically receive lower prices due to the tendency for prices to decrease throughout the day. Some level of trickery is expected but this form of behavior is considered particularly malicious and is the source of conflict if discovered. But, as M. Strathern (1985, p. 125) has observed, in Hagen conflict does not impinge on a cultural ideal of peaceful relations, rather it provides a means by which people can demonstrate power and efficacy. Traders may in this way show they are able to outwit another trader, and that they have the requisite social relationships to do so. They can show themselves to be someone with significant clout within the market, or at least someone who is not ‘‘rubbish.’’

CONCLUSION: THE PLACE-BASED MAKING OF A BETEL NUT MARKET Within the betel nut trade betel people are constantly negotiating their relationships with others in new transactional modes and contexts, including the market. Traders demonstrate the way in which localized ideas of sociality shape people’s engagements with markets, the dynamics of trade, and the relationships between market participants. These ‘‘place-based’’ ideas and practices are often only hazily defined, always contested, and relationally specific. Communal agreements and norms in one respect outline principles about how traders should behave, but they also present opportunities that may be exploited. When there is an expectation for people to act in a particular way, there can be considerable risk but also advantage in acting otherwise. Trade interactions are complex and there are inevitable tensions in the behavior of different actors. Betel nut traders constantly maneuver in relation to one another. They maneuver so as to gain the most advantage from the market conditions presented to them and, at the same time, they strategically nurture the social networks that enable them to operate in, and manipulate, the market. There is considerable collusion among traders but this is not so durable or predictable that it may be considered a cartel. Betel nut traders find themselves in much the same position as clansmen, in that the group (clan/collective of traders) is both a source of cooperation and the locus for competition, something made explicit in the way traders

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often refer to each other as brothers. The idea that traders should cooperate with one another is strongest while they are away from Hagen, and in this context even relatively weak associations may become important. But once traders have returned to Hagen to sell, and no longer depend on each other for protection and to achieve shared objectives, other social relationships including their clan become more meaningful reference points. Nevertheless there may still be considerable advantage for traders to continue to work together. Traders also know that there may be a point in the future that they will need each other’s support and traders are therefore inclined to maintain at least cordial relations with one another. The collective of traders also to a degree mimic intra-clan relations in that in external relations (in this case trading away from home) there is pressure and advantage to presenting group unity, however internally there may be considerable disunity. Although I have presented trader interactions as quite utilitarian, for this was regularly how it was represented to me, this is not to deny nonutilitarian bases for trader relationships. Among traders cooperation is common but it only extends so far. The strong spirit of competition among Hagen men tends to make alliances unstable and ephemeral. For traders to make money they must ‘‘find gaps’’ (painim gap) or opportunities in the market. It is often through breaching particular social expectations of behavior that traders create space for themselves within the market and, by doing so, secure a profit and a name. Traders, like big men, are thus calculative in their adherences and breaches (cf. M. Strathern, 1985). This is most visible in the inequitable relations between hevi baias and the smaller traders, in which hevi baias have the financial and political might to push the normative boundaries and to handle the ensuing repercussions. The locally grounded rationality that I have described is one which belongs to a certain subset of Hagen society, largely dominated by young to middle aged men. It is something that has emerged among this fraternity of traders while they are away from home, and though there is greatest compulsion for traders to cooperate at this time, they are also not immediately subject to the same local sanctions. A. Strathern (1971, pp. 220–221) argues that the expansion of social networks both sets the Hagen big man free, enabling him to exchange at a larger scale and to become an even bigger big man, but he also highlights that these networks make political relations inherently unstable. The same is true of Hagen’s betel nut traders. Betel nut traders’ expanded social networks enable them to trade in distant locations, and to exert a high degree of influence in these spaces, but these relationships are only a tenuous basis for trust.

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For Hageners, the betel nut trade, as is the case with bisnis more broadly, has presented another avenue through which competition can be pursued. Betel nut traders show a strong concern for social status, and although many traders aspire for renown, I would argue a greater number are more concerned that they not be considered ‘‘rubbish men.’’ Prestige is certainly not the overriding motivation for engaging in the betel nut trade, this would be to misrepresent the traders, but concern for status remains intimately entangled in bisnis in Hagen. Betel nut trading provides a means for the expression of competition among traders but it also allows them to show they are commensurate with, or perhaps better than, wage earners. They comment that while wage earners wait for the fortnightly payday (wetim fotnait), betel nut traders always have money: ‘‘We carry cash around. We go to sleep and wake up with money.’’ Money presents opportunities for accumulation and consumption but also for nurturing social relationships and for the expression of social status. The betel nut trade is today a prominent means through which many Papua New Guineans are attaining money, and within the trade wholesale traders occupy the potentially most lucrative position of all. The appeal of trading lies not only in the potential profits – and the material and social uses to which they may be turned – but also the potential to earn cash in a space that affords them greater autonomy; to be able to stay at home and to be their own bosses. As coffee smallholders Hageners are positioned on the periphery of an international commodity chain, whereas as betel nut traders they are central actors who have a considerable ability to shape the market. Though the focus of this chapter has been on the social relationships among Hagen traders, what has remained implicit are the implications for other groups within the trade. Hageners interact with different groups of producers and also with less dominant groups of traders from elsewhere in the highlands. Because Hageners are the dominant group of traders, and are often successful in attaining a level of solidarity among themselves, it has enabled Hageners to exert considerable influence over the trade as a whole. Hageners have colluded on buying prices so that producers are largely price takers. Hageners have also been able to sanction traders from elsewhere, and they have conspired to restrict nonlocal traders from being able to sell in Hagen, something that highlights the tensions and negotiations in the construction of markets. It is significant that the cooperation exhibited among Hagen traders, is often simultaneously collusion by traders against producers, or by one group of traders against another, and in this way cooperation also becomes the basis for power asymmetries within the trade.

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The betel nut trade as it currently exists in PNG is an indigenous institution that emerged in the context of the changed economic landscape brought by colonialism and capitalism. Betel people have taken on exogenous ideas and practices and have remade and reinterpreted these through particular ‘‘place-based’’ understandings and practices. They are transacting in new ways but they have sought to understand and regulate these transactions, and the social relationships they entail, by drawing upon ideas that have strong resonance in place. But as is often the case, these remakings are equally capable of sustaining new and re-performing old power asymmetries (A. Strathern, 1982). At least in the Hagen case, this only adds to the lure of ‘‘green gold.’’

NOTES 1. This chapter is based on 13 months’ Ph.D. fieldwork undertaken in 2006, 2007, and 2010. The research involved ‘‘following’’ (Cook et al., 2004, 2006; Marcus, 1995) betel nut as it moved from the lowland production areas through numerous lowland and highland marketplaces to the end consumer, and examining those actors with whom its trajectory intersected. I focused in particular on the highland wholesale traders, as the central actors within the trade. I traveled with them to the lowlands in their search for betel nut, and accompanied them into the marketplaces where they trade. I also worked with others in the trade including producers, marketplace vendors, and roadside/street sellers. The fieldwork included two large week-long quantitative surveys of Mt. Hagen’s Kaiwei marketplace. Figures referred to in the chapter are drawn from this. 2. In PNG, the story of betel nut and its commoditization has most often been told from the perspective of lowland producers (see Bergendorff, 1996; Mosko, 1999, 2005, 2013; Watson, 1987a, 1987b) or from those marginalized from the trade (Hirsch, 1990, 1995, 2007). Chris Owen’s (2004) documentary Betelnut Bisnis approaches the trade from the highland perspective although the focus is on one individual’s early experiments in the trade. 3. Tok Pisin is the lingua franca in PNG. 4. Betel nut is the walnut-sized fruit of the Areca catechu palm. The seed/ endosperm, which is chewed, is surrounded by a green husk (yellow when dry). Betel pepper is the bean-like inflorescence/catkin of the Piper betle vine. Lime (calcium hydroxide) is a fine white powder produced from burnt shells and coral. In this chapter when I refer to ‘‘the betel nut trade’’ I include in this the trade in all three ingredients used to chew betel nut. Betel nut is the fourth most consumed addictive substance on earth following nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol (Boucher & Mannan, 2002). 5. Papua New Guineans commonly refer to everyday people as the grassroots, grasruts in Tok Pisin. 6. ‘‘Buai na daka lain’’ is literally ‘‘betel nut and betel pepper people/group.’’ The term ‘‘betel people’’ has been used with different meaning elsewhere (see Lutkehaus, 1981; Riesenfeld, 1947; Rivers, 1914).

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7. A highland species of betel nut, kavivi (Areca macrocalyx), was chewed within a limited geographic area of the highlands. Importantly, it was not traditionally consumed in the Mt. Hagen area, and it is not a significant commodity in the contemporary highland trade. 8. The betel nut trade networks which supply the highlands are largely distinct from those focused on Port Moresby in which the Mekeo people, discussed by Mosko (2013), participate. 9. In surveys at Mt. Hagen’s Kaiwei marketplace in 2007 the largest trader transported 12.5 tons of betel nut in a single buying trip. When the largest traders (those carrying over 2 tons) were excluded, the average trader’s load was 830 kg. 10. In Hagen the biggest arena of all is now state politics, which has become closely associated with business (Ketan, 2004). 11. Men’s role as ‘‘transactors’’ contrasts with women’s idealized role as ‘‘producers’’ and as a ‘‘road for valuables’’ (M. Strathern, 1972b). 12. Finney (1973, p. 83) similarly refers to ‘‘imitative innovators.’’ 13. M. Strathern writes: ‘‘The Hagen big man presents the entire clan as a homogenous collectivity. He is its capacity for unity. At the same time, in so far as his single figure is created out of all the diverse interests of individual clansmen, he turns these particular interests into collective ones’’ (1991, p. 211). 14. Some traders write labels on their bags in ways that identify them with a particular group. For example ‘‘BRB’’ is used as an acronym for Blue Rock Band, a reference to Mt Kuta; ‘‘Kum Kops’’ is used by some members of the Kum-Kopi tribe whose origin place is Kum mountain (see Burton, 1988, p. 9.1); ‘‘P9B’’ is used by members of the Penambi tribe, P-9-B being an imperfect homophone of the tribe name; and ‘‘KND’’ which stands for Kiminingka Never Die is used by some members of the Mokei Kiminingka clan. These labels are primarily to stop bags being confused with those of another trader, nonetheless the practice does highlight the importance of clan identity. 15. Base Camp (near Bogia) is a key transit point and wholesale location for betel nut coming out of the middle Ramu, Madang Province. Wabag is in Enga Province, and Tambul is in the Western Highlands close to the border with Enga. Porgera, in Enga Province, is the site of a large gold mine and as a result is a particularly lucrative market for selling betel nut (Fig. 1).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research was undertaken while the author was in the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program (SSGM), College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University (ANU). I acknowledge the financial assistance provided by SSGM and the ANU for fieldwork and travel associated with this chapter. I am grateful to the numerous ‘‘betel people’’ who were so generous with their time and knowledge. Thank you to my supervisors Bryant Allen, Mike Bourke, Matthew Allen, and Katherine Gibson and my advisor Mark Mosko for their assistance with the Ph.D.

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research on which this chapter is based. I thank Bryant Allen, Matthew Allen, Mark Mosko, Steffen Dalsgaard, Madeleine Fletcher, Pyone Myat Thu, Fiona McCormack, and Kate Barclay for their discussions and valuable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. I also thank Cartographic and GIS Services (ANU) for the map and illustration included. All the usual caveats apply.

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Curry, G. N., Koczberski, G., Omuru, E., & Nailina, R. S. (2007). Farming or foraging? Household labour and livelihood strategies amongst smallholder cocoa growers in Papua New Guinea. Perth: Black Swan Press. Epstein, T. S. (1968). Capitalism, primitive and modern: Some aspects of Tolai economic growth. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Epstein, T. S. (1982). Urban food marketing and Third World rural development: The structure of producer-seller markets. London: Croom Helm. Finney, B. R. (1973). Big-men and business: Entrepreneurship and economic growth in the New Guinea Highlands. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Foster, R. J. (1992). Commoditization and the emergence of ‘‘kastam’’ as a cultural category: A New Ireland case in comparative perspective. Oceania, 62(4), 284–294. Foster, R. J. (1995). Social reproduction and history in Melanesia: Mortuary ritual, gift exchange, and custom in the Tanga Islands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gell, A. (1992). Inter-tribal commodity barter and reproductive gift-exchange in old Melanesia. In C. Humphrey & S. Hugh-Jones (Eds.), Barter, exchange and value: An anthropological approach (pp. 142–168). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gewertz, D. B. (1983). Sepik River societies: An historical ethnography of the Chambri and their neighbors. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gibson, J. (2001). The economic and nutritional importance of household food production in PNG. Food security for Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the Papua New Guinea food and nutrition 2000 conference, June 26–30, 2000, pp. 37–44. Papua New Guinea University of Technology, Lae. Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. The American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510. Gregory, C. A. (1982). Gifts and commodities. London: Academic Press. Healey, C. (1990). Maring hunters and traders: Production and exchange in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hide, R. (1993). Women and market trade. Unpublished. Hirsch, E. (1990). From bones to betel nuts: Processes of ritual transformation and the development of ‘national culture’ in Papua New Guinea. Man (NS), 25, 18–34. Hirsch, E. (1995). Efficacy and concentration: Analogies in betel use among the Fuyuge. In J. Goodman, P. E. Lovejoy, & A. Sherratt (Eds.), Consuming habits: Drugs in history and anthropology (pp. 88–102). London: Routledge. Hirsch, E. (2007). Betelnut ‘bisnis’ and cosmology: A view from Papua New Guinea. In J. Goodman, P. E. Lovejoy, & A. Sherratt (Eds.), Consuming habits: Drugs in history and anthropology. London: Routledge. Hughes, I. M. (1977). New Guinea stone age trade: The geography and ecology of traffic in the interior. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. Jackson, R. (Ed.). (1976). An introduction to the urban geography of Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea. Keil, D. E. (1977). Markets in Melanesia? A comparison of traditional economic transactions in New Guinea with African markets. Journal of Anthropological Research, 33(3), 258–276. Ketan, J. (2004). The name must not go down: Political competition and state-society relations in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea. Kirsch, S. (2001). Property effects: Social networks and compensation claims in Melanesia. Social Anthropology, 9(2), 147–163.

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LiPuma, E. (2000). Encompassing others: The magic of modernity in Melanesia. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Lutkehaus, N. (1981, February 25–March 1). Diffusionist questions reconsidered, or who are the betel people? Paper presented at the 10th Annual Meeting of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, San Diego, CA. Maclean, N. L. (1989). The commoditization of food: An analysis of a Maring market. Canberra Anthropology, 12(1-2), 74–98, 161–179. Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world system: The emergence of multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95–117. Martin, K. (2007). Your own buai you must buy: The ideology of possessive individualism in Papua New Guinea. Anthropological Forum, 17(3), 285–298. Martin, K. (2010). The death of the big men: Deprecation of elites in New Guinea. Ethnos, 75(1), 1–22. McGregor, A., & Bourke, R. M. (2009). The broader economy. In R. M. Bourke & T. Harwood (Eds.), Food and agriculture in Papua New Guinea (pp. 271–282). Canberra: ANU E Press. Modjeska, N. (1985). Exchange value and Melanesian trade reconsidered. Mankind, 15(2), 145–162. Mosko, M. (1999). Magical money: Commoditization and the linkage of maketsi (market) and kangakanga (custom) in contemporary North Mekeo. In D. Akin & J. Robbins (Eds.), Money and modernity: State and local currencies in melanesia (Vol. ASAO Monograph #17, pp. 41–61). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Mosko, M. (2005). Customary land tenure and agricultural success: The Mekeo case. In J. Fingleton (Ed.), Privatising land in the Pacific: A defence of customary tenures (pp. 16–21). Canberra: The Australia Institute. Owen, C. (Writer & Director). (2004). Betelnut bisnis: A story from Papua New Guinea. In A. Pike (Producer). Canberra: Ronin Films. Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. New York, NY: Rinehart. Read, K. E. (1955). Morality and the concept of the person among the Gahuku-Gama. Oceania, 25(4), 233–282. Riesenfeld, A. (1947). Who are the betel people? Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, 45, 157–215. Rivers, W. H. (1914). The history of Melanesian society. London: Cambridge University Press. Robbins, J., & Akin, D. (1999). An introduction to Melanesian currencies: Agency, identity, and social reproduction. In D. Akin & J. Robbins (Eds.), Money and modernity: State and local currencies in Melanesia. (Vol. ASAO Monograph #17, pp. 1–40). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press and Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania. Salisbury, R. F. (1970). Vunamami: Economic transformation in a traditional society. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Sexton, L. (1986). Mothers of money, daughters of coffee: The Wok Meri movement. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press. Sillitoe, P., & Kuwimb, M. J. (2010). What tribal societies can tell us about justice and liberty. The pig in a garden: Jared Diamond and The New Yorker 2010. Retrieved from http:// www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-170.php# Stewart, P. J., & Strathern, A. (2005). The death of moka in post-colonial Mount Hagen, Highlands, Papua New Guinea. In J. Robbins & H. Wardlow (Eds.), The making of global and local modernities in Melanesia. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

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Strathern, A. (1969). Finance and production: Two strategies in New Guinea highlands exchange systems. Oceania, 40(1), 42–67. Strathern, A. (1971). The rope of moka: Big-men and ceremonial exchange in Mount Hagen, New Guinea. London: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, A. (1972a). Social pressures on the rural entrepreneur. Paper presented at the Fifth Waigani Seminar, Port Moresby. Strathern, A. (1972b). The entrepreneurial model of social change: From Norway to New Guinea. Ethnology, 11(4), 368–379. Strathern, A. (1978). Finance and production’ revisited: In pursuit of a comparison. Research in Economic Anthropology, 1, 73–104. Strathern, A. (1979). Gender, ideology and money in Mount Hagen. Man (NS), 14, 530–548. Strathern, A. (1982). Tribesmen or peasants? In J. Goody (Ed.), Inequality in New Guinea highland societies (pp. 137–157). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, A. (1991). Struggles for meaning. In A. Biersack (Ed.), Clio in Oceania: Toward a historical anthropology (pp. 205–230). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Strathern, A., & Stewart, P. J. (2000). Arrow talk: Transaction, transition and contradiction in New Guinea highlands history. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press. Strathern, M. (1972a). Absentee businessmen: The reaction at home to Hageners migrating to Port Moresby. Oceania, 43(1), 19–39. Strathern, M. (1972b). Women in between: Female roles in a male world, Mount Hagen, New Guinea. New York, NY: Seminar Press. Strathern, M. (1975). No money on our skins: Hagen migrants in Port Moresby. Port Moresby: The Australian National University. Strathern, M. (1985). Discovering ‘social control’. Journal of Law and Society, 12(2), 111–134. Strathern, M. (1988). The gender of the gift. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Strathern, M. (1991). One man and many men. In M. Godelier & M. Strathern (Eds.), Big men and great men: Personifications of power in Melanesia (pp. 197–214). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strathern, M. (1999). Property, substance and effect: Anthropological essays on persons and things. London: The Athlone Press. Ward, R. G. (1990). Contract labour recruitment from the highlands of Papua New Guinea, 1950–1974. International Migration Review, 24(2), 273–296. Watson, P. (1987a). Machines of the mind: An anthropology of drug use. Ph.D., University of Queensland, Brisbane. Watson, P. (1987b). Drugs in trade. In L. Lindstrom (Ed.), Drugs in Western Pacific societies: Relations of substance (pp. 119–134). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

CAPITALISM AMONG THE ME? Anton Ploeg ABSTRACT Purpose – The chapter examines Leopold Pospisil’s claim that the precolonial way of life of the Me, who live in the central highlands of west New Guinea, in many ways resembled capitalism. Pospisil based his claim on his field work among a group of Me, from 1954. Approach – Formulating a characterization of ‘‘capitalism’’ and using it as a yardstick while scrutinizing the available, early ethnographic literature discussing the Me. Findings – The late precolonial life of the Me appears to have been a hybrid one. It contained capitalist elements: such as a currency, accumulation, and unequal division of capital. But in other respects social reproduction, a noncapitalist element, was primary. Research limitations – An important source of information on the Me are the extensive writings of Sibbele Hylkema who worked among the Me from 1969 to 1994. They are for the most unpublished and consist in part of notes. The Me live in an inaccessible area so there is no other contemporary ethnography by which to update or compare and contrast Hylkema’s findings. Originality/value – This chapter is a Literature Review. Keywords: Capitalism; money; gift; tonowi; yuwo Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 257–275 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033012

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INTRODUCTION The Me are a large ethnic group in the western reaches of the Central Highlands of Papua, Indonesia. Most live in and near the three Paniai lakes and in the Kamu valley, in fact a basin, separated from the lakes by a single mountain range. Much smaller numbers of Me live farther west in what came to be called the Mapia and in surrounding areas. On the basis of a 1953 census I estimate that there were about 45,000 Me when Europeans first contacted them in the 1930s (Boelen, 1953). Leopold Pospisil, the anthropologist who made the Me way of life known to the outside world, has claimed that at the time of first contact the people’s economy resembled in many ways western capitalism (1958, p. 119, 1978, p. 31). In this chapter I examine whether or not this claim provides insight into their way of life, as it was then. From the start I should make it clear that, if the Me, before first contact, engaged with capitalism, it was an engagement of their own making. At the time, capitalism was not brought to them from the outside. I have divided the chapter into five sections. I first discuss the work of a number of Dutch ethnographers, thereafter Pospisil’s ethnography, then Christopher Gregory’s comments on Pospisil’s work, and subsequently the work of Sibbele Hylkema. Finally I examine to what extent, and in what ways, the Me way of life in the early colonial and also in the late pre-contact period conformed with a capitalist way of life. Capitalism I take to be a form of socioeconomic organization in which capital: land, knowledge, and skills, and movable assets, especially money, is employed for financial profit. At least part of the profit is used to fund other undertakings that then yield further profit. Capital is indispensable to fund and maintain the course of social life, as regards both subsistence and extras. Capital is usually unequally divided among the members of the group concerned. People with little capital are dependent on owners or managers of capital, thus creating sharp social inequalities. Capital enables its owners or controllers to move out of agriculture, by funding trading or manufacturing enterprises and deriving their main income from those nonagricultural undertakings.1

Dutch Ethnographers In 1938 the Dutch colonial administration established a patrol post among the Me on the shore of Lake Paniai, the largest of the three Paniai lakes,

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then called the Wissel Lakes, after the first European to notice them. It was the first administrative post in the highlands and it became almost immediately a center of colonial exploration and missionization. The colonial newcomers were attracted by the presence of such a large population. And they were intrigued by the intensive agriculture that the Me practiced. While up to then they had held New Guineans in low regard as regards to agriculture, the Me in Paniai and in the Kamu appeared to cultivate expanses of drained gardens, ditched, mounded, and composted, with sweet potato as the main crop. Another source of wonder was the place of cowry shells in the daily life of the Me. Jan van Eechoud, who led the patrol that built the administrative post, spent almost six months among the Me. He remarked in his report that everything had to be paid for, and immediately (1938, pp. 133–135; 1939– 1940). He found it hard to cope with the demand sharing that the Me practiced. Such reports came also from Victor de Bruijn, who became head of the administrative post in January 1939 (1978, p. 47) and from C.C.F.M. le Roux, a self-made anthropologist who led a large-scale scientific expedition to the area in 1939 (1948–1950). De Bruijn noticed that the Me graded their cowries with high-grade specimens worth a multiple of the values of those of lower grades. He has written that he restricted the import of cowries to prevent inflation (de Bruijn, 1978, p. 62). However, the Me themselves prevented devaluation by distinguishing between the old, precolonial cowries, and the new ones, imported during the colonial era. They regarded the new ones as less valuable (Dubbeldam, 1964, p. 300; Hylkema, 2013, p. 10; van Baal, 1954, p. 461). Among the colonial intruders the Me soon gained a reputation as inveterate traders (van Baal, 1954, pp. 460–461). An important source for this appraisal was the institution of the yuwo, the ‘‘pig feast.’’ van Eechoud was the first European to observe one. He provided a short description (1938, p. 148f). Later, le Roux and de Bruijn (1940b, p. 11f) published descriptions, le Roux devoting one chapter of his book to them (1948–1950, Ch. 17, pp. 586–605). A yuwo was a large-scale, festive event that, excluding the preparations, lasted several days, sometimes attracting ‘‘as many as 2,000’’ attendants (Pospisil, 1958, p. 52; van Eechoud, 1938). Their hosts had built visitors quarters and a dance house with a sprung floor where night long dances took place. The festivities seemed to culminate in massive sales of pork and other goods, for cowries. For brevity, I use the terms ‘‘sale’’ and ‘‘seller’’ in this chapter. However, pace Pospisil (1958, p. 209, 1963, p. 402), the transactions had elements of barter as well: a readymade bundle of pieces of pork, or another good, was exchanged for a single

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cowry, and change was not given. The sellers were most, if not all, individual men. The European observers were struck by the commercial appearance of the transactions (Boelen, n.d., pp. 170–171; de Bruijn, 1940a, p. 270; Pospisil, 1958, p. 52, 1978, pp. 76–77). In the course of World War II the patrol post was captured by Japanese forces. The Dutch reopened it in 1948. Several staff contributed additional ethnographic data. In particular, Boelen, a medical doctor who patrolled most of the Me habitat, wrote a book about his work (n.d.), and Leo Dubbeldam, a member of the civil administration, published a paper, in English, about cowry use (1964).

Pospisil’s Ethnography The first trained anthropologist to carry out long-term field work among the Me was Leopold Pospisil. He worked in the Kamu for 12 months, from late 1954 (1958, p. 4). The area was then un-administered. He made return visits in 1959, 1962, and 1975 (1978, p. 97). Apart from a series of papers, Pospisil published two major monographs about his work (1958, 1963) and contributed a monograph to the series Case Studies in Anthropology, edited by George and Louise Spindler (1963). It appeared in a second edition in 1978. He referred to the people as Kapauku, even though he realized this name was a exonym (Appell, 1968, p. 2), while the people used the name Me for themselves (Pospisil, 1958, p. 13). Dutch publications mostly used the name Ekari, or Ekagi. Since Me themselves have made it clear they prefer the name Me (Giay 1995, p. xvii, personal communication), I follow their preference. Given Pospisil’s output and given that he published in English, while the Dutch authors mentioned almost always published in Dutch, his understanding of Me culture has become best known.2 Pospisil was very impressed with Me culture. He saw the people as enterprising, scrutinizing, individualistic, and secularly oriented. Using the definition for money put forward by the economists Umbreit, Hunt, and Kinter: ‘‘any commodity or token that serves as the common medium of exchange and the common measure of value’’ (1963, p. 301), he concluded that the Me did use cowries as money. He regarded the different grades or categories as denominations. In his view Me society was a capitalistic one, although he tended to use the term in inverted commas (1958, p. 119). And individual Me men were, for him, entrepreneurs, keen to accumulate profit, in the form of cowries. He referred to them as businessmen and to transactions with cowries as business

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transactions. He furthermore reported that the Me had monetarized their transactions (1963, pp. 343–344). The Me, he concluded, ‘‘live in a wealthand profit-oriented society’’ (1978, p. 93). Throughout his writing Pospisil stressed the individualism of Me entrepreneurs. Thus he claimed that multiple titles to property with economic value did not occur and that the Me could not conceive of such a construction. All property was owned by individual people. He wrote (1958, p. 116) that Me regarded the Franciscan missionaries as liars because they maintained that the goods they handled were owned by the order of which they were members. To exemplify Me individualism, Pospisil related how he once heard ‘‘howling and lamentations’’ coming from a village house. He entered and found a boy of about 11 years beating his father with a stick. The boy had lent his father two cowries, which the father refused to pay back. That gave the son the right to beat him, but, by doing so, he forfeited the claim to his loan. Afterward the father told Pospisil: ‘‘My boy will be quite a businessman, but he must learn not to trust anybody’’ (1978, pp. 29–30). According to Pospisil, the father was satisfied with the turn of events since he had gained two cowries, while his son’s beating had been hardly painful. Noteworthy is that here Pospisil opined that the Me, in their own language, had a word that could best be translated with ‘‘businessman.’’ Pospisil reported that pig breeding was the most efficient road to secure cowries, since other enterprises, such as manufacturing goods or working for others, brought in far fewer cowries (1963, p. 214). To successfully breed pigs a man had to have the sweet potatoes needed to feed them. Given their indispensability, Pospisil concluded that, among the Me, sweet potatoes were capital (1958, p. 120). A man who managed to accumulate cowries was in a position to become a leader, a tonowi. However, in addition other qualities were needed: the capacity and willingness to speak in public and what Pospisil called generosity (1958, pp. 79–81, 1978, p. 49). By that term he meant that a tonowi was to make his wealth, at least part of it, available to others, on loan, thus making others dependent on him. A tonowi who hoarded his wealth was criticized and, in the Lake Paniai area, ran the risk of being killed (1958, p. 80). Raymond Firth’s characterization of ‘‘the ‘traditional’ Maori economy’’ (see McCormack, 2013) can also be applied to the ‘‘individual’’ rights of Me tonowi to their shell wealth. Firth recognized that: individual rights, in the final instance, are subjected to a degree of social control and that this is, in essence, a recognition of the rights of other community members to utilize individually owned things for their own purposes.

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With an oblique reference to Thorstein Veblen, Pospisil commented that Me leaders were to show ‘‘conspicuous’’ generosity. He regarded this as a distinguishing aspect of the Me form of capitalism (1978, p. 31). Since some men were far more successful in accumulating cowries than others, there were sharp differences in wealth among the Me and hence sharp status differences, however shifting. Accordingly he characterized the Me as an inegalitarian people (e.g., Pospisil, 1989, p. 24). Pospisil did not provide a characterization of ‘‘capitalism.’’ When he outlined, in the concluding section of his second major monograph (1963, pp. 399–405), his conception of the Me economy as he had witnessed it during his field research, he did so by critiquing and commenting on past and current dichotomies between ‘‘civilized’’ and ‘‘primitive’’ peoples, such as proposed by Karl Polanyi, Henry Maine, and Richard Thurnwald, making it clear that they did not apply to the Me. Likewise, Pospisil’s insistence that Me did not ‘‘barter’’ but ‘‘bought’’ with their cowries is a rejection of Melville Herskovits’ characterization of ‘‘nonliterate societies’’ (1963, p. 300). Pospisil also rejected, in my view correctly, Polanyi’s claims that in ‘‘primitive’’ economies the emphasis was on nonmaterial wealth and that the concept of property was absent. Gregory summarizes Polanyi’s conception of economic organization in nonmarket economies referring to symmetrical ‘‘reciprocity,’’ as in and among kin groups, ‘‘redistribution,’’ via a central authority, and autarkic ‘‘householding’’ (1994, pp. 920–921). None of these three types seems applicable to the Me. Pospisil notes that Firth realized that economic considerations did matter to ‘‘primitive’’ people (1963, pp. 400–401). According to Pospisil the Me used cowries as capital, that is to say used them to accumulate more cowries. He emphasized that a Me man, to gain recognition and prestige, had to accumulate great personal wealth, in cowries. He had to be profit motivated: ‘‘[h]e trades, bargains, hoards savings and invests money in pigs to make a profit.’’ Hence the dominant form of transaction among the Me was not barter, but sale, of goods and of services for shells. Prices were subject to variations in supply and demand, in other words to ‘‘market forces.’’ Pospisil admitted that extending credit brought political power, but he pointed out there was profit, monetary profit, in it as well. This was because creditors were able to buy goods and services from their debtors at reduced prices (1963, pp. 399–405). Pospisil argued that land ownership was individual (1963, p. 131) and that owners could sell land. But he gave only few examples (1958, pp. 209–210) and he also argued that other members of the seller’s local kin group could disallow such land transactions (1963, pp. 140–141), thus calling into

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question the unencumbered, individual land ownership that in his opinion occurred. Nor did he include land among the wealth assets of individual Me (1963, p. 382). Landlessness apparently did not occur. There were appreciable differences in wealth between individual nuclear families, as measured in pigs and shells (1963, pp. 403–404), but he ascribed these primarily to differences in the entrepreneurial drive and skill of the male head of the household (1963, pp. 383–384), and to the head start he got as a child in a prosperous family (1963, p. 386). Pospisil’s discussion implied several elements that in my view are also found in capitalist political economies. They are the use of cowries as capital to fund enterprises; the urge to acquire more and more capital; the unequal distribution of capital resulting in social inequality, with some people being dependent on others to get access to capital needed. While the pressure that people exerted on tonowi to extend loans, to be ‘‘generous,’’ seems a noncapitalist feature, these loans could be collected, in other words the cowries or other goods a tonowi lent remained part of his assets. Hence among the Me demand sharing did not necessarily hinder accumulation. Moreover, the pressure on tonowi to share their assets suggests that ownership of these assets was not completely individual, but that other people were somehow entitled.

Gregory’s Comments Pospisil did not show awareness of Marcel Mauss’ discussion of ‘‘the gift,’’ even though the ‘‘generosity’’ that he described reminds of Mauss’ analysis with its three obligations: to give, to receive, and to return. On account of this neglect, Gregory severely criticized Pospisil’s analysis in his 1982 book Gifts and commodities. During his research in Papua New Guinea, it had struck Gregory that New Guineans who took part in the money economy used part of the proceeds to finance gifts. As a result gift relationships among New Guineans had persisted and expanded when they had started engaging with the money economy during the colonial era, showing the importance of gifts among Melanesians. Hence Gregory wondered about Pospisil’s conclusions. After going over Pospisil’s own data he concluded that Pospisil was ‘‘profoundly mistaken’’ (1982, p. 51). In Gregory’s words: ‘‘The aim of the capitalist is to accumulate profit while the aim of the ‘big man’ gift transactor is to acquire a large following of people (gift-debtors) who are obliged to him’’ (1982, p. 51). According to Gregory, this is the situation that prevailed among the

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Me, given Pospisil’s point that ‘‘the debtors form one of the most dependable categories among the [leader’s, the] tonowi’s adherents y . They are always dependable supporters in war or in a legal suit’’ (1958, p. 81). Moreover, Gregory observed that Pospisil’s list of outstanding loans (1963, p. 448f) of the members of a single clan made it clear that the tonowi of that clan had far more loans outstanding than the other members. With such conclusions he brought their culture more in line with other Melanesian ways of life than Pospisil had claimed. He could also have pointed to the obligation tonowi were under to extend loans, in Mauss’ term: gifts. I return to this discussion in the final section of the chapter.

Hylkema’s Ethnography Sibbele Hylkema was a Franciscan priest who worked among the Me from 1969 to 1994. He died in 1998. Hylkema was a gifted ethnographer who published an outstanding ethnography, in Dutch, about the Ngalum, an Ok speaking people in the Star Mountains close to the border with Papua New Guinea (Hylkema, 1974). His ethnographic writings about the Me run to thousands of pages. During his life they have remained unpublished. I have translated and published one paper (Hylkema, 2002) and have edited two late, unfinished manuscripts discussing the role of cowries and the bride price institution (Hylkema, 2013). In the present chapter I largely draw on these two manuscripts. His discussion is based on observation, since at the time he started work among the Me, they still used cowries. While the colonial newcomers had used cowries to pay the Me for work and goods, they accepted them only selectively as payment, for instance missionaries accepted them in church collections (Hylkema, 2013, p. 51). Later, when Me became salaried employees, as teachers, policemen, and so on, they were paid in guilders and, later, rupiah. The indigenous and the colonial currencies then started coexisting. Dubbeldam reported that, around 1960, Me bought cowries with ‘‘official’’ money (1964, p. 302). The coexistence lasted until the late 1980s. Then they abandoned cowries, with the practical argument that they could not spend them in shops (Hylkema, 2013, p. 150). Ste´phane Breton who worked among the Wodani, northerly neighbors of the Me, reports (personal communication, 2010) that the Me then sold off valuable cowries to the Wodani who had retained their use. Hylkema historicized the role of cowries among the Me. He claimed that they were a novel introduction brought about by the activities of the bird of paradise hunters operating out of Cenderawasih Bay. By supposing that the

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cowries were traded in from the north, Hylkema took issue with Pospisil who seemed to suppose that cowries had come in from the southwest, from the coastal Kamoro (1958, p. 126), even though de Bruijn had reported that they had been acquired from the north (1940b, p. 62). Also Jan Pouwer (personal communication) and Kalman Muller (personal communication), researchers who worked among the Kamoro, support Hylkema’s views, pointing out that the ecology of the Kamoro coast is unfavorable for cowry snails. Cenderawasih Bay was indeed, since at least the early 19th century, at the periphery of the southeast Asian trading network (Swadling, 1996, p. 125). Subsequently, the area became an early center of colonial activities, traders ventured there, a mission post was established in 1855, and the area was patrolled by the colonial administration, also before the establishment of an administrative post in 1898 (Kamma, 1976, pp. 56–60). The findings of Ian Hughes and Christopher Healey, who independently researched pre- and early colonial trade in what has become northwest Papua New Guinea, support Hylkema’s account. They too reported a sharp increase in the number of cowries (Healey 1990, pp. 190–191). Hughes concluded that the claims of old men that there were no shells around when they were children ‘‘were mistaking extreme poverty for total absence,’’ but that they were right that, since then, there had been a great increase in the numbers and varieties of shells imported ‘‘ahead of the Europeans’’ (1973, p. 201). It seems likely to me that a comparable course of events has taken place among the Me. The fascination that cowries inspired in the Me was, then, the fascination with a culture item that had recently become available in large quantities, while the various value categories that the Me distinguished among the shells resulted from the scrutiny with which they inspected new specimens. The scenario that Hylkema sketched is that the Me in the area around Lake Paniai were the first to gain access to an increased number of cowries and that the shells spread from there to the Kamu and farther west. Separate, regional systems had developed with differing valuations of shells. Hylkema’s view explains the differences in the lists of categories that Pospisil reported for the Kamu (1958, pp. 117–118, 1963, pp. 301–304), and de Bruijn (1955, pp. 532–535) and Dubbeldam for Paniai (1964, p. 298). The existence of regional systems hampered interregional transactions and marriages.3 Hylkema was intrigued by how cowries impacted the Me. With women and pigs, they were one of their three favorite topics of conversation (2013, p. 21). Both his and Pospisil’s data demonstrate that the Me, at least most of them, enjoyed the presence of this culture item, and enjoyed the

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opportunities for transacting that it had opened. Zakheus Pakage, the charismatic Christian pastor who started the Wegee bagee movement, a revitalization movement, forbade his followers to use cowries (Giay, 1995, pp. 154–155). This, however, was not an attempt to make them return to the era in which cowries were not available, or available in small numbers only. Instead, Zakheus wanted to halt the quarrels and the envy that in his view cowries gave rise to among the Me. And he disapproved of the connotations of cowries with the pagan religion. Me spent considerable time poring over cowries as if that was a way to get to know them better. Whereas Pospisil had emphasized the quantitative orientation of the Me (1958, p. 116f; 1978, p. 94), Hylkema maintained that they were more impressed with quality, in cowries, but also in artifacts such as houses. He opined that, over time, the Me had been distinguishing new categories of cowries and that they changed the values of the categories, apparently always downward. Moreover, cowries assigned to one category had nevertheless different, almost individual values, expressed by means of a set of dichotomies such as ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘left,’’ and ‘‘dry’’ and ‘‘wet.’’ According to these distinctions a ‘‘wet’’ cowry, or a ‘‘left’’ cowry, belonging to a category of high value was worth less than a ‘‘dry’’ cowry, or a ‘‘right’’ cowry, in that same category. In passing he noted that individual cowries were sometimes upgraded to a higher category (2013, p. 88). For these reasons he did not view the categories as denominations. Ascertaining the value of individual shells was an art that not all Me men had mastered. There were acknowledged experts who provided guidance. Since the Me had to pay for services rendered, I suppose these experts charged a fee. While cowries had to be imported, people believed that they could also come into being locally. Numerous stories circulated about such events, for instance about reptiles who had borne cowries. Hylkema described how the Me valued cowries not only for what they could buy with them, but also as little treasures that they enjoyed looking at and keeping close to them. They did not use cowries in necklaces or other finery, though that may have been a matter of current fashion; nor were they kept as inalienable heirlooms. They regarded cowries as amulets, charged with power and took care that this power was not sapped (Hylkema, 2013, passim). For Hylkema such connotations were a reason to regard cowries as different from money. Apparently for him, money was a secular item. That seems to me a matter of personal choice, resulting from his own conception of the nature of money. Hylkema questioned Pospisil’s assertion of outright sales of land (Hylkema, 1990). He distinguished several types of markets among the Me: pig and pork markets, marriage markets, shell markets, and so on, but

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did not include a land market (Hylkema, 2013, p. 24). Noteworthy is also that Pospisil, as mentioned above, did not include land among a Me’s wealth items. The two authors agreed that cowries were a more treasured store of value than were pigs. ‘‘Pig husbandry finds its apotheosis in the exchange of pork [or pigs] for cowries’’ (Hylkema, 2013, p. 64). Like Pospisil, he noted that sweet potatoes were indispensable for pig breeding. In addition, Hylkema agreed with Pospisil about the pervasiveness of monetized transactions among the Me. While pig breeding was the most profitable road to cowry accumulation because by selling a pig its owner could acquire a high value cowry, and by selling portions of pork during a yuwo, he could acquire an assortment of cowries – there were others, for instance looping string bags or bow strings and selling, or exchanging, them for cowries. But the maker might have acquired the string from others, for cowries. Hylkema pointed out that the Me primarily earned prestige by production, and by selling their own produce, although the Me also had a name for trading. Hylkema’s anthropological reading was limited. While he historicized the role of cowries, he seems to have been unaware of the arguments supporting a sweet potato revolution in the recent past of the New Guinea Highlands. His data makes a strong case for the occurrence of a cowry revolution among the Me. Chris Ballard (1995, p. 18) noted that researchers of various disciplines have postulated the occurrence of several other prehistoric revolutions in the highlands, such as George Morren’s susian revolution (1977), and Timothy Bayliss Smith’s and Jack Golson’s colocasian revolution (1992). However, these supposed complexes of events were concerned with the prehistory of agriculture, unlike the cowry revolution suggested by Hylkema’s data. It seems warranted to me to qualify the changes brought by the increased import of cowries as revolutionary. There is first the pervasiveness of cowry transactions in daily life. Another argument is the importance that the Me had given cowries in the composition of the bride price. And yet another is the enormous interest that cowries elicited among the Me. As a final argument, I mention the yuwo, the pig feasts, high points in the social life of the Me. Yuwo, as Europeans observed them from the late 1930s, could not have existed in that form without a bountiful number of cowries. Also Hylkema has provided a lengthy analysis of the yuwo institution (1973). He opines that in the past, when far fewer cowries were around, selling pork and other commodities was a far less conspicuous feature. He commented: ‘‘Me are reminded of yuwo when, at dusk, large numbers of swallows swarm together, twittering,’’ and he added: ‘‘Me are

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reminded of yuwo while eating pork in a parish, village or family setting, at Christmas time. The trading aspect, although sometimes touched upon, remains in the background.’’ He also pointed out that the Me enjoyed the communal undertakings that staging a yuwo entailed. It was a challenge they tackled together and that overcame the ‘‘oppressive ego-centrism’’ of everyday life (1973, p. 52). Yuwo were thrown by tonowi and to make his yuwo a success, a tonowi needed many supporters, that is to say men who felt obligated to him. The supporters contributed pigs and got the opportunity to transact especially pork, for cowries, and on their own account. The more supporters, the greater the success and the prestige of the tonowi/organizer. For Hylkema transactions at yuwo were contests, fights without weapons, with a winner and a loser. He gives an extensive description of one transaction that he probably observed in the early 1970s. The prospective buyer approached the pork seller from behind and offered him a cowry, without uttering a word. The seller, apparently a kinsman of the buyer, refused the deal, but offered instead another set of lumps of pork. The buyer was not satisfied with this new offer and asked for his cowry back (2013, p. 67). Boelen has given a description of deals during a yuwo that he witnessed in the early fifties, presumably in the Paniai area. In this case transactions were arranged before the pigs were slaughtered with the transactors taking into account how they could resell, at a profit (n.d., pp. 167–168). It remains unclear whether the differences in yuwo transactions that Hylkema and Boelen reported were the result of the time interval, or from the various types of transactions that yuwo attendants could pursue simultaneously. The differences open the possibility that yet other types of transactions occurred. The yuwo displayed, in my view, three different categories of prestations. The first one was its initiation and organization. A second category of prestations took place between the organizer and his supporters. And the third took place between the supporters and the people with whom they transacted. I discuss the three categories in turn to examine whether the prestations established Maussian type gift relations. Getting a yuwo organized challenged other tonowi to also organize one. The feast made it clear how many dependants the organizer could muster and how many pigs were slaughtered and transacted at his yuwo. The challenge was sometimes directed toward a specific person, to teach him a lesson (Pospisil, 1958, p. 47), but it seems that this did not need to be the case. Other men did take up the challenge (Hylkema, 1972, p. iii), so yuwo often took place in series. Whether or not to call the relations between the organizers gift relations depends on what is foregrounded: an organizer might feel obliged to

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organize a yuwo so as to show his status and the status of the group to which he belonged. These two features accorded with the characterization of an agonistic gift given by Mauss (1990, p. 7). But, in contrast to his conception, that gift was often not directed toward a specific person. Other prominent men might feel obliged to get yuwo organized, to reciprocate, but that might constitute a challenge to yet other tonowi as well. The second category of prestations, took place between the tonowi/ organizer and his supporters. Organizers were Big Men in the sense that Lemonnier (1991, pp. 7–8) has given the expression, with the proviso that many of their transactions were hardly ceremonial. These men had amassed wealth, in pigs and cowries, and had, in Pospisil’s term, to be ‘‘generous’’ with their assets. If they were not, they ran the risk of being killed. But Hylkema has, in my view, a more penetrating assessment of wealth disposal. He writes that a man ‘‘acquires prestige when he dares, and has mastered the art, of making others obliged to him by letting them share in his wealth’’ (Hylkema, 2013, p. 14). Organizers and supporters were in a gift relationship: the organizer had put his supporters under an obligation, and the supporters reciprocated by making his yuwo a bigger occasion. It should be noted that these were gift relations between unequals, in line with the social inequality that, according to both Pospisil and Hylkema, characterized social relationships among the Me (cf. Liep, 2009, p. 102). The third category of prestations was between the supporters and their customers. Pospisil and Hylkema refer to them as sellers and buyers respectively (e.g., Hylkema, 2013, pp. 66–67; Pospisil, 1958, p. 209). As mentioned above, in my view their transactions harbored also elements of barter. The transactions might lack gift elements as identified by Mauss: pork was not gifted; prospective buyers were not under an obligation to accept what was on offer; transactions might be prematurely broken off; and there might not be a sequel to the transaction. The impression that Pospisil, Boelen, and Hylkema give is that sellers attempted to maximize their earnings, in other words attempted maximal accumulation. Hence my conclusion is that, in accordance with Gregory’s observations, the Me did use the growing availability of cowries to step up gift giving. However, they did so only selectively and variedly. It seems overdrawn to characterize their late precolonial economy as a gift economy in the sense coined by Mauss. This observation is in line with Gregory’s comment that Mauss framed an abstract theory, whereas concrete situations are more variegated. He warns that for that reason typifying Melanesian economies as gift economies is ‘‘bound to fail’’ (1994, p. 936).

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Even more than Pospisil, Hylkema regarded Me society as inegalitarian. Since pig breeding was the main road to accumulating cowries, pig breeders tried to prevent others from starting a breeding enterprise. For that reason, when selling a sow to a man who did not own pigs, the seller often stipulated that the buyer was not allowed to breed with it. In line with this argument, Pospisil mentioned, without further comment, that in the village of Botukebo, in the Kamu, in the mid-1950s, only half of the adult men owned pigs (1958, p. 106, 1963, pp. 216–217). However, it remains unclear to me how pig owners could keep their numbers restricted. For instance, Pospisil mentioned that people went on pig hunts (1978, pp. 12–13) so it seems feasible that a hunter could capture piglets that he could bring home, domesticate, and start breeding from. Furthermore, the impression he gives is that the road to becoming a prominent man was open to every boy (1958, p. 79, 1963, p. 215). While Hylkema also agreed with Pospisil that being successful in accumulating cowries led to prestige and leadership, he added that simultaneously a man was only successful when he begot a son. This criterion relates to the value put on individual and, in my view, also social reproduction. The existence of such a hybrid standard, combining capitalist elements such as accumulation and noncapitalist ones such as reproduction, accords with the novelty of cowry ascendancy. I suppose that the importance attached to acquiring male offspring was more prominent in the past, when there were far fewer wealth items around to pursue. I suppose also that, in Hylkema’s perception, an analogous double standard existed with regard to contributions to a bride price. He noted that such contributions did not yield immediate ‘‘profit,’’ his term (2013, p. 104). Probably he meant by that comment: no immediate benefit. In the 1970s, when he worked among the Me, cowries were the most important component of the bride price. The price was sizeable and it had to include cowries of high value (cf. Gregory, 1982, p. 49). These specimens could be obtained on the ‘‘shell market,’’ against cowries of lesser value. But apparently these less valuable shells too might have been needed to get the price together. Hence the bride takers often had to turn to a sponsor (Hylkema, 2013, pp. 162–163) – often, maybe always, a tonowi – to provide such an item. Whether, and when, the bride takers were able to return it, was uncertain. Bride prices were enchained over the generations, so contributors to a price could hope for a return, although only after a time interval of one generation. And only if the bride were to bear more than one daughter could contributors to her bride price receive more than they had contributed and thus make a ‘‘profit.’’ That I see as a capitalist consideration. However,

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contributing to a bride price was contributing to contracting a marriage, in other words to reproduction. That was, in my view, the noncapitalist consideration involved. For a tonowi who contributed the required valuable cowry an additional consideration was that he gained in terms of dependants, again a noncapitalist consideration.

Me Capitalism? When used in the meaning outlined in the introduction to this chapter I conclude that the term capitalism can only be selectively applied to the Me way of life, as it existed on the eve of colonialism. That the Me used cowries for profit, that they attempted to accumulate their holdings of cowries is a capitalist feature. Especially with regard to pig husbandry their cowry transactions were of the ‘‘M – C – M’’ type (cf. Gregory, 1994, p. 932), in this case buying a pig to breed with it in order to sell the offspring, alive or as pork. That they attempted many avenues: making commodities, offering their labor, or their expertise, of whatever type, in order to earn cowries, is another capitalist feature. However, land was not so used. Its alienability remained very restricted and hence also the possibility to transact it for profit. Whereas there were cowry and pig markets, a land market apparently did not exist. People entitled to land might allow others to use it, usually for one harvest (Pospisil, 1963, p. 137), or they might sell part of their crop, leaving the harvesting to the buyer. Pospisil does not mention landlessness. Apparently, all men were farmers, running their farms with the help, the essential help, of their wives. That pig breeding had remained an important avenue for gaining cowries, shows that agriculture continued to be the primary source of production and income. For Heilbronner, the rise of a mercantile class is typical for capitalism (see Footnote 1). However, such a class was lacking among the Me. Me married couples were individual producers, although the intensity of their production differed greatly (Pospisil, 1963, pp. 403–404; Sahlins, 1974, pp. 120–121). Likewise the distribution of cowries over the population was highly unequal. While apparently all men, and many women, owned cowries, most did not own the highly valued ones. That these high value cowries – capital – were unequally divided over the population seems a capitalist feature. However, the dependency relations resulting from cowry loans seem noncapitalist. Hylkema points out (2013, p. 82) that a man could use his cowries in three ways. He could first spend them to buy pork or other food for his and his

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family’s consumption. Me considered this tantamount to throwing them away. Then he could use them to buy implements or hire workers, and so use them for productive purposes. Finally he could contribute them to bride prices: ‘‘Just as the final goal of labour and enterprise was the shell, the proper and definitive destination of the shell was in bride price’’ (2013, p. 82). In other words, production aimed at human reproduction. As noted, the Me applied a dual standard to evaluate a man’s achievements: one was his accumulation of cowries, the other his begetting a son. In my view the first criterion is in line with capitalism, while the second is not. Both the absence of a land market and the fact that bride prices were the prime destination of cowries show the limits to capitalist practices among the Me. In other words they show the hybridity of their economy. A third element is the appreciation of cowries as little treasures, as if they were jewels instead of a convenient means of exchange and investment. In their cowry transactions, both in everyday life and during the yuwo, the Me aimed at profit, with a view to accumulation. The eagerness with which Me attempted to earn cowries in their dealings with Europeans, led the Europeans to see Me as keen traders. Such transactions, or attempted transactions, were very visible and recurrent, which may have led European observers to overemphasize the capitalist element in their social life.

NOTES 1. I gleaned this characterization of capitalism over the years from various readings, especially in development studies. For example, Robert Heilbronner’s (2012) description: ‘‘Capitalism y involves the rise of a mercantile class, the separation of production from the state, and a mentality of rational calculation. Its characteristic logic revolving around the accumulation of capital reflects the omnipresence of competition. It displays broad tendencies to unprecedented wealth creation, skewed size distributions of enterprise, large public sectors, and cycles of activity.’’ 2. Moreover, he mentioned that the Dutch publications about the Me contained little information (1958, pp. 5–6, 1978, p. 125). His 1978 Case Study includes a list of recommended readings. There is one item by a Dutchman: an unpublished, mimeographed report, in Dutch, by the Dutch anthropologist van Logchem. Pospisil described it as a ‘‘sketchy description’’ of the social and political organization of the Paniai Me. 3. In two other areas of western New Guinea the import of foreign wealth items has led to practices that early observers have called capitalist. Among the Muyu and neighboring peoples in the southern lowlands and foothills close to the border with Papua New Guinea, cowries imported from the south were the major wealth items (Craig & Swadling, 1983; Kirsch, 2006, Chapter 3; Schoorl, 1993 [1957]; Welsch,

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1994). Their role in the economic life of the Muyu induced Schoorl to speak of capitalism (1976). And among several ethnic groups in the Vogelkop, the Bird’s Head, imported pieces of cotton fabric, kain timur (Ind.), were the most important wealth item (Miedema, 1994). Kamma (1970) wrote that their use had led to ‘‘A spontaneous ‘capitalist’ revolution in the western Vogelkop area.’’ I plan to discuss these observations in a subsequent publication.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I thank the participants in the ASAO symposium ‘‘Engaging with Capitalism,’’ but especially its two organizers Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay, for their encouragement.

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Gregory, C. A. (1994). Exchange and reciprocity. In T. Ingold (Ed.), Companion encyclopedia of anthropology. Humanity, culture and social life (pp. 911–939). London: Routledge. Healey, C. (1990). Maring hunters and traders. Production and exchange in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Heilbronner, R. L. (2012). Capitalism. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_C000053&q=ideology%20&topicid=&result_number=5 Hughes, I. (1973). New Guinea Stone Age trade. Terra Australis, Vol. 3. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. Hylkema, S. (1973). Het grote varkensfeest. Unpublished monograph. Hylkema, S. (1974). Mannen in het Draagnet. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 69. ‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff. Hylkema, S. (1990). Transaction of the ownership of land with the Ekagi around the Wissellakes. Unpublished paper presented at the conference ‘The Mek and their neighbours’, Seewiesen, Bavaria. Hylkema, S. (2002). Paniyai, Kamu-Tigi and Mapiya, Paniai District, Papua. Introduced and translated by A. Ploeg. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 158, 225–252. Hylkema, S. (2013). Cowries among the Me or Ekagi. The impact of a new currency on a group of central highlanders in Papua, Indonesia. Edited and introduced by A Ploeg. Berlin: Lit Verlag. Kamma, F. C. (1970). ‘A spontaneous ‘‘capitalist’’ revolution in the western Vogelkop area of West Irian’. In Anniversary contributions to anthropology. Twelve Essays, published on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Leiden Ethnological Society W.D.O., pp. 132–142. Leiden: Brill. Kamma, F. C. (1976). Dit wonderlijke werk (2 Vols.). Oegstgeest: Raad van de Zending der Nederlands Hervormde Kerk. Kirsch, S. (2006). Reverse anthropology: Indigenous analysis of social and environmental relations in New Guinea. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Le Roux, C. C. F. M. (1948-50). De Bergpapoea’s van Nieuw Guinea en hun Woongebied (3 Vols). Leiden: E.J. Brill. Lemonnier, P. (1991). From great men to big men: Peace, substitution and competition in the Highlands of New Guinea. In M. Godelier & M. Strathern (Eds.), Big men and great men. Personifications of power in Melanesia (pp. 7–27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Liep, J. (2009). Response to comments [on his 2009 book A Papuan Plutocracy. Ranked exchange on Rossel Island]. Suomen Antropologi. Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 34(4), 99–112. Mauss, M. (1990 [1925]). The gift. The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies (W. D. Halls, Trans.). London: Routledge. Miedema, J. (1994). Trade, migration and exchange. The Bird’s Head Peninsula of Irian Jaya in a contemporary perspective. Strathern & Stu¨rzenhofecker, 1994, 121–153. Morren, G. E. B. (1977). From hunting to herding. Pigs and the control of energy in montane New Guinea. In T. Bayliss-Smith & R. G. Feachem (Eds.), Subsistence and survival. Rural ecology in the Pacific (pp. 273–315). London: Academic Press. Pospisil, L. (1958). Kapauku Papuans and their law (No. 54). New Haven, CT: Department of Anthropology Yale University.

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THE POLITICS OF REMITTANCE AND THE ROLE OF RETURNING MIGRANTS: LOCALIZING CAPITALISM IN MANUS PROVINCE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA Steffen Dalsgaard ABSTRACT Purpose – The chapter discusses the importance of remittances for the way rural people in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, engage with capitalism in the form of development, wage labor, and the modern consumer economy. Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2008 and readings of previous anthropological research about Manus. Findings – The chapter shows how the remittances of goods and money are part of the maintenance of long-term exchange relationships between emigrants and their rural kin, and how remittances are regarded as crucial in fostering local development. The remittances comprise a large proportion of the flow of money into Manus. They also form social ties

Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 33, 277–302 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0190-1281/doi:10.1108/S0190-1281(2013)0000033013

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between migrants and villagers, and may facilitate the return of migrants to their home village. The moral conflicts and evaluations of status and leadership tied into the remittance practices and the strategies employed by returning migrants are explained as the articulation of different values rather than one system supplanting the other. Originality/value – The aspect of remittances related to return migration is particularly under-theorized in anthropology. In this way the chapter has value to both researchers specializing in remittance-economies or local-level politics and development planners and practitioners. Keywords: Return migration; remittance; politics; leadership; exchange; morality

INTRODUCTION Labor migration and remittances are today a central feature of the modern capitalist world-system. The issue of migration and the relationship to one’s home is particularly pertinent for Pacific populations, where large proportions of a country’s citizens often live abroad in the United States, New Zealand, or Australia (see Lee & Francis, 2009). Such transnational migration has gained much scholarly attention recently, but internal labor migration has also for many years been important to people in the Pacific (e.g., J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989; Chapman & Prothero, 1985; Connell, 1990; Curry & Koczberski, 1998; May, 1977; Strathern, 1975; see also Boyd, 2013). This chapter is about such a case – concretely the relationship between labor migrants from Manus Province in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and their village kin, which I analyze in terms of the consequences of this form of ‘‘engaging with capitalism.’’ Capitalism is here understood in the wider sense as the money-economy of the modern world-system and in the particular sense of how education, mobilization of wage labor, and remittances give access to the consumer goods and ‘‘development’’ associated with modernity. Remittances are central to the way migrants and their home communities maintain social bonds. This is so for Manus people as well as more generally on a global scale. While figures vary (see Hernandez & Coutin, 2006, p. 187), global remittances certainly exceed official development assistance (Brown, 2006). They can be of enormous financial importance to the recipient

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communities and contribute to economic growth and welfare in many places peripheral to the financial centers. As a small island province on the periphery of the PNG state and its economy – Manus is one such place. The opportunities to earn cash in Manus are very limited, so the export of labor has developed to become one of the central ways in which rural people engage with capitalism. Gaining access to remittances has been crucial in sustaining internal social and economic activities as well in maintaining relationships to the outside world, and remittances from Manus migrants finance large-scale purchases including boats, house-materials, school fees, as well as customary obligations and ceremonies (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989; Otto, 1991). However, remittances as transactions between people can impact the status and influence of the transacting parties depending on the strategies pursued. It is those consequences of the engagement with capitalism, and the tensions arising from them, that I investigate. The main conclusion is that remittances – and thus the engagement with capitalism – must be understood as part of long-term exchange relationships between kin, and that these cannot be understood without reference to the articulation of cultural and social values, and the practical strategies they help produce. People in Manus (individual villagers, local communities, and government) see remittances as crucial to local development and their inclusion in the capitalist economy. To the migrants, who on the other hand are active participants in this economy as wage-earners, the remittances of wealth and knowledge are central in securing their return to the village and possibly a position of status and leadership. As such, remittances and the engagement with capitalism can be a morally contentious field that demands the negotiation and articulation of different sets of values in relation to discourses of development. First I will briefly go through how remittances have been analyzed within a scholarly framework connecting capitalism and development. This shows the contemporary theoretical perspectives on remittances, and it also outlines individualist perspectives that are reproduced as moral strategies in the social relations between migrants and villagers straddling the socioeconomic divide between rural and urban domains. Then I proceed with a description of the importance of remittances in Manus in order to present the setting and historical background. Lastly I analyze the strategies migrants and villagers pursue to handle exchange relationships via remittances and come to terms with the resulting social and moral tensions. These tensions are illustrated with reference to cases of aspiring politicians returning to Manus to contest the parliamentary election.

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CAPITALISM AND THE DILEMMAS OF REMITTANCES Remittances are often analyzed and interpreted in economic and materialist terms rather than in terms of how they contribute to the long-term reproduction of social relationships (Cliggett, 2003; Hernandez & Coutin, 2006). Both researchers and those involved in remitting (as donors or recipients) tend debate whether they are beneficial to local development, or whether they make the recipient dependent (Cederstro¨m, 1990; Hernandez & Coutin, 2006). Proponents argue that remittances are nondebt creating (Brown, 2006), and it is alleged that they give poor rural people, who need it the most, direct access to monetary income ‘‘without being filtered through intervening social and economic structures’’ (Durand, Parrado, & Massey, 1996, p. 441). They can thus boost recipient communities’ opportunities for development by permitting investment in better technology for transport, agriculture, communication, etc., or they can allow people to afford foreign commodities. Yet, remittances have also been blamed for creating consumerism and economic dependence rather than industriousness and autonomy among recipients, and it is worth asking how remittance practices fit with an individualist ideology that is associated with the contemporary capitalist market economy, in which people engage (Hernandez & Coutin, 2006). Remittances are often construed as ‘‘free.’’ They are ‘‘earned’’ with the risk and labor of the migrant yet given as ‘‘gifts’’ to the home community, where they become ‘‘pure profit,’’ which takes part in reproducing the domestic sphere in recipient communities.1 As free, flexible, and adaptable to individual preference, remittances have been termed the ‘‘ideal neoliberal currency’’ (ibid., p. 201), which can transcend the borders of regulated market, state, and civil society (see also BakerCristales, 2008). As such they have been associated with individualist ideals such as self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship, and empowerment that are also often paired with neoliberalism (Hernandez & Coutin, 2006, p. 185). As part of a social field of transactions, remittances are imbued with cultural meaning depending on the contexts in which migrants and recipient kin move. Thus to understand the meaning ascribed to remittances and the relationships between migrants and their recipient kin, it is necessary to look at the sometimes contrasting motivations and moral discourses (e.g., whether remittances are seen as empowering or as creating dependence), which shape them. For instance J. Carrier and A. Carrier (1989) showed how remittances from urban wage labor became part of the articulation of values (both capitalist and noncapitalist) in Ponam Island in Manus.

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Neither was capitalism in the Ponam case a steamroller, nor did traditions simply ‘‘persist’’ in the context of capitalism. Either traditions were modified, or new traditional-looking forms emerged. J. Carrier and A. Carrier’s position was that the urban and rural domains had to be seen within the same theoretical framework encompassing both villagers and migrants in order to understand social change and Ponam people’s engagement with capitalism. Looking only at the urban–rural framework may of course still fail to account for the roles of governments. Especially in recipient localities, governments are eager to promote and sometimes control remittances (see Hernandez & Coutin, 2006, p. 192). While remittances in Manus often enter both the sphere of domestic consumption and a local (noncapitalist) ceremonial economy (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989), they are today also seen as crucial to a village’s ‘‘development,’’ that is, for its ability to compete with other communities in terms of progress toward modernity by financing building materials, education, etc. Provincial government agents and local leaders frequently stress remittances as a way for villagers to embrace an ideal of collective (rather than individual) self-reliance. The export of labor is a conscious economic strategy at both community and provincial levels (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989). Remittances are not only about creating development, but must also be considered in relation to how they generate social inclusion or exclusion and are tied into the strategic maintenance or severing of bonds between kin separated by large distances. To the migrants, remittances may be part of their retirement or ‘‘insurance’’ strategies (e.g., Cliggett, 2003). Recipients on the other hand may request or even demand remittances to ‘‘test’’ whether migrants are serious about their commitment to kin, the village community, their promises of return, etc. (cf. Rasmussen, 2011). Remittances may also generate social differentiation and unequal access to resources in the migrants’ home communities (Cederstro¨m, 1990; Lipton, 1980). Sometimes this can be prevented if given collectively through diasporic organizations rather than individually (see Nyberg Sørensen, 2005), but often the notion of what constitutes a ‘‘community’’ is itself contested – both on the donating end and on the receiving end (cf. Rasmussen, 2011). By financing projects and welfare at home, migrants potentially take part in a reconfiguration of local status, and remittances may give to secure or undermine positions of political leadership at home (see Baker-Cristales, 2008). Although wage-earning migrants can gain upward social mobility at home through remittances, anticipating a possible return to the village upon retirement, the influence they may wield upon

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their return depends on the manner in which they have committed their wealth, and the attention they have given to kin while away. Both migrants and villagers employ various strategies to establish and maintain these exchange relationships. But as with all gifts, remittances come with ‘‘issues attached’’ even if they are given out of concern for the well-being of the recipient. In this case the gift carries the baggage of expectations held by many of the emigrants, who long for their home villages to ‘‘develop.’’ Their involvement brings new moral languages and ideologies of how this is to happen, which are often in contrast to or even ignorant of local differences, competition, or values embedded in ‘‘tradition’’ (cf. Dalsgaard & Otto, 2011). To capture some of this, Levitt (1998) has made the distinction between economic and social remittances with the latter including ‘‘ideas, behaviors, and identities,’’ and also economic remittances may carry a cultural or moral baggage, and as with other gifts the remitting donors may demand something in return implicitly or explicitly. What may be valued by both parties, however, is as much the commitment itself to these exchanges since the transactions display the mutual recognition and acknowledgment of the social bonds between kin – even if they are shrouded with ambivalence ensuing from the interpretation of reciprocity and status (see Cliggett, 2003; Rasmussen, 2011). Often-mentioned conflicts arising over remittances in PNG include the expectations and demands that emigrants face from rural kin. The latter often feel they have rights to their share of the earnings of the migrant, whom they have raised in the village. The migrant on the other hand earns his or her salary in a context where the individual is the locus of ownership of his or her own skills, creations and income, which (following Macpherson, 1962) has recently been analyzed in a PNG context as an emerging ‘‘possessive individualism’’ (e.g., Sykes, 2007). Facing demands is not unprecedented when compared to village life, where one is expected to ‘‘share’’ one’s possessions with kin if they ask for it, and where socioeconomic relations are arguably not based on possessive individualism (cf. Mosko, 2013).2 Refusal to share on demand can create anxiety, ‘‘talk,’’ and bad feelings if not outright curses, and migrants reluctant to engage in exchange are frequently the victims of such sentiments (e.g., Rasmussen, 2011; Schwartz, 1975). Yet expectations about the income and wealth of migrants often exceed their capacity. Furthermore, migrants may misunderstand the ‘‘rules of the game’’ at home, when faced with villagers’ attempts to incorporate migrants’ resources into the domestic economy of the village. Returning migrants may thus have difficulties becoming re-integrated if they

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have been out of touch with village affairs and are unable to re-adapt to the socioeconomic norms prevalent there. The engagement of capitalism through personal relationships entails dilemmas and differences of valuation – both moral and economic. In short, the relationship between villagers and migrants, who often claim elite status upon returning, is one of exchange, which constitutes changing forms of agency and morality. Because of differential access to resources and different moral outlooks, exchange can be fraught. Remittances of money, commodities, and knowledge form a central facet of the mediation of this relationship. The interaction potentially fosters integration but also clashes of values and may entail breakdowns in social relations. Nonetheless, promoting remittances from kin is a central strategy of Manus people in engaging with capitalism and related expectations of development and consumption. In the following sections I analyze the relationship between those living in the villages in Manus and those working or having worked outside. The distinction I make between migrants and villagers must not be understood as rigid. Manus people do not consider migrants ‘‘as such’’ to be categorically different from village residents. They are bound together through different ‘‘roads’’ of kinship or partnership, and there is much fluidity between the groups exactly because of (temporary) migration back and forth. It is the migrants’ (supposedly) superior access to and ways of handling resources, which determines how they are regarded by kin. The distinction migrant-villager is upheld locally in part because of the differential access to resources, and in part because there are qualitative differences in terms of how people used to village life may regard urban conditions and vice versa. What eventuates is that the migration and remittances lead to moral dilemmas for both parties in the attempt to maintain sociality across an emerging divide.

THE HISTORY AND SCALE OF REMITTANCES IN MANUS The exchange between migrants and villagers is not a new phenomenon in Manus, and it has long been central to the reproduction of Manus groups. Since early colonial days, people in Manus villages have coveted the remittances of goods and wealth from emigrant kin working outside. Several anthropologists working in Manus have discussed the topic, and more is

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certain to be written about it in the future (e.g., J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989; Dalsgaard, 2010; Otto, 1991; Rasmussen, 2011; Schwartz, 1975). The access to external wealth was instrumental to cultural and social innovators, and in the form of remittances it affected local power structures and positions of authority. For example, In the interwar period an average of one in five adult men was absent from the village as a contract worker. The main effect of this on village economies was the influx of Western goods and money to the detriment of local production. Indentured labour also affected the power relation between young and old men. The latter traditionally provided the bridewealth for the younger relatives who thus became heavily indebted and dependent. (Otto, 1992, p. 429)

While the elder men still appropriated the larger part of the younger men’s wages, typically to be distributed to kin (Otto, 1992, p. 432), the young men did gain increased status through their work. The market economy under colonialism and independent statehood has provided new avenues for access to resources external to the kin group. It came to be a framework for the transformation of the patterns of migration and the access to resources needed to reproduce social life and improve local health and material wealth. In the early colonial days villagers predominantly gained employment as plantation laborers, ships’ crews, or police constables (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 176). In the aftermath of World War II this changed dramatically. One reason is that schools were introduced, and people began to migrate for further education or for white-collar employment, while the booming industries of other provinces also drew laborers. Knowledge in itself became an object of remittance through modern schooling combined with the perception that the right knowledge could lead to development. People’s motivations for migration still vary in numerous ways and some personal trajectories of migration are the result of dispersed contingency rather than any conscious decision-making. Some choose to leave while others are urged to do it – typically motivated by the financial situation of their parents. Some emigrate and stay away, while others return regularly and sometimes for good if their careers fail or if village retirement is seen as attractive. The situation of migration and return and the unequal access to resources involved in these processes does create moral dilemmas for those involved. In recent years, the economic stratification between wage-earning migrants and rural kin is perceived as increasing throughout PNG with subsequent transformation in the forms of distinction (see Gewertz & Errington, 1999).

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Manus people perceive migration and remittance to be central to the reproduction of their lives and the increment of wealth and well-being. It seems to be the case in statistical terms as well. In proportion to its small population, Manus was according to the 2000 census the province with the largest outward migration. Approximately twice as many migrate from Manus as to Manus, and people born in Manus seem to emigrate in larger numbers than people in other provinces (National Statistical Office, 2003). Former studies have shown that in 1971, 14.8 percent of Manus-born people lived outside the province, while in 1980 it had risen to 18.7 percent (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 165). Based on the 2000 census this figure was 17.3 percent, a slight fall that could perhaps be explained by improved primary education in other provinces giving their populations better chances of getting enrolled in tertiary education and employed in the white-collar jobs historically preferred and claimed by Manusians due to their relatively higher level of schooling. The 1960s and 1970s saw a boom in the employment of Manus migrants because of the localization of the colonial public service. Since then, however, IMF and World Bank conditions on loans have forced PNG to lay off parts of the public service, which was extensive in size and scope by third world standards. Migration has shaped the lives of many people in Manus and when walking around Lorengau or even a village, you may find yourself speaking to former members of parliament or the former head of this or that national institution, people who to the outsider are indistinguishable from everyone else on the street. In their work on Ponam in the late 1970s, J. Carrier and A. Carrier found that for adult males 92 percent had at one stage migrated, and for women 45 percent (1989, p. 166). They also found that in terms of money, about K20,000 or 80 percent of what Ponam people spent on imported goods came from remittances (ibid., p. 167). In practice, remittances paid for almost all outboard motors, fishing nets, school fees, and expenses exchanged in traditional ceremonies (kastam work). I do not have similar village-based figures from my own fieldwork, but the proportion could well be the same, even if the amount must have increased due to inflation.3 Although money may be a misleading indicator in determining how people value transactions between themselves and kin, it is difficult to argue against the qualitative difference between affording school fees and not affording them. Often I heard Manus villagers complain that now everything had to be paid for with money (cf. Otto, 2004, p. 215), and estimating the amount of remittances does say something about the scale of activity and the energy that people put into keeping remittances flowing. In

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1980, the estimate was K1.2 million remitted (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 168), but it is not clear whether this amount is calculated in cash only or in goods too. My experience is that at least as much is remitted in the form of goods purchased in urban centers and carried by kin travelling back to Manus. Most Manus people travelling to urban centers to visit kin bring either local foodstuffs or crafts with them as gifts, and they bring modern consumer items or hardware back. When I was in Port Moresby and returned to Manus, there was always someone asking me to bring things such as food from stores, medicine, or spare parts for engines. Money (typically to help with school fees) was often directly transferred to the recipient’s bank account or to the school in question. Based on how much money I witnessed my various hosts in Port Moresby spend on goods and school fees for kin at home, I estimate that the annual amount of remittances to Manus could total as much as K10 million.4 When I discussed the estimate with people at the Manus Provincial Administration (MPA) they found it realistic, but neither they nor the National Statistical Office (NSO) in Waigani had the statistical data to confirm or reject it. A Manus person at the NSO told me that just over Christmas his immediate family had given K5,000 cash, and this was not counting what they had contributed to exchange ceremonies during the same period, or brought in terms of goods. Recent fieldwork carried out by Rasmussen in the home village of this same man has given an estimate of the average household receiving K1,200 per annum (2011, p. 31). No matter what the exact amount is, remittances are clearly economically important, and provide a large amount of the gross provincial income. In comparison, according to the National Economic and Fiscal Commission Manus exports of mainly timber and marine products earned about K11.5 million in 2006,5 while the MPA budget totaled just over K18.7 million in 2006. This included all salaries and development grants from the national level and an internal revenue collection of K2.25 million (MPA, 2005, p. 14).

Education as the Road to Wealth The large remittances are first and foremost facilitated by Manus people generally having a high level of education for PNG standards. Due to a long colonial experience and extensive mission influence, Manus were for long reputed to have the best provision of primary education in PNG (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 174). Gaining and holding knowledge seems always to have been a preoccupation and a central concern among

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Manus people. Knowledge was important in ‘‘traditional life’’ in the form of spells, rituals, and craftsmanship (Fortune, 1965; Otto, 1992, 2004), and when the missions arrived, the concern was maintained if not magnified on the one hand in the form of knowledge of God and the Bible, and on the other hand because the missions began schooling people in how to read and write, which quickly became a highly coveted form of knowledge (Otto, 1991). After World War II, the charismatic movement leader Paliau Maloat urged people to become educated and learn the white men’s ‘‘secret knowledge’’ (Otto, 1992, 2004), and the establishment of a modern and secular government school system in the mid-1950s was a result of the colonial power having decided to prepare the colony for self-government and later independence (Schwartz, 1975, p. 315). Successive Manus governments have regarded education as an extremely important asset, and Manusians were for long disproportionately well represented in the public service and other urban white collar jobs (e.g., ibid., p. 316). People in Manus generally consider education as the door opener to the labor market and to paid employment, which will in turn benefit village-kin via remittances. The 2006 Priority Impact Projects plan from the MPA stated that education yis a priority area because we consider educated children from Manus as a resource which could be harnessed internationally, nationally and throughout the province. These children once they become fully educated and join the work force would remit funds to our people to develop themselves. (MPA, 2006a, p. 8)

At the launching of the MPA’s Education Plan in October 2006, one of the speakers drew on anthropological literature to stress the parents’ view of education as the ‘‘road belong cargo – it [is] a master key to un-lock the white men’s world and their secrets to material prosperity,’’ and the Provincial Administrator said that education was a resource and ‘‘the only sustainable industry we have had over the last 30 years.’’ It is an interesting perception of a direct relation between education (knowledge) and the attainment of wealth. As Otto (2004) has argued, it is knowledge (knowing the proper procedures or ‘‘ways’’) rather than hard work, which is seen as the prime factor in the production of wealth. It is also interesting that the reproduction of society through sustainability and self-reliance is perceived as including the labor of those migrating out, thus assuming the automatic maintenance of social bonds between migrants and villagers. Manus people have thus eagerly embraced the modern education system. Many parents have strategically sent some of their children to school, so they would increase their chances of being employed in paid positions. That

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would ensure an income not only for the child, but also for the child’s village kin. Today almost all children go through a few years of schooling in Manus, and according to the Education Plan (MPA, 2006c, p. 31), 60 percent of the grade 8 students in the province go to high school with the hope of qualifying either for a job or for tertiary education outside Manus. Strategies and Dilemmas of Exchange The moral dilemmas that face both migrants and their kin at home are mainly a matter of uncertainty in the maintenance of personal ties over long distances and across growing economic and political inequalities. Most of these dilemmas are related to the maintenance of sociality and reciprocity between migrants and villagers, and either side has a number of strategies for dealing with them. I refer to strategy in the sense used by Pierre Bourdieu as a logic of practice (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). This includes a nonconscious habitual ‘‘feel for the game’’ that reproduces patterns of moral and social value over a long time-span as well as illusio – the embracing of roles, which one’s own position within a field permits. Strategy in this sense cannot be reduced to calculation in the instance where the migrant is asked to remit, but must be understood in relation to the history of interest in seeing the migrant succeed in life in the first place (through education, gaining a job, etc.). Strategy refers to a way of economizing that is not economic in the strict sense of the term, although it does not exclude it or rule out calculation either (ibid., p. 131). The moral dilemmas and strategies that tie villagers and migrants together in mutual exchange are often referred to in relation to the so-called ‘‘wantoksystem.’’ This Tok Pisin concept addresses obligations to kin that are said to function as social security yet also potentially lead to nepotism and ‘‘corruption.’’ Although the person in the following story is not from Manus, the predicament he faces is the same for many Manusians, and it is not unlikely that some have reacted similarly, when facing demands from village kin. ya well-educated young man in Port Moresby had a good job with the Post Office that could have led to a very well-paid position. This was his first job after leaving school, and he received K143 take-home pay per fortnight. Every single fortnight, however, one or other of his parents would turn up from the village to extract money from him, and the occupants of the house he was living in seemed to expect him to pay the full rent for the house, and to purchase much of the food for the household. Because he was working, his parents slowed down their fish and vegetable marketing they had carried out to collect money for school fees, expecting instead that their son

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would now take over the responsibility of school fees for his younger siblings. He had to find nearly K900 for fees for his two younger brothers in 1992. In the village, his parents and other relatives sometimes purchase items at the local store in his name – so he is saddled with the bills when he visits home. Out of total frustration, he has now abandoned his job and lives off other relatives. (Monsell-Davis, 1993, p. 57)

The story is an extreme example of the expectations of kin and their extraction of every bit of wealth earned. In practice, many people manage for extended periods to successfully navigate the expectations. Manus people in Port Moresby have the advantage of being far away from home, so villagers have to find money for expensive airfares in order to visit. Requests are mostly delivered over the telephone, and typically on Fridays, the most important weekly market day in Lorengau. On such days there used to be a run on public telephones when villagers were in town and could use the opportunity to phone their urban kin. Today the ownership of mobile phones and wider network coverage has intensified the frequency and the strategies surrounding this form of communication (see Rasmussen, 2011, p. 49f). Counter-measures employed by migrants include ignoring or delaying responses to these requests, and even staying away from the village altogether for years at a time. More positively oriented strategies to avoid requests involve giving ‘‘pre-emptively’’ at specific important occasions such as kastam work, where contributions are public, and it is easy to recognize that the migrant has good intentions and is committed to helping kin (cf. Mead, 2001, p. 61). Having given something makes it easier to reject another request at an inopportune time. Traditional ceremonies (kastam work) are among the most common ways villagers attempt to attract wealth from wage-earners (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989). Since the influx of money to kastam work mainly comes from migrant kin, villagers often schedule ceremonies to fit the migrants’ vacations, which are typically over Christmas. The migrants may contribute without being present, but if they play leading parts in the ceremony (for instance as either siblings or first cousins of a person around whom the exchange is centered), they are also expected to be there. The reinvention of tradition cannot be detached from the processes of differentiation, which can be found throughout Island New Guinea, and these are often closely linked to flows of money. For instance, Tolai villagers of East New Britain Province use the term ‘‘big shot’’ as a negative expression about the elites, who are seen as arrogant because they fail to exchange (Martin, 2007). These wealthy migrants have gained increased importance in traditional ceremonies, where they are the only ones capable

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of raising the money to stage large events, and they see themselves as preserving tradition. Since they ascribe their success in life to their own autonomous achievements as (possessive) individuals, they are also criticized for being selfish and for transforming the content and meaning of tradition. They refuse to acknowledge what rural kin feel are mutual obligations of exchange, and instead look down upon the villagers and accuse them of having ‘‘handout mentalities’’ and waiting to be ‘‘spoon-fed’’ (Martin, 2007, p. 287, see also Gewertz & Errington, 1999, p. 49). Tradition is here a contested space between individualist elites and villagers with the former stressing the ceremonial aspect of something, which must be kept alive, whereas to the latter it also entails a general sense of sharing and mutuality (Martin, 2007). What is more, the difference demonstrates how the neoliberal and individualist expectation that people look after themselves rather than rely on ‘‘handouts’’ enforces the emerging socioeconomic divide between migrants and villagers as a moral divide. Traditional ceremonies in Manus are also transformed with the participation of migrant kin, but the changes are expressed differently than among the Tolai. In one village, where I worked (Mbuke Island), kastam work was generally uncommon, whereas in another field-site (Baluan Island) the migrants are often engaged in kastam work as sponsors but they rarely dominate the ceremony, which demands precise knowledge of genealogies and rhetorical flair in the vernacular. In Baluan, kastam (in the wider sense of ‘‘tradition’’) is rather used as an argument against those who attempt to change local sociality (Dalsgaard & Otto, 2011). At the same time, migrants acknowledge that kastam entails a notion of correct moral behavior of sharing beyond the participation in ceremonies. Participation reveals a person’s willingness to engage in social obligations. The precariousness of kastam is rather in the interpretation of the conduct of the ceremonies as ‘‘real’’ kastam or having been carried out according to the ‘‘rules’’ of kastam (cf. Otto, 1991). That is, have the correct recipients been identified, and are they content with the prestations, they have received? Kastam work pinpoints the relative importance of one’s relations, and it is an evaluation of the relationships of which one is part. The migrants are not always eager to participate in kastam, though, because it ‘‘burns a whole in your pocket,’’ and the status to be gained may be ephemeral and uncertain (cf. Schwartz, 1993, p. 526). Yet, if done strategically it can be an important way to secure retirement. By leading or sponsoring kastam work, a man secures his rights to the land of his patrilineage. Yet, in Manus as well as in East New Britain the morality of the socioeconomic divide appears in tropes of kastam and self-reliance.

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HANDLING REQUESTS AND REJECTIONS Villagers have different strategies for extracting what they want from a wage-earning migrant, and migrants have strategies for responding. In terms of exchange, parents’ demands may be voiced consciously in idioms of reciprocity. They have raised the child and are often the ones who have paid for its education (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 185). Not all parents expect reciprocity in terms of remittances, at least not to the same extent, but the arguments do position the parents on the moral high ground in relation to their children. Yet, as with the Tolai big shots, Manus villagers often accuse migrant kin who fail to maintain exchange relationships of selfishness and of forgetting what brought them to where they are. ‘‘Flying fox’’ is a derogatory metaphor for the person who has access to external resources but does not share and only comes when there is a gain to be made (Dalsgaard, 2011a). The migrants often present the relationship between migrants and villagers as if the latter are the ‘‘greedy’’ partner and that their requests prevent the migrants from sustaining their urban lives (Schwartz, 1975). Some migrants do stress their own indebtedness by saying they want to repay the parents for everything they have done. There are also migrants who remit large sums of money, not necessarily because they feel obliged but because they feel sorry for kin subjected to the hard conditions of village life. They genuinely want to help in the same way parents send a child to school for the child’s sake rather than for a consciously calculated return in future remittances. There is always a multiplicity of perspectives on remittance. When the village lacks resources, remittance becomes benevolent help rather than debt repayment or reciprocity (see J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. 190). In this way, remittances are the expression of an internalization of mutual expectations of help, which migrants are presented with before they even have a job. Schwartz (1975, p. 319f) describes another set of moral reasons for migrants to feel obliged to respond to the requests of kin. One of Schwartz’ informants, a young university graduate with an important government position, thought that his village-based father had cursed him because he had not met the father’s expectations. The father visited the son in the city, but despite the son paying for the trip and some gifts, the father had requested an expensive outboard motor upon his return to the village and other kinsmen made demands as well. The man said he could not refuse his relatives because he was afraid. Since his father’s visit he had failed an examination and missed a job opportunity, which he ascribed to the father’s curse. Ill fortune is related to negative sentiments. In the past curses were said to come from one’s father’s

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sister or her children, but Schwartz argues that ‘‘what had been a sanction operating between lineages [y] has been adapted as a generational sanction’’ (1975, p. 321). The shift in differentiation from being kin- and lineage-based to one of generational, educational, and socioeconomic differences is matched by a corresponding shift in terms of who are regarded as holding the sanctioning power to curse. From the father’s female siblings and their descendants it is now the elder generation in general (ibid.).6 The words of the father’s sister are still the most feared in terms of curses, however. This power is closely related to exchange and reciprocity, or their breakdown. Refusing requests is generally regarded as difficult in Manus due to an anxiety over the bad feelings that may arise (see Fortune, 1965; Mead, 2001). Such feelings are not just moral problems, but are believed to be related to curses and as causing illness or even death (cf. Otto, 1991, pp. 112, 119f). Complementing Schwartz’ example, one of my own informants told me about his father, an elderly man from Mouk Village on Baluan, who had been accused of passing on bad luck and creating illness by thinking badly about his brother’s children. It was not deemed to be the same or to contain the same potency as the father’s sister’s curse, but it was still a result of negative sentiments. The old man had also been accused of having ill feelings toward his eldest son’s child (the narrator was the fourth son), but he had denied having had such sentiments. In this case, the old man was holding a lapan title (traditional leader), which he had to pass on before he died. Ideally the title should be given to the eldest son, but in practice it is often given to whoever is considered the most able of the candidates. My informant was one of the old man’s favorites, and the accusations of curses could have come from suspicion and possible jealousy for him having not been close to the father and in a position to receive his knowledge and blessings. This touches upon a motivation some migrants have to return while they themselves are still active. They may want to position themselves better in relation to the patrimony, or they may return because of the passing away of a father. Accusations of curses are hardly made out of conscious economic speculation, but they do have the potential as strategies, in a Bourdieuan sense, as a reproduction of beliefs and moral values in relation to social position.

Retirement and Return Fear of curses is not the only factor that affects the choices of migrants and how they handle their predicaments. The potential return to the village is another consideration. A large proportion of Manus migrants wish to return

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to their village after their working life ends. Many have held elite or whitecollar jobs, which have determined their opportunities, and how they could influence village affairs. Some have tried to apply their knowledge, or what they have learned from their work experiences, while others have had a direct impact through their monetary power. Many white-collar workers live in housing provided by their workplace. When their contracts expire (from retirement or if they are fired), they have nowhere to go but to return to the village. Others leave the urban areas because of negative experiences of crime and the insecurity of city life (see Goddard, 2005). Senior public servants who have been employed in Lorengau have different opportunities when it comes to retirement. Housing in Lorengau is cheaper than in larger urban centers, and the National Housing Commission every now and then sells some its houses to tenants in order to fund the maintenance of other properties. Some senior public servants in Lorengau have taken advantage of this and have purchased their own house, while still working. Others have used their bulk retirement payment to start a business in town. At least three ex-public servants have bought either a truck or a minibus and now run public transport services from Lorengau. One of them told me he made more money doing this than he had done with an administrator’s salary. Others have invested in further properties, which they intend to turn into rental housing or hotel facilities. Several of these men have contested either national or local-level elections as well. In any case, most people prefer retirement in the village, although this preference may be based on romantic or nostalgic ideas about the tranquility of village-life, as the migrants have been away from the village for years (see Battaglia, 1995; Rasmussen, 2011). Superannuation or pension is often paid in bulk upon retirement and can be invested in building a house in the village and perhaps provide starting capital for a trade store, which may enable a couple to earn a small income if managed well. Some return to the village out of necessity, some out of choice. Some, having worked with development issues in their professional lives, have great expectations of how they can contribute to improving the living conditions of village kin. Some returning migrants have difficult times upon their return. They may have had successful careers and been men (or women7) of high esteem, but in their village they may not have sufficient knowledge about political relations; about traditional norms, values, and ritual practices; and about their own rights or the boundaries of the land they could claim as theirs. In some cases they even have difficulties with the local language, which they have not spoken regularly since they were teenagers. From having been relatively independent of kin, they now have to comply with the social norms of village life. There are

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examples of former senior public servants in the national administration, who instead of taking up roles of leadership when they return become nobodies. There are examples of returning migrants who come back with plans to help their village kin but who fail to understand villagers’ expectations or otherwise fail to get their ideas across. Bridging the gap between life in the cities and life in the village can be difficult and for those who have not spent considerable time keeping up with village affairs, it is easy to become ‘‘lost in the bush.’’ Attempts to turn this uneasy relationship into an advantage results in migrants sponsoring traditional ceremonies, soccer tournaments, or other forms of ‘‘development.’’ As the above shows, managing the relation between urban life and work on the one hand and expectations of one’s home village and kin on the other presents dilemmas that constantly must be negotiated by the migrant. The villagers are also under pressure. As the example of the Mouk man showed, they may be accused of cursing the migrant if the migrant experiences bad luck and such an accusation may itself damage social relations. The unequal access to resources sustains a moral complexity in the relationship. The migrant, who has been successful in the job market or as a businessperson outside of Manus, needs to understand the village’s way of engaging with capitalism to transfer his success from the urban to the rural domain. Without a sufficient pension to sustain a comfortable life in urban centers, retirement is easier in the village, and most migrants choose to return at the end of their working lives. Fish, garden food, and bush materials used for subsistence in the village are perceived of as ‘‘free.’’ That is, they do not cost money. Migrants often build large ‘‘European-style’’ houses in the village when they approach the age of retirement. One example of this is Soanin Kilangit of Baluan, who together with his brothers had a house constructed several years before he retired. Kilangit and his brothers used the house every time they were back on vacation. This was usually every other Christmas, or on special occasions such as funerals. Kilangit managed to build a strong relationship to his kin at home, even while he was working away as a teacher at the Administrative College of PNG in Waigani. His regular visits to Baluan, his frequent participation in kastam work, and his position as the organizer of the dancing group Paluai Sooksook, which provided several opportunities for Baluan dancers to travel abroad, enabled him to be recognized as a person of status upon his retirement. Kilangit also took an interest in Baluan development projects, some of which he initiated. When Kilangit returned he spent his money on two boats with engines. One was a regular-sized dinghy for himself to use for fishing, while the other

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was an unusually long and specially designed fiberglass dinghy equipped with double engines. Kilangit already had the biggest house on Baluan and joked that he also had to have the biggest boat. He employed the large boat as a ferry-service for Baluan people both as a way to help them and as a way to earn an income while in retirement. When he decided to contest the national election in 2007 the boat was employed as his campaign vessel. Kilangit’s status was further magnified by his central role in organizing a culture festival in Baluan in late 2006. This did not mean that his return took place without any hitches, but from the start, he was well received by kin and recognized as one of the ‘‘movers and shakers’’ on Baluan. Another returned migrant presents a contrast to Kilangit’s situation. As much as Kilangit managed to influence Baluans, this other man is evidence of someone who had great opportunities as a wage-earner yet failed to establish himself in the village. The man in question had held a senior position in a national government department. He was the eldest son of a significant descent group, which could claim large tracts of land. According to Baluan kastam, he was senior in terms of inheriting the leadership of the group and the control of the patrimony. Yet, having not stayed in touch with Baluan affairs and having failed to learn the knowledge necessary to be successful in kastam (genealogies, stories related to the land and ownership, the mode of speaking expected of those who organize ceremonies, etc.), the man had little say in the village. He was respected for his knowledge of gavman (government or the state), but not for issues relevant to local life, and he was referred to as ‘‘lost in the bush.’’ Instead the man’s younger brother was acknowledged as the head of their descent group, because he had all the relevant knowledge and had performed all the deeds necessary to be recognized as a lapan. During my visits to Baluan, I often noticed the younger brother take part in kastam work, and he was able to take up different positions in relation to the organizers due to his knowledge of local genealogies. The elder brother mostly stayed in his homestead and rarely attended public meetings. In this way, even those who are successful outside of Manus must commit time, energy, and tangible resources to sustain their standing at home.

The Ideals of Returning Migrants In 2007, a large number of migrants returned to Manus to contest the national parliamentary election (see Dalsgaard, 2010, 2011a). They all had their own motives and motivations for contesting the election, which involved particular ideas of leadership – in some cases directly inspired by

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individualist values (cf. Hernandez & Coutin, 2006). Many of the motivations of the returning migrants were well intentioned, but in some cases also depicted specific ideas about what the villagers ‘‘really’’ needed in order to ‘‘develop,’’ and in that vein, what was required by a good leader. To some extent these ideas overlapped with desires the villagers had, but in many ways they did not. Being an MP (Member of Parliament) is generally an attractive way to sustain an exchange relationship with kin. Even to those with well-paid jobs, the MP is perceived as the ultimate agent who can command development grants, the labor of public servants, and a host of other social relations through his exchanges (Dalsgaard, 2010). There was often suspicion about the motives of migrants returning to the contest elections, but the returning migrants themselves saw things in a different light. Many of them felt that Manus was their home, that their candidacy in the election was an offer to the Manus people (and thus part of what they were ‘‘remitting’’). Several had successful careers in Port Moresby in national-level institutions. Having accomplished things away they felt they would now do something for Manus, and thought that Manus people would be and should be impressed by their deeds. Becoming a politician was seen by many as the best way to help Manus and their village kin. Villagers for their part questioned those migrants who had not maintained steady relations in terms of why they had not helped before, or why they had not used their knowledge and contacts from outside to improve things already. To the villagers, the candidacy of a migrant who had mostly been absent looked like an attempt for that person to enrich himself rather than helping Manus. Many of the migrants returning to contest the election were expected to bring knowledge or provide access to material wealth, thus reciprocating for their upbringing and confirming their commitment to exchange with village kin. Yet, several campaigned on the ideas of selfreliance and deliberately wanted to lessen people’s expectations of their capacity for exchange.8 Manus is geographically as well as socio economically peripheral in PNG, and the returning migrants considered it to be an underdeveloped ‘‘last place’’ compared to the national centers where they had lived (see Dalsgaard, 2011b). To them, Manus was backward, their village kin led lives without the material comforts of urban life, and there was room for improvement. Similar to what the Tolai big shots are said to think about the villagers (Martin, 2007), Manus migrants sometimes expressed that villagers (as either lazy or uneducated) were incapable of developing themselves, and they had to be helped with the knowledge (and sometimes wealth) that the migrants could provide. Rather than reciprocity for their kin’s investments

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in their education, the returning candidates saw their candidacy as an offer of their (own, individual) skills and knowledge, which they were giving of their own free will. Thus denying exchange, they also stressed how villagers should be self-reliant. An example of this was Luke Polongou from Mbuke Island. At his campaign launching he told the audience that they had to find a leader, who could ‘‘straighten’’ the leadership of gavman, and also that people could not ‘‘hang’’ all their worries about leaders and had to work together (wok bung). People should ‘‘organize themselves.’’ If not, the Manus people would just be like beggars asking the government for handouts or yelling complaints but not doing anything about them. The whole speech was in line with the attempt by Mbuke people to promote what they called ‘‘the Mbuke way’’ (see Dalsgaard, 2010; Rasmussen, 2011), and with the general government policy trying to promote ‘‘self-reliance’’ and ‘‘sustainability’’ (see MPA, 2006a, 2006b). While several returning candidates similarly stressed self-reliance, Polongou had the added advantage of being able to refer to his people’s success in achieving some developments on their own. Paradoxically, the Mbuke did not want to rely on gavman, but to get Polongou elected was still regarded as crucial in getting their agenda through. Their rhetoric of selfreliance stressed the (often individual) use of internal resources in contrast to many people’s expectations that a leader should act as a road to external resources (e.g., Dalsgaard, 2010). From a local perspective, though, selfreliance was practiced by the Mbuke in a way that rather relied on a combination of local labor and migrant remittances drawing upon the imaginary of a unified community of villagers and migrants (Rasmussen, 2011). This understanding of collective self-reliance squarely opposed the ideals of possessive individualism where the migrant would be considered the self-made owner of the products of his labor (cf. Mosko, 2013). One example of a political candidate stressing individualist self-reliance was Ted Sitapai, a former secretary of the national Department of Agriculture from the West Coast of Manus. He felt he had something to contribute from his work experience as a senior public servant with the knowledge of development issues. His campaigning shows one typical way the returning migrants miscalculated village affairs. The main idea was that of ‘‘choice.’’ People had to make (economic) choices in their lives to improve their standards of living. In speeches as well as when I interviewed him, he told a story of a villager spending K17 on tinned fish at a local trade-store instead of catching fresh fish and earning money by selling what he and his family could not eat. Sitapai saw this as a bad choice. However, in criticizing it he failed to take into account several issues relating to fishing and

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consumption. Fishing rights can be a complicated affair (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989; Otto, 1997). Distributions of catch may leave the fisherman with almost nothing to himself, and the only storage option commonly available is smoking. Sitapai also failed to consider the possibility that being able to buy tin-fish gives satisfaction in itself as a way to display one’s capacity for spending money (cf. Strathern, 1999, p. 207). To buy overpriced tin-fish can be an act of establishing oneself as an agent. To the villager it is important to have the choice and be able to display the luxury of having choice that money gives (cf. Mosko, 1999). Sitapai’s campaigning expressed a romanticized view common among Manus migrants in Port Moresby, that of the idyllic village with an abundance of fresh fish – ‘‘free’’ like all other village resources. It is easy to forget the hard work villagers have to endure every day in order to have food (see Otto, 2004). Romanticized perceptions are another part of the emerging divide between elites with access to money and villagers without. The divide is only partly mitigated by the mutual interest in developing the village, because as the examples here show, expectations often differ when it comes to how it should happen and who should be responsible. Does self-reliance refer to a collective or an individual effort, and how (much) are migrants included and morally obliged to contribute? Villagers, government agencies, and migrants alike agree on the importance of tropes like self-reliance, but ‘‘the self’’ in question and the distribution of responsibility involve tensions, where the different social positions entail different ways of valuing the individual’s right to his or her products or the relationships to specific kin or ‘‘the community’’ as a whole. Villagers and migrants thus in practice reproduce academic debates about remittances fostering dependence or productivity in their contrasting strategies and expectations to what has generated the wealth earned by the migrant (cf. Cederstro¨m, 1990; Hernandez & Coutin, 2006). It becomes clear how difficult it is to navigate the moral contradictions, when migrants living in urban settings pursue individualist strategies to avoid extensive demands and claim ownership of their own success, yet also rely on relations (wantoks) for achievements, especially when returning to contest the election. Moral dilemmas abound when a migrant has neglected rural kin and despite preaching individualist self-reliance returns to depend on the ‘‘free’’ resources of village kin either for retirement or for political status and support. Relationships to kin are of course valued highly for their personal quality. These relationships may on the one hand feed off capitalism, since the wages enable social relationships to be maintained over long distances. On the other hand, it appears that the divide between income-earning elites and villagers is growing as wage-labor becomes

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conceptualized in the tropes of (neoliberal and possessive) individualism rather than in the relational idioms of reciprocity for one’s upbringing and responsibility for looking after one’s kin.

CONCLUSION I have demonstrated how an important part of Manus peoples’ participation in the capitalist economy is through the giving and receiving of remittances. This way of engaging with capitalism allows communities, kin groups, and singular persons to access external resources, but how these are distributed and the consequences of the distribution entail the negotiation of different and sometimes contrasting moral values. Remittances are seen as central to the reproduction of Manus communities both by the government and by villagers. Sending children to school and urging them to become remitting migrants in the future is a conscious strategy. However, since this engagement with capitalism takes place through social and kin-based relationships, an understanding of the effect of remittances cannot be analyzed without reference to social and cultural contexts – from village kastam to neoliberal and individualist values stemming from the market economy – and how the positions within these contexts breed specific strategies for handling (giving or eliciting) remittances. One must thus also look at the individual actors’ aims – whether it is retirement, a political career, help for struggling kin or the reproduction of one’s community. From a structural perspective, Manus communities may in this way be producing skilled labor for the market economy, but the wage labor simultaneously serves kastam and ‘‘traditional’’ values of ‘‘giving’’ and ‘‘sharing’’ rather than imposing clear-cut (possessive) individualism (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, cf. Mosko, 2013). Capitalism has not been a steamroller that has supplanted local values and the social relationships built over the transfer of money, consumer goods, and knowledge. The strategies employed by the different actors involved in the social reproduction of rural communities via capitalism, rather, entail the practical articulation of different value systems. However, it appears that the moral divide is growing with the socioeconomic inequality (cf. Gewertz & Errington, 1999; Martin, 2007). In the long run migrants may become too disengaged from village affairs and thus no longer be regarded as taking part in their social reproduction. Then the impulse to educate children for future remittances may disappear, and the localization of capitalism may again turn into something completely different.

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NOTES 1. Hernandez and Coutin’s discussion is aimed at the national level, but the perspective may apply to the community level too. 2. The debate on possessive individualism is related to what I take up here, but whereas it tends to be focused on questions of personhood (cf. Mosko, 2013), I merely aim to show how specific ideals and values are embraced by social actors differently positioned in relation to how social bonds are negotiated between migrants and villagers through the medium of remittances. 3. The Kina has also lost value against other currencies until recently. In 1979 K1 was valued at USD1.30 (J. Carrier & A. Carrier, 1989, p. xv), while in late 2008 it was USD0.39. 4. Admittedly it is a very rough estimate. It is based on three siblings in their 20s, who told me they each remitted K50 per fortnight or about K1,300 per year. In addition they sent goods (clothes, food, medicine) when needed. Not all remittances come this regularly, but by doing so, one may not be required to give in bulk at other times. The 2000 census counted 6,900 economically active Manus-born migrants. If all would remit similar amounts, the total is at K9 million, not counting consumer goods and large purchases such as cars, boats, or housing materials. Furthermore, the population has grown perhaps 20 percent since 2000. Compared to J. Carrier and A. Carrier’s (1989) work, the population has doubled since 1980 and prices and value of the Kina have changed dramatically, which is why I find K10 million realistic. 5. Also copra and cocoa was exported, but in negligible amounts. The data were provided by an employee at the National Economic and Fiscal Commission. 6. Rasmussen (2011) provides a similar example in his discussion of curses and blessings related to exchange and remittances among Mbuke people from Manus. 7. Some migrants are women, who by having an education and earning money, gain status by providing for kin. They have also become outspoken and active participants in public affairs, some even addressing public gatherings when they are back in their village (Gustafsson, 1992, p. 178). 8. In addition some candidates were afraid that they would be accused of votebuying if they gave money publicly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The material for this chapter comes from a total of 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Manus, where I spent time in particular in the two islands of Mbuke and Baluan and in the provincial capital Lorengau. The research was funded by Aarhus University, Carlsbergs Mindelegat for Brygger J. C. Jacobsen, Bikubenfonden, and the Danish Ministry for Science, Technology and Development. The chapter was written at Aarhus University and the Australian National University. I thank Ton Otto, Mark Mosko, Nils Bubandt, Anders Emil Rasmussen, Kate Barclay, Fiona McCormack and participants in the workshop on Engaging with Capitalism

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for comments and inspiration, and naturally those Manus people, who have helped and hosted me over the years.

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CREATING AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY IN RURAL PAPUA NEW GUINEA: THE IRAKIA AWA CASE David J. Boyd ABSTRACT Purpose – Present a history of interaction (1947–1996) between a remote nonmarket rural economy in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) highlands and capitalism, first via colonialism and then in the post-Independence period. The Irakia Awa sought to create an alternative local version of modernity in a context of limited opportunities for participation in the monetized market economy. Design/methodology/approach – Ethnographic, multi-temporal field research, totaling two years in residence, focused on sociocultural changes associated with reallocations of land and labor to cash-cropping (coffee), wage labor migration, and new place-based cash-generating initiatives. Findings – After more than three decades of intensive participation in labor migration, the most lucrative option available for earning cash, Irakians deemed it futile, as well as detrimental to the overall well-being

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of their home community. They dramatically reduced labor migration levels, increased smallholder coffee production, and set about creating a more modern and inviting village lifestyle. Research limitations/implications – This is the historical experience of one rural community in the remote PNG highlands up to the mid-1990s, but is framed around ongoing issues confronting many rural communities engaging with capitalism in PNG. Originality/value – This account presents original field research and contributes to the growing literature on PNG rural peoples with limited opportunities to participate in the cash market economy within a larger context of government policies and malfeasance that have rendered many rural communities largely ‘‘invisible.’’ It suggests substantial reforms are needed before all citizens can enjoy benefits from engaging with capitalism. Keywords: Alternative modernities; colonialism; capitalisms; sociocultural change; nonmarket economies; Papua New Guinea

INTRODUCTION The Irakia Awa encounter with capitalism began in the mid-20th century with the arrival of Australian colonial officers on their soil. With little warning, armed patrols of foreigners, both European1 and Melanesian, walked into the region, claimed rights of political control, demanded adherence to imposed laws, and gradually introduced new languages, cultural understandings, sociopolitical orders, religious ideologies, new foods, industrially manufactured goods, and a market-driven economic system using money as the medium of exchange. It was an unanticipated intrusion into their remote, isolated world and they viewed it as a threat to their very existence, but it also seemed to offer unimagined opportunities. This process of engagement has not unfolded as the straightforward linear increase in participation, envisioned by early theories of modernization, in which non-capitalist rural communities would gradually adopt more elements of capitalism. The expectation was that the process eventually would lead to the restructuring of the local order based on standard notions of private property, wage labor, and free markets. Rather, it has been a circuitous, fitful path of selective engagement and complex negotiation as

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parties of unequal power and different cultural expectations pursued differing desired ends. For its part, the colonial project sought to subjugate local populations and force compliance through a combination of coercion and inducement. Local peoples, on the other hand, pursued a strategy of cautious cooperation with an eye toward acquiring some of the perceived benefits and obvious wealth of the interlopers and perhaps establishing a relationship of reliable alliance. Periods of cooperation degenerated into confrontation, accusations of bad faith, and occasionally withdrawal and disengagement. As Curry, Koczberski, and Connell (2012, p. 115) put it, ‘‘y the outcome is messier and the indeterminacy of the encounter with various notions of capitalism means that a diversity of local outcomes is to be expected.’’ After nearly three decades of colonial rule, national Independence was declared (1975) and engagements by the Awa with the larger world were dramatically curtailed. The new national government largely withdrew its attentions from the region leaving Irakians and others to go it alone. Irakian existence during the latter half of the 20th century thus changed from being self-reliant, politically autonomous subsistence cultivators to subjects of a foreign colonial power to marginalized citizens of a newly independent nation. Over the years, Irakians had become keenly aware of the improved opportunities and standards of living enjoyed by many of their neighbors and people living in other parts of the country and of the relative impoverishment of their home community.2 A half-century after colonial contact and limited participation in the capitalist economy as wage laborers, coffee bean producers, and consumers, the home village still had no easy access to basic ‘‘modern’’ amenities. The nearest road, medical aid post, school, and retail shops were a full day’s walk away and there were no reliable government services. Irakians considered that they had been cooperative with successive governments and in engaging with the cash economy, yet their home had remained a poor, remote rural community ignored by national and provincial authorities. It was a dispiriting outcome as hopes for improving their lives seemed mere fantasy. Faced with being ‘‘invisible’’ to political and economic power holders (see Allen, Bourke, & Gibson, 2005, p. 213), the Irakia Awa set about in the period from late 1980s to early 1990s to revitalize their local community through their own efforts. They tried to return to greater self-reliance and to transform their rural community into a more productive and inviting place to live. They charted a new course to reassert their sense of Independence and self-respect, an alternative version of modernity tailored to their local concerns, including their engagement with capitalism.

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This chapter recounts strategies the Irakia Awa have pursued to retain a viable and vibrant society while managing their participation in the wider world. It highlights their contingent, limited engagement with elements of the capitalist system as they sought to reallocate their land and labor to new productive ends while maintaining a sense of their own intrinsic worth.

THE IRAKIA AWA AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER The Irakia Awa, one of the larger Awa communities,3 control a territory of 8.3 mi2 (21.4 km2) on and around a high ridge on the north slope of the Lamari River in what is now designated Okapa District (earlier, Okapa Subdistrict). Prior to the arrival of outsiders, they lived as subsistence cultivators, pig keepers, and harvesters of various wild plant and animal species in the surrounding forest and grasslands. They were major participants in networks of intermarriage and exchange with neighboring groups with whom they maintained a complex system of fluctuating amity and enmity. Irakia, also, was a hub in a regional trade system through which exotic bird plumes and potassium salt from the south were transacted for stone axe heads and shells coming from the north; Irakians added their own prized black palm bows and carved arrows to the goods moving in both directions. It was a challenging world with survival dependent on successful horticulture and pig husbandry, maintaining sufficient village strength to defend their interests and prosecute perceived offenses against them, and sustaining beneficial relationships with allies. It was a circumscribed space where the nearly constant threat of intergroup violence meant that people rarely ventured beyond their own territorial boundaries.4 Irakian knowledge of the wider world extended little beyond the places they could see from their ridge top. The first direct interaction the Irakia Awa had with the long reach of capitalism occurred on Irakian soil in October 1947, when an Australian exploratory patrol from Kainantu, a three-day walk to the north, reached the village. The patrol officers, called kiaps, accompanied by armed police, received a cool reception from a small group of men. The lead officer, R.I. Skinner, described the men as ‘‘nervous, although friendly,’’ and likely tried to convey the standard orders that warfare cease, major trails be widened, residential areas fenced with pigs kept outside, and a pit latrine be established for each house. With no English-TokPisin-Awa translator on

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early patrols, men who were present say they did not understand what the officer said. In his official report, Skinner (1947, p. 7) noted, ‘‘Lamari River villages are under no degree of control y.’’ Follow-up patrols were infrequent, averaging less than one per year for the next two decades, and Irakians were slow to comply with the kiaps’ demands. During the fifth patrol to Irakia, in February 1954, the officer-in-charge described people as ‘‘ytruculent, churlish, arrogant, non-cooperative’’ (Brown, 1954, p. 8). As if to emphasize the point, Brown also reported that a patrol from Mumeng had been attacked earlier in the year while traversing Irakian territory.5 The Lamari Valley was a difficult place for outsiders to access or control. The rugged mountainous terrain with steep ridges and deep valleys made foot patrols an arduous experience. And, given the rocky, thin soils and lack of relatively flat areas, agricultural potential was judged to be poor. Putting a road into the area, although discussed with local people from the early days of contact, seemed an expensive and ultimately unproductive project. This combination of unforgiving topography, low commercial agricultural prospects, and seemingly troublesome inhabitants combined to concentrate the efforts by outsiders to stimulate development in more attractive places to the east and west, the Tairora and Fore regions, respectively.6 The colonial authorities, in an effort to raise their profile and calm the continuing hostile atmosphere, opened a patrol post at Okapa in June 1954. The closer proximity of this government outpost – a one-day walk north of Irakia – did increase colonial influence in the region.7 In Irakia, government rest houses were built in 1954, to provide sleeping quarters for visiting patrols (McArthur, 1955). And, the first village official (tultul) was appointed in September 1958 (Wiltshire, 1959). The region was declared ‘‘controlled’’ by the Administration in 1961. In the same year 20 Irakian men felt sufficiently safe to walk, without police escort, to Wonenara, two days to the south, to work on a new airstrip. In 1963, the first coffee tree seedlings were obtained from South Fore relatives, an accurate village census finally was taken of 242 persons, and a group of 15 men were signed on by a patrol as the first Irakian participants in the Highland Labour Scheme (HLS) migrant labor program. The first government service in Awa territory was a small medical aid post, opened in 1965, in Tauna Village, a half-day walk north of Irakia. The intent was to provide basic care to all people in this underserved area, but Irakians say they never sought treatment there because of lingering hostilities between the two communities. In June 1965, a patrol reported the facility closed ‘‘y due to lack of cooperation of villagers’’ (Rarua, 1965). This failed effort was remembered by government officials as an example of the unwillingness of

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locals to support government work. Finally, in 1967, after repeatedly issuing orders on prior patrols for villagers to fence pigs out of their living quarters and dig (and use) latrines, Irakia Village was judged ‘‘exceptionally clean y perhaps best in the Census Division’’ (Foran, 1967). With Okapa Subdistrict under effective control and the local coffee economy expanding, colonial authorities fostered the establishment, in 1966, of the Okapa Local Government Council (LGC) ‘‘y so that rural communities could determine those local enterprises they desired, develop a wider base for cooperative regional development, and eventually become participating units in the national government’’ (Lindenbaum, 2013, p. vii). The LGC soon levied an annual head tax of AUD 6 on all adult men, a hefty burden for less developed villages.8 Residents protested and the LGC relented, lowering the tax in Ward 40 to AUD 4 (Foran, 1969). Irakians, however, remained dissatisfied with the LGC. Colonial officials had told Irakians that they planned to put a road into the area, build a school nearby, and lay a potable water pipeline to the village, but there had been no sign of progress on any such projects. In fact, Patrol Officer Foran (ibid.) noted that people in the Auyana Census Division had paid a total of AUD 9,444 in taxes and had received only AUD 230 in ‘‘capital works’’ in the form of a well at the Auyana village of Asempa that no longer worked. Nonetheless, in 1972, the LGC raised the tax on all men in the district to AUD 7. The following year, Irakians simply stopped paying their taxes. This brief litany of milestone events during the establishment of colonial control and the rise of a regional political authority indicates the gradual, uneven exposure to and incorporation into a new world.9 Within a quartercentury of contact, their prior isolation had been breached by outsiders, aspects of local political autonomy challenged by foreign authorities, warfare curtailed, and their engagement with capitalism begun as wage workers, coffee bean producers, and consumers. Irakians were pleased with the small amounts of money from nascent coffee production and wage employment that were circulating in the local economy, including in bridewealth payments,10 and their increased access to consumer goods, but were disappointed with the lack of more tangible improvements. Nonetheless, they remained optimistic that eventually the administration would focus on their requests for assistance. During my initial time in Irakia (1970–1972), however, it was apparent that people were uneasy about some of the changes taking place in their environs. Roads were being extended into the nearby territories of the South Fore, Auyana, and Tairora peoples, who then had greater access to public services and also were enjoying relative affluence from more coffee sales and

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migrant labor remittances. One consequence was that potential affines were demanding more pigs and money in bridewealth; the cash component for Irakian unions had increased in a period of a couple of years from AUD 5–10 to AUD 60–100. Irakians realized that they had to take action to maintain their regional reputation as reliable allies and desirable exchange partners. In an effort to meet the rising expectations, large numbers of Irakian men went away as wage labor migrants. People who remained in the village did their part by increasing the production of that most valuable locally produced asset, pigs. Although pigs, either live animals or cooked carcasses, were involved in nearly all important transactions in the Highlands, it generally was not acceptable to convert pigs directly to cash.11 What Irakians hoped was that by increasing the size of their village herd, they could include more animals in exchange prestations and reduce the pressures to provide more cash. It was a tacit admission that they were falling behind their neighbors in the quest for money. In December 1971, Irakians borrowed a pig-raising ritual from the South Fore, who were known to have superior herds. By rigorously following the ritual prescriptions for feeding, pampering, and murmuring spells over their animals, and by tapping exchange partners and trading valuables (and occasionally small amounts of cash) for small pigs, they were able to increase their herd numbers by 30% in less than a year (see Boyd, 1985b). Their successful husbanding efforts culminated, about 1975, in the hosting of a large feast and exchange event in the village. The celebration was considered a great achievement that certainly helped restore the regional reputation of Irakia. Following the event, however, the pig-raising ritual was discontinued. People realized that while pigs still retained symbolic importance, money from the cash economy now was essential for successful fulfillment of social obligations.

WAGE EMPLOYMENT The initial experience of Irakian men as wage earners was as conscripted carriers on government patrols. This could consist of a single day of service transporting gear to the next village or periods of several weeks on exploratory patrols into unknown, uncontrolled areas farther south with a carrier line of some 50 men. Irakian men also sought out local casual employment on public works projects on government stations in Wonenara, Kainantu, and Okapa. Some also worked as seasonal coffee harvesters on

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plantations around Kainantu. Such work opportunities had the advantage of requiring only short periods away from home, but they were irregular and the pay was very low.12 Agreement labor migration through the HLS became the major source of cash for Irakians during the 1960s and early 1970s. Initially, however, Irakian men were not eager to leave home for two-year contracted labor tours. It meant going to hot lowland climates to live among unknown coworkers, and submit to a highly regimented capitalist work environment under demanding bosses. Such daily discipline could hardly have been more different from the relatively self-motivated life in the village (see Smith, 1984). Nonetheless, aspects of this lifestyle exerted a strong pull on migrants: besides a cash wage, it afforded new experiences in a world of material abundance, new friends, foods, and activities, and facilitated a temporary escape from the tedium of village life, clan obligations, and the watchful eyes of elders. Between June 1963 and December 1971, 16 groups of Irakian men signed a total of 94 labor contracts to spend two years working on copra, cacao, and rubber plantations at distant lowland and island locations.13 In those days, plantations were sometimes dangerous working environments. Groups of men who were unknown to each other living in close quarters kept everyone on alert and tensions occasionally erupted into physical violence. In March 1970, five Tauna Awa men were killed in a brutal bow-and-arrow and axe fight with fellow workers from Tari (Southern Highlands) at a plantation outside Port Moresby. It was a tragic incident that shocked the entire country (see Hayano, 1990, pp. 131–133 and Post-Courier [PNG], 1970). Remuneration for agreement labor was notoriously low.14 From 1963 to 1971, Irakian men worked 182 man-years under contract and earned a total of AUD 9,204, an average of AUD 51 per man-year, or just under AUD 1 for a 44-hour workweek.15 In the pay scheme, workers were given about 30% of their wages in 52 fortnightly installments over the two-year period and the balance was deferred for payment upon completion of each contract. These fortnightly distributions totaled AUD 2,857 for the 182 man-years, a mean of AUD 16/man-year. This meant that at each of the 52 fortnightly paydays during a two-year contract, the average worker would pocket about 60 cents. Despite the demanding workloads, low wages, and potentially violent plantation environments, Irakian men completed 85 of the 94 (90%) contracts.16 Breaking contracts, although infrequent, was an avenue for dissatisfied, ambitious migrants to resist the restrictive life of a contract worker and pursue potentially more lucrative casual employment. With no schooling,

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however, Irakian men remained slotted into unskilled work. By 1972, 10 Irakian men had made a successful transition to casual employment working a variety of jobs – some temporary, some longer term – in Port Moresby, Rabaul, and at the Panguna mine. Total time spent in these positions was about 26 man-years. Estimated earnings could not have exceeded AUD 900, an average of about AUD 35/man-year. Given that most had to pay their own way in town it is unlikely that much of these earnings were remitted back to the village. The agreement migrants’ accumulated deferred wages typically were paid on repatriation to the Goroka HLS office. Total deferred payment for 85 Irakian returnees was AUD 6,347, an average of about AUD 75 per returnee. Of that total, approximately AUD 5,813 (92%) was remitted to the village. In interviews with 65 of these returnees concerning the allocations of their combined AUD 3,761 in remitted earnings, AUD 1,562 (41.5%) was given to other residents (e.g., gifts and social obligations, including the migrant’s own bridewealth), AUD 443 (11.8%) was spent on personal consumption and council taxes, and AUD 1,756 (46.7%) was retained by the returnees. This means that the average returnee in the sample gifted AUD 24, spent AUD 7, and saved AUD 27. These are not large sums and none of the proceeds was earmarked for capital investment. Irakians who remained at home had mixed feelings about so many men leaving the village to work in distant places for extended periods. The money they brought back was a welcome addition to the meager earnings from coffee, but the absence of so many young men was of concern to residents. During the peak out-migration in late 1968, 49 men – 62% of men 15 years of age and older – were absent from the village (Boyd, 1981, p. 87). Furthermore, only young, healthy men were qualified for agreement labor. This reduced a vital segment of the resident village population and caused anxiety and extra work for residents. People worried that the village would be an easy target for enemy groups hoping to settle outstanding scores, and other villagers had to assist families of migrants with garden preparation and coffee harvesting. Community elders finally refused to let any more men leave for work during the concerted effort to raise more pigs. By mid-1972, only 18 men remained away as agreement workers.

COFFEE BEAN PRODUCTION Coffee cultivation, begun in 1963, quickly became the major source of locally earned income in Irakia, for both men and women. By 1967, a kiap

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recorded 33 ‘‘planters’’ in the village tending 201 ‘‘mature’’ (producing) and 2,519 ‘‘immature’’ (planted, but not yet producing) trees (Foran, 1967). A subsequent patrol in June 1970 found 2,292 mature and 3,059 immature trees (Todurawai, 1970). By 1972, 60 of the 73 Irakian households had 91 coffee plots covering a total of 1.95 hectares (4.82 acres). Trees numbered 5,900 (4,360 mature and 1,540 immature). Based on weighed samples of processed beans from single trees, one tree produced, on average, 1.25 pounds (0.57 kg) of parchment coffee for sale. The harvest from the 4,360 mature trees would have yielded 5,450 pounds (2,477 kg) of marketable coffee. In 1972, sellers received about 10 cents per pound, a total income of AUD 545, or an average for the 60 producing households of AUD 9. The average per capita income for the 255 village residents was just over AUD 2. Following Hide’s (1975) estimate of 2,200 person-hours per hectare of labor to tend, pick, and process parchment coffee, Irakian growers would have expended 4,290 hours of labor for which they received about 13 cents per hour (AUD 545/4,290 hours). These hourly earnings, while still low, are significantly higher than those received from casual and agreement employment. Coffee producers also enjoyed the benefits of being able to live at home and work on their own schedules. Coffee earnings must be considered in the wider economic context. Just considering the LGC taxes, the assessment on Irakian men for the 1972– 1973 tax year was AUD 421, equating to 77% (AUD 421/AUD 545) of total village coffee earnings. However, from the coffee yield estimates calculated above – AUD 0.125 per tree (10 cents  1.25 pounds/tree) – each taxpayer would have needed the proceeds of 56 trees producing coffee to cover his taxes. Of the 60 men assessed for taxes, only 32 owned 56 or more mature coffee trees. This was a heavy burden and undoubtedly influenced the decision by Irakians to stop paying taxes the following year. Coffee production was the focus of the first investment in capital equipment by a group of Irakians. In May 1971, three migrant returnees initiated the purchase of a hand-powered coffee pulping machine, saying their mouths were sore from pulping coffee berries with their teeth. Thirty women and men pooled the purchase price of AUD 94, and carried the pulper from Okapa back to the village. Use of the machine, however, was limited to those who had contributed to its purchase. When those denied access complained, the ‘‘owners’’ held firm saying only those who had helped buy the pulper could use it. My suggestion that the owners could recoup part of the cost of the machine by charging others a small fee in cash or beans to process their coffee was summarily dismissed.17 While the

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machine sat idle much of the time, many growers continued to process their coffee manually. The pulper was an investment in a limited sense, an investment-for-use by owners, but not an investment-for-profit designed to maximize returns. An entrepreneurial spirit in the capitalist mode clearly was not present. After several seasons, everyone stopped using the pulper. Without grease or proper adjustment, the machine ‘‘ate’’ too many of the beans. Growers adopted a new low-tech method to pulp coffee berries: referred to as rolim kopi (rolling coffee), a smooth heavy stone was rolled over the berries loosening the skins.

Ketin Bisnis During the 1970s, three small retail trade stores, called ketin (canteens), were opened in Irakia by migrant returnees. At the time, the nearest ketin was at Okasa, an eight-hour round-trip walk to the north, but it was open at irregular times, stocked only a few items, and charged prices that Irakians thought were too high. Reasonably, the prospective Irakian vendors thought they could do better. Each man, independently and on separate occasions, built a small rectangular hut (haus ketin) with a cut-out in one wall through which sales would be made. Each owner used his own remitted earnings to purchase bulk goods from the Okapa store and, with the help of several friends, carried these back to his haus ketin. By charging a small premium over what he had paid for each item in Okapa, the owner figured to pay his carriers and perhaps have a bit of profit for himself. The owner assumed that fellow villagers would respect his initiative and appreciate his efforts to provide more convenient access to desired goods. All three owners were to be disappointed. When people learned that they were being asked to pay slightly more for the goods than the price charged in Okapa, they initially boycotted the ketin and verbally abused the respective owners. Owners soon lowered the prices. By the end of the first day of operations, all of the goods in each of these ketin had been sold or otherwise transacted. Ketin were the first retail bisnis to be tried in Irakia. Bisnis (business, in Tok Pisin) refers to a wide range of commercial activities and enterprises involving cash transactions that are intended to generate an income or other benefit to the bisnisman and his/her group. Importantly, bisnis is juxtaposed to wok mani (wage work): bisnis is a voluntary activity conducted by an individual (or group) at his/her own discretion; wok mani, on the other

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hand, is laboring for a wage under the direction and control of someone else (Salisbury, 1970, p. 127). The opinion that bisnis is more prestigious than wok mani is widespread (see Sharp, 2013). Bisnis also is associated with the relative affluence of Europeans (Ploeg, 1972, p. 42). Bisnis is ‘‘modern.’’ However, bisnis in PNG is often imbued with values and principles of local nonmarket exchange that are antithetical to those of profit-driven capitalist businesses. Establishing viable ketin in Irakia was difficult. With no nearby road, just transporting the goods to the village required considerable effort and cooperation. Also, important differences between exchange relationships and vendor-customer transactions were not fully appreciated. Many close friends and relatives of the ketin operators correctly assumed that the vendors could not refuse their requests to be given goods from ketin shelves with the tacit understanding that a delayed payment would be forthcoming. Goods flew off the shelves, but immediate payments were not sufficient to finance the restocking of the ketin. The Irakian ketin ventures closely mirror the findings of Curry (1999) in his study of trade stores in Wosera (East Sepik): village trade stores are not really market enterprises. They ‘‘y are not capital investments in the market sensey [but] are vehicles for gift exchange y constructed from the interaction of elements from the introduced market economy and modernity with place-based elements of the indigenous nonmarket economy’’ (Curry, 2003, p. 411). Nonetheless, a trade store ‘‘y is prestigious because it is a physical representation of modernity in the heart of the village y’’ (ibid.). All three Irakian owners claimed to have broken even eventually, although one admitted that he had not paid his carriers. Only one of these men stocked his ketin a second time; he quickly suffered a net loss and said that he would never try it again. With a touch of bitterness, he told me that people in Irakia were buskanaka,18 and did not understand bisnis. The seeming unlikelihood of founding other bisnis in Irakia, to augment coffee bean production, made the cash-earning option of labor migration essential for adding money into the local economy. Wage labor migration was the most intensive involvement Irakians had with capitalist production activities and the associated social order. Residing away from the village with peoples living different lifestyles had a profound effect on Irakians’ view of themselves and their home community. It was a major influence on the actions Irakians later took to modernize their village and local lifestyles (see also, Dalsgaard, 2013).

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THE IRAKIA AWA IN A NEW NATION On September 16, 1975, the Independent State of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was founded, ending nine decades of colonial rule. The new nation has been a rather fractious, politically unstable entity (Standish, 2010), as have many other former colonies around the world. Government infrastructure has decayed, personal safety is threatened by uncontrolled raskol (rascal) gangs, public sector services have deteriorated, and charges of government mismanagement and corruption abound (see, e.g., Okole & Kavanamur, 2003). This state of affairs has stymied broad-based progressive improvement in the lives of most citizens.19 While the post-Independence government has failed to deliver development to its citizens, however, the country’s engagement with international capitalism has expanded dramatically. The opening of the Panguna mine on Bougainville Island in 1969, just prior to Independence,20 ushered in an era of resource extraction projects (mining, oil and natural gas, timber, fish). More mines have been brought on stream during intervening decades, topped off by a massive liquid natural gas project, PNG LNG, currently under construction by ExxonMobile, in Gulf and Southern Highlands Provinces. Minerals alone now account for over 70% of export earnings (CIA, 2008). Although the national coffers would seem to be overflowing, little of the wealth has ‘‘trickled down’’ to the approximately 85% of the population who live in rural areas on communally owned land and still pursue livelihoods combining subsistence food production, smallholder cash cropping, and low-paid jobs. The situation whereby PNG has influxes of cash, including government revenue, from the resources sectors, yet economic development has not ensued, is often explained as a ‘‘resource curse’’ (Auty, 1993; Filer & Macintyre, 2006, p. 217). According to Sir Mekere Morauta (2012), a former Prime Minister (1999–2002) who has also held other ministerial posts, the unprecedented resource boom, and increased government revenues during the 2000s was subject to ‘‘y follies and sometimes outright theft [from government trust accounts] y and the mismanagement of the development budget y the real challenge is keeping sticky fingers out of the revenues pot – and this is where PNG has come horribly unstuck in the past.’’21 The lack of development from the resources boom is of concern to all citizens, but especially to rural residents. A portion of resource rents is redistributed to MPs, who are free to spend the monies as they see fit to improve the lives of their constituents. Unfortunately this has not resulted in improved conditions in most rural areas.

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The extreme fragmentation of the vote (too many candidates per parliamentary constituency) means MPs actually ‘‘represent’’ a couple of hundred people y and they invariably offload the central government revenue to this lucky group y which is not the best use of rent from a developmental perspective. The MPs do not expect to gain re-election, so another group gets a chance. It ends up being like a National lottery. (Auty, personal communication to T. Ziyadov [June 2010], cited in Ziyadov, 2012, fnt. 81, p. 446)

This unproductive allocation of government funds certainly contributes to low economic growth,22 and does not encourage service provision, which in turn exacerbates the problem of insufficient job opportunities. Unemployed raskol men are major participants in the high level of violent criminal activities that undermine commerce, as well as causing a range of other negative impacts. ‘‘In the highland regions of Papua New Guinea, roadside bandits interrupt the marketing of agricultural crops such as coffee y which has contributed to the collapse of large-scale farming’’ (Browne, 2006, p. 27).23 Deteriorating infrastructure also has a damaging effect on mobility and the provision of public services. Thomas Webster (2011) of the PNG National Research Institute (NRI), in an address at the University of Goroka 2011 Graduation, recalled a meeting some five years earlier during which the school inspector for Okapa District informed the gathering that ‘‘y half the schools in his district were not fully operational because teachers had not moved to the schools due to impassable road conditions.’’ The array of problems arising from this situation – stagnant incomes, high unemployment, crime, bad roads, deficient communications systems, inadequate schools and medical facilities, and unreliable public safety enforcement – harm all citizens, except the privileged few. But rural residents from remote regions, who seek opportunities to improve their lot, suffer the brunt of the current unfortunate mix of circumstances. The new Papua New Guinea Vision 2050 plan, inaugurated in 2011, recognizes these problems and appears designed to address them, setting laudable goals of universal adult literacy, readily available health care, improved transportation systems, and economic opportunities for all citizens.24 With revenues from extensive and profitable resource extraction ventures the government should have the means to fulfill these dreams, but given its track record since Independence it is not clear the government will be able to carry out the vision. Irakians anticipated national Independence with a mixture of cautious optimism and foreboding. They hoped that the change of political

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authority might result in long-promised government-sponsored local projects being pushed forward, perhaps a road, a school, or medical aid post. While they resented the demanding and disrespectful treatment they had received from many Australian kiap, they appreciated their attention to settling disputes, imposing punishments on wrongdoers, and providing medical aid during patrol visits. They also still distrusted the Okapa LGC and worried that new PNG functionaries would show similar unconcern for their well-being. The new administration, in about 1980, organized the construction of a primary school that Irakian children could attend. With the labor of local residents, a schoolhouse and teacher’s residence were built, about a threehour walk from the nearest road. But, as far as I was able to determine, classes were never held.25 In late 1981, the new schoolhouse mysteriously burned to the ground. Government officials assumed it was arson and considered it another example of the uncooperativeness of people in the region.26 The ill-fated school was the only improvement that materialized in the Irakia area in the decades following Independence. In fact, the active involvement of the post-Independence national government rarely extended much beyond the end of the nearest road. Government functionaries no longer regularly visited. Political influence and public funds flowed through the renamed Okapa Local Level Government Council (LLGC) and elected politicians, who usually were members of the largest ethnic group in the district, the Fore. Irakian anxiety about the end of colonial rule largely was justified. They felt abandoned by the government and left to fend for themselves as forgotten citizens of the new nation.27 When I returned to Irakia in mid-1981, some superficial changes were obvious. The large men’s houses had been torn down and most men shared living quarters with their wives and children. Latrines had disappeared and village fences were no longer maintained, two relics of the colonial period that Irakians had never embraced willingly. Nearly everyone wore purchased clothing, and cooking pots and steel tools seemed in good supply. Similar to 1972, only 20 people – less than 8% of the village population – were away as migrants. The overall Irakian population had declined between 1972 and 1981 by 4%, from 273 to 262. The pressures for money on those living in the village had heightened, but local earning opportunities had remained few. Further exacerbating the situation, potential affines were asking PGK 600 in bridewealth, a six- to eightfold increase from a decade earlier.28 The desire for consumer goods continued to rise.

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ENGAGING WITH CAPITALISM IN THE 1980s In the 1980s most people in Irakia maintained a focus on subsistence activities, tending their food gardens and pigs. For cash, they picked and processed their coffee and some men sought temporary work on coffee plantations within the eastern highlands during the harvest flush. But making ends meet from local cash-earning opportunities obviously was a serious challenge. Card playing was a new addition to village leisure activities.29 Men had taken up cards at plantations and in towns. Groups of returnees held cardplaying sessions anytime they had disposable cash and were willing to put it at risk, especially during coffee-selling seasons, for long hours each day. The money involved circulated through the group and, given that the games are based on random chance, no one player seemed to win consistently. Magic was said be used to improve one’s own performance or dampen the good fortune of others. Hoarding by winners was not tolerated; in fact, players would loan money to someone who was temporarily tapped out, so the game could continue. If someone spent ‘‘gambling money’’ on consumables, for example, food, it had to be shared with the group. Similar patterns were noted in other rural PNG communities (see Hayano, 1989, p. 241). Accusations of cheating or violating rules of the game did occasionally cause verbal altercations and, rarely, physical fights. Researchers elsewhere in PNG suggest that gambling can assist development, by encouraging sociability and motivating people to engage in cash earning activities (Grossman, 1984, p. 204; Maclean, 1984, p. 44). In Irakia, however, village gambling was of little importance to the local cash economy in terms of increasing or decreasing wealth or shifting social relations. Older residents and wives thought it a waste of time that could be better spent helping with the coffee harvest.

Singsing Bisnis In the later 1970s (ca. 1977–1978), the Irakian desire to earn cash locally led them to join with some eight neighboring communities in organizing and sponsoring annual rounds of commercial dance festivals, called singsing bisnis (see Boyd, 1985a). Similar social gatherings reported in other parts of PNG include: sosal (social) in Madang Province (Darrouzet, 1982), pati (party) in East New Britain (Salisbury, 1970), and pilai (play) in Morobe Province (Ploeg, 1973). These were held during July–September when the

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coffee harvest was being marketed, and villagers had disposable cash. They were scheduled fortnightly on Friday or Saturday nights when government workers in the area had received their pay and hopefully would part with some of it at the events, putting outside money into the village economies. A local leader (papa bilong singsing) coordinated the efforts of his supporters in each participating community.30 Extra food gardens had to be planted, pigs fattened, money set aside to purchase beer and other storebought items, and a dance ground enclosure constructed consisting of an encircling fence some 25–40 meters in diameter with a decorative arch, gate, and ticket booth that marked the entrance. Along the inner wall of the enclosure, the sponsor rented spaces to supporters for small ketin from which they would sell their own cooked garden produce and pork morsels and resell purchased goods (e.g., beer, tobacco, cooked rice and tinned fish, biscuits) transported from the Okapa store. Proceeds from such sales belonged to the vendor, many of whom were women, which afforded them (and older nonmigrant men) the rare opportunity to directly convert their garden produce and pigs to cash. As the big day drew near, the sponsor exhorted his supporters to mark more pigs for slaughter, transport more commercial goods from Okapa stores, collect firewood and dig the fire pits, and decorate the dance ground and their ketin – and give him the ketin rental fees, with which he then could buy more goods to sell or exchange from his own ketin. Elaborate costumes were assembled and adorned with fresh leaves and colorful flowers. An impressive display polished the reputation of the sponsor and his supporters, so every effort was made to dazzle visitors. When each singsing in the round was held, other cooperating sponsors were expected to attend bringing with them large contingents of their fellow villagers. Loud, energetic dancing and a feigned attack on the dance ground would mark the arrival of each group. These were competitive occasions where each group hoped to outshine all others by their enviable physical display and aggressive spirit. Attendees passed through a ticket gate and paid an admission fee of one kina for adults and 50 toea for children, sums that were retained by the host sponsor.31 Upon arrival, cooperating sponsors, and other men seeking to promote reputations as worthy exchange partners, often augmented their admission fees with an additional sum that effectively established an exchange partnership by indebting the host sponsor. The host sponsor also used the occasion to initiate (or continue) exchange relationships by ceremoniously presenting portions of cooked pig carcasses or cartons of beer to chosen visitors. Such public presentations were said to have added much excitement to the events.

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Courting behavior was allowed and added a sense of drama to the already competitive atmosphere. The dancing continued until dawn. Violence sometimes erupted during the festivities. Gathering together members of neighboring groups, some of whom had long histories of intermittent hostility, in a highly charged setting of competition for prestige and possibly wives, and with copious quantities of beer consumed as fuel, meant that explosive outbursts did occur. Gate receipts reported by two Irakian sponsors of events in 1979 and 1980 were PGK 700 and PGK 1,300, respectively, but no reasonably accurate estimate of ketin sales was possible. Queried further, these two sponsors admitted that only modest sums remained after they had covered all costs for the events, and contributed to bridewealth poolings for several relatives. Nonetheless, both men said that they had saved some profits and hoped that future festivals would be more lucrative. By late 1981, opposition to singsing bisnis was growing. In interviews with administrators, health officers, community leaders, and missionaries in and around Okapa, all decried the drunkenness, violence, and illicit sexual activities they associated with the events. Appeals to the Okapa Local Government Council to ban the events, however, fell on deaf ears. Siding with their rural constituents, councilors held that singsing bisnis brought much needed cash into sponsoring communities and overall improved the lives of rural residents. Later that year, however, the Eastern Highlands provincial government finally instituted a ban on commercial singsing. Citing the social disruption and injuries associated with the events, they ruled that the public harm far outweighed any collective benefits. What Irakians hoped would be a potentially lucrative local source of cash was prohibited. Singsing bisnis was an example of the melding of capitalist impulses and older practices. Important aspects of earlier nonmarket gift exchange ceremonies included the high level of cooperation required within and between various groups, the aggressive competition of participants, and the very public exchange activities (including prestations of pork) between individuals (and groups) vying for prestige, even the importance of impressive attire. The addition of charging an admission fee with no expectation of reciprocity between the individual transactors (except on the part of organizers and aspiring leaders) and selling and reselling foodstuffs and other goods from ketin in relatively unencumbered transactions did lend a thin veneer of modern economic activity to the events. However, the desire to make a ‘‘profit’’ also was evident in earlier nonmarket exchange economies in PNG involving prestigious valuables (see Ploeg, 2013; Sillitoe,

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2010; Strathern, 1972). Singsing bisnis seems an attempt to perpetuate ‘‘the spirit of prestige and competition that existed traditionally in ceremonial exchanges’’ (Piau-Lynch, 1982, p. 125) in the new economic context. It should also be noted that the money that changed hands between the various sponsoring villages from gate receipts and ketin sales over an entire singsing round should have remained relatively constant, since members of all host groups were expected generally to reciprocate by spending similar amounts when attending other events in the round. The pool of money circulating in a singsing round may have been redistributed into different pockets, but the only source of new money flowing into the singsing round presumably would have been the spending of ‘‘outsiders’’ (e.g., government employees and visitors) who would not have had any claim to reciprocity. This likely would mean that sponsoring villages located closer to roads and towns could expect larger ‘‘profits’’ than those located at less accessible venues, a point confirmed by an Irakian sponsor. Overall, the logic of singsing bisnis, like that of ketin bisnis, follows that of nonmarket exchange, but did incorporate elements of profit-generating market capitalism. Irakians, however, without exception, strongly denied any suggestion that singsings were a modification, or mimicry, of the older ceremonies; they did not see them as gift exchange, but bisnis. The reason most often given for this was that singsings, unlike earlier gatherings, charged admission fees.

GROWING DISQUIET IN THE 1980s The decade of the 1980s proved to be a challenging one for the Irakia Awa. As mentioned earlier, the village population had declined, and people were very alarmed by a spate of unanticipated deaths of male leaders. Indeed, the number of men approximately 40 years of age and older had fallen by about 30%, and correspondingly, households had gone from 73 to 60. Since the deceased were not elderly, their deaths were attributed to sorcery, which heightened a sense of vulnerability and a willingness to suspect current adversaries. Such suspicions had contributed to battles over several years with Mobutah, resulting in the deaths of three Irakian and two Mobutah men. As the fear of sorcery and its consequences grew, many families left the village, most to go to coastal plantation work sites. Eventually, Irakian suspicions turned inward. Accusations of sorcery were leveled at two prominent men in their 50s; one is said to have confessed and died shortly thereafter, while the other managed to escape the village with his family.

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Unrest between groups living on all sides of Irakia continued through the 1980s and early 1990s. North Fore and Kamano communities to the north, South Fore to the west, and Awa villages to the south and east all engaged in intermittent battles. Although land boundary issues were involved in all these hostilities, a major contributing factor was access to roads. People who live on or near roads often assert a proprietary interest and seek to deny free access to others when disputes occur. Roads are extremely important arteries for commerce and make the difference between coffee production being profitable or just marginal. Road closures force rural growers to carry their coffee long distances on foot for sale, or forfeit a major portion of their potential earnings to helicopter owners.32 Although the Irakia Awa had defended themselves against external threats in the recent past and were not directly threatened by the hostilities swirling around them, they were uneasy about the deteriorating peace in the area. Without a strong presence on their territory, they too could be drawn into conflicts. They decided it was imperative to devise a plan that would renew and strengthen their community.

THE IRAKIAN VISION FOR A MODERN VILLAGE After several decades of engaging with the wider world, including capitalism, first under colonialism and then under independent statehood, Irakians collectively decided that their established patterns of engagement were not working well for them. They wanted a way of life that left them less marginalized. They decided to reorganize their cash-earning activities into patterns seen as more beneficial to themselves, and to build a more vibrant village environment, involving both revitalization of some older practices and adoption of some newer, more contemporary ways. Irakians began making significant changes to the organization of their village-based livelihood in the late 1980s. Importantly, people started to consciously alter major aspects of their subsistence gardening system. Their time-honored system of food production that utilized up to eight different garden types over the annual cycle had been simplified by discontinuing the two most labor-intensive gardens that required long bamboo irrigation pipelines. Also, reliance on yams and taro as major foods had diminished and consumption of the less demanding and more reliable cassava had increased. Earlier, cassava had been a minor crop, fed mostly to pigs and eaten by people during food shortages. People now considered it quite acceptable food and appreciated the lower labor inputs needed to produce it

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leaving more time for coffee production and leisure activities. By 1991, cassava was heavily interplanted with sweet potato and other crops in grassland gardens (see Boyd, 2005, pp. 145–147). By 1991, 52% (143/274) of the village members were living away, most at plantations in Morobe and West New Britain provinces and a few in Port Moresby. The community seemed empty and people realized that any effort to improve local life would need the help of everyone. Messages were conveyed to the migrant groups telling of the plan and urging them to come back and assist in the effort. Responses were positive indicating the willingness of most absentees to return home. Organizers of the plan decided that there was sufficient support and work should commence immediately. The project began in earnest with the building of a church. As recently as 1981 Irakians had refused the overtures of numerous missions. Many of the younger generation, however, had adopted Christianity while living away and wanted to continue their religious observances at home. Also, the unconverted knew that neighboring villages with resident Christians, especially European missionaries, seemed to be more prosperous, so building a church was perceived to be a good idea. By 1991, Sunday services were being led by two returnees, with guitars and a TokPisin Bible, before a small congregation of women, children, and mostly younger men. Older men usually sat on the periphery of the worship services and neither participated nor interfered. With this turn toward piousness, residents agreed that drinking beer and gambling with cards should be banned as part of the village plan. Beer drinking had become common at occasional social gatherings in the 1980s, but often led to abusive and violent behavior. It also was a drain on village cash. Gambling, as discussed above, diverted men from productive activities and caused hard feelings when those who lost their wagers blamed winners. Housing also needed to be upgraded. Older houses were small cylindrical structures with low entrances and restricted doorways designed to slow the ingress of potential enemies, a precaution that now seemed unnecessary. New tools (hammers, saws, screwdrivers, pliers) and nails brought home by returnees were used to fashion improved sawn plank doors, complete with latch and padlock, which were hung with metal hinges and nails. Ceiling beams spanning the structures replaced the center post making for a more open, unobstructed interior. The influence of living away from home and the expenditure of available cash were very apparent in the design and construction of the new houses. One house was rectangular with flat walls and sported a plastic window, symbolizing modern living.

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In an effort to make life in the village more fun for residents, sports teams were organized by returnees. Migrants had enjoyed team sports at work sites and taught others to play when they returned home. Men formed two soccer teams and women joined together in a basketball team. In addition to playing games nearly daily, the teams offered their services as work groups. The women’s basketball team could be hired for PGK 4 per day to clear and till a new garden; a men’s soccer team would help clear a garden or build a new house for PGK 6 per day.33 These sport teams were not organized along lines of kin relatedness and thus represented a new form of sociality in the village. By 1993, the above initiatives were viewed as quite successful, but 52% (152/293) of Irakians still were living away. More had to be done to encourage people to come home. Men were sent to Port Moresby and the plantation work sites to encourage migrants to return. When I visited migrants in Port Moresby and at two plantations in West New Britain, in July 1993, everyone agreed that they wanted to go home. At a meeting I attended, Irakian workers discussed their plans for returning home. Issues ranged widely over timing (who could go when), logistics (who would go first to prepare for the later return of others), and financing for the trips.34 One worker, who had been away from the village for more than 20 years, told me, ‘‘I came to make money so my children would have a better life, but the money did not come, and now it is time to go home.’’ This statement captures the earlier Irakian sense of hope for improvement now replaced with resignation that existing strategies would not deliver, and a new strategy for improvement must come from within the village. Village leaders understood that people could not remain at home without some local source of cash. Although coffee was an unreliable source of income, with world market prices often fluctuating widely from year to year, it still was the most lucrative local cash crop. The problem was that there were not enough coffee trees in Irakia. In 1995, total coffee income was PGK 8,238 (USD 6,179), which averaged to just PGK 36 per 1996 resident (8,238/232), clearly not adequate income, especially if everyone should return home.35 People set about planting more coffee trees and, by 1996, the area devoted to coffee production had increased by about 50%. Residents hoped that coffee production would make a substantial contribution to future cash needs and that community members would no longer feel they had to leave the village for extended periods to earn money. As with their Maimafu Gimi neighbors to the west, so too for Irakians: ‘‘Coffee is seen as their link to cash and the root of their claims to modernity’’ (West, 2012, p. 111).

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Peanuts had become a new cash crop. Although Irakians had grown small amounts of peanuts for some time, three households had planted larger peanut gardens in about 1990, and tried marketing the nuts at the Okapa market to augment their coffee incomes. They sold quickly, but a person could only carry about PGK 7 worth of peanuts. Considering the labor required for production and transport, most people thought it not worth the effort. By 1995, however, 86% (49/57) of Irakian households were marketing peanuts. That year, the total value sold was PGK 1,623, a mean of about PGK 7 per resident (1,623/232); only one-fifth that of per capita coffee income, but obviously a welcome addition to household incomes.36 As part of the new village plan, men, with the quiet assent of women, decided that male initiations for boys should be resumed. Since so many boys and young men had been living away from the village, these important rituals had not been performed for nearly a decade. Such rituals, which are a physical and mental ordeal designed to promote the health, fortitude, and fertility of men, were affirmed as essential to revitalizing the community.37 In fact, it was thought that the spate of unexpected sorcery deaths in the 1980s might have been due, in part, to a lack of ritual protection. Irakians would need the help of strong, healthy men to face the challenges of creating the new village lifestyle. To that end, a new men’s house was constructed in which the rituals were planned and ultimately conducted, in late 1993. Relatives and visitors attended and were given gifts of pork, store foods, and cash. Irakians described it as a huge social gathering and one in which they clearly demonstrated their social vitality and economic prowess. A middleaged man and long-term migrant confirmed the significance of male initiation: ‘‘Initiating our young men is the most important thing we do. It makes us who we are’’ (Chapitenga O’u, personal communication, 1993). This shows clearly that the new version of modernity Irakians were building involved both intensification of market activities to boost incomes and a reassertion of defining cultural practices and nonmarket relationships. Not all cultural features of Irakian life, however, were taken through as valued traditions. The cessation of pig rearing was a move that had been discussed for some years. Young women did not want to spend their lives as swineherds. Most men said that they were tired of building fences to try to keep pigs out of gardens, and of settling disputes when pigs ruined gardens or when recipients were angered about pork distributions. Without pigs, it was felt, the village living area would be cleaner, men and women would not have to work so hard, and people would live more peacefully. The last village pig was slaughtered in August 1996 (see Boyd, 2001). The elimination of local pig herds meant people purchased cheap cuts of imported meat (beef

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brisket or lamb flaps) to meet exchange obligations requiring meat.38 With no pigs of their own, Irakians drew on their limited cash reserves and engaged with the retail market to fulfill occasional social obligations. No one saw this as a serious problem; the Irakian vision of modernity decisively did not include living with pigs. The increased need for cash living without pigs entailed was to be handled by local cash-crop production. Irakians seemed resigned to the fact that money would be hard to come by while living at home and were making a conscious effort to more carefully conserve the little money they did have. Most adults rarely went to town anymore. Rather, they gave younger people some money and sent them off to Okapa to buy specific items for them, consciously reducing the temptation of impulse spending. Also, a road to the village, long a much desired amenity, was now dismissed as something that would doom the village by bringing easy access to unnecessary goods on which they might squander their limited cash, and also give criminal raskol gangs an easier route to their village. As a returning visitor in 1996, I was immediately stuck by many of the changes during my three-year absence. The village proper was very tidy and a house-building boom was in progress. Huge unfenced gardens with plentiful cassava and coffee groves were on the village margins; people no longer headed off to distant food gardens in the early morning. A new church and basketball court dominated the public space in a major hamlet. One enterprising woman returnee sat in front of a hand-powered sewing machine she had brought back to the village, busily making blouses. One family had enrolled two of their young daughters in a government primary school several hours away in South Fore. The contributing factor to all of these changes was that 85 migrants had returned home since 1993, swelling the resident population to 232. Sixtyseven (22%) of all village members still lived away, but I was told that many of those had expressed a desire to return home soon. The experience of living away had made it painfully obvious how poor, isolated, and ignored their home community had remained. Recent returnees had been appalled at the living conditions at home. This had galvanized them into a force to transform the village. The place was teeming with people and energy. In 1996, most residents I spoke with were reasonably optimistic about the changes being made at home and felt the community was becoming a better place to live. They were frustrated by their own seeming inability to prosper in the external capitalist world and were disappointed by the lack of government support. Nonetheless, they were confident that their lives would be improved by reducing labor migration rates and increasing cash crop

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production. It was not an attempt to withdraw from the larger economy, but to reconfigure their engagement with capitalism.

CONCLUSION: STEPS TOWARD AN ALTERNATIVE MODERNITY During the early post-contact period, Irakians were mystified and impressed by the wealth and power of Europeans, about whom they had very little knowledge. With the introduction of a monetized economy the sale of their labor and cash crops seemed to offer a path to emulate the lifestyle of these outsiders. Their increased involvement in these options, however, led to the realization that the path was narrow and the goal kept receding into the future. Without education or valued skills, and lacking opportunities to acquire such, they were slotted into the new capitalist economy in menial low-paying jobs away from home. Attempts to make money locally by starting retail bisnis failed, due in part to competing obligations in the nonmarket economy, which remained essential to their wellbeing. They valued the few amenities available to them – steel tools, blankets and clothing, new foods – but their existing patterns of engagement with capitalism to gain these goods marginalized them and put their village at risk. With the ending of colonial rule, conditions at home deteriorated. Irakians’ engagement with capitalism has consisted of considering options open to them and taking steps they hope will improve their lives. It is an experimental process where actions are taken – labor migration, restructuring food production, cash cropping, bisnis, abandoning pig husbandry, adopting Christianity, playing team sports – hoping for success, but recognizing failure and then changing course. The biggest problem Irakians anticipated for their village revitalization project was the difficulty of acquiring sufficient cash in the local setting. Their bold plan was to meet this challenge by intensifying cash cropping, limiting labor migration, and conserving the incomes earned. Faced with the recognition that their home village could not thrive without them, most Irakians chose to return home and pursue a better life together, an alternative, local modernity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the following institutions for financial support of the field research reported here: Cora Black Foundation (1970), U.S. National Institute of

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Mental Health (1971–1972), Office of Environment and Conservation, Government of Papua New Guinea (1981), and the Committee on Research, University of California, Davis (1991, 1993). I also much appreciate the several affiliations (1971–1972, 1993, 1996) extended to me by the Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, and then Director, M. Alpers. Lastly, I am very grateful to S. Lindenbaum, W. G. Davis, R. Hide, and C. Filer for discussion of issues presented here; to G. Waugh, Y. Gavre, and W. Evensen for insightful comments on the manuscript; and especially to K. Barclay and F. McCormack for their diligent and skillful editing.

NOTES 1. In Papua New Guinea, ‘‘European’’ in spoken and written English refers to all Caucasians (Whites), regardless of their actual place of origin; in TokPisin, the lingua franca of much of the country, equivalent terms are ‘‘Masta’’ (a colonial relic) and ‘‘Waitman.’’ 2. I have been following the Irakian experience since 1970, living in the community on six separate occasions (1970, 1971–1972, 1981, 1991, 1993, 1996), totaling about two years in residence. I also stayed with Irakian workers and their families on two oil palm plantations in West New Britain for one week in 1993. 3. The Awa people, numbering 1374 in 1963, and about 1500 in the 1990s, live in eight villages along both sides of the middle Lamari River in southeast Eastern Highlands Province (EHP). They occupy some 78 mi2 (201 km2) of mixed forest and grasslands at altitudes ranging from 2,000u (600 m) to 7800u (2,400 m). Awa villages north of the Lamari River are Irakia (1963 est. pop.=242), Tauna (139), Tawaina (238), and Iyona (42); south of the Lamari are Tainoraba (233), Amoraba (103) and Mobutah (171), with Agamusi (206) over the ridge south in the Aziana River drainage. Area and altitude data and 1963 population estimates are taken from Pataki-Schweizer (1980, pp. 92 and 107). 4. See Berndt (1962) for a detailed recounting of precontact violence among groups just to the north of the Awa. 5. Irakians who witnessed the incident say that one arrow was fired over the patrol by a man visiting from Tawaina before others intervened to stop him. The patrol did not respond to the provocation. 6. Allen et al. (2005) make a stronger case for environmental constraints. Updating an earlier insight by Brookfield and Hart (1971), they argue ‘‘y that underdevelopment and poverty in PNG are not the outcomes of unequal market forces but are primarily the outcomes of environmental conditions that prevent people from engaging with global and domestic markets.’’ 7. Okapa eventually would become the subdistrict headquarters (later, district capital) complete with government offices, a court and jail, government school (1958–1959), trade stores (1959), and a hospital (1962) (Alpers, 1965, Table II, pp. 79–80).

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8. In mid-1970, a kiap estimated the average annual cash income of Awa villages in Ward 40 at AUD 5 per capita (Todurawai, 1970). 9. For additional details of these events, see Boyd (1975, pp. 40–60). 10. In the late 1960s, an AUD 5 or 10 denominated note was often added to a bridewealth accumulation of bows, arrows, plumes, shells and shell headbands, handmade string netbags (bilums), salt, and occasionally, a large pig. 11. In 1971, a young married man challenged tradition by announcing that he would kill one of his pigs and offer pieces of it for cash sale to fellow villagers. His initiative was successful, but his affines, to whom he had continuing obligations to provide occasionally a pig for slaughter, were not pleased. No one else tried this cash-raising option as the pig-raising ritual (see further) was soon adopted. 12. I was unable to determine a reasonable estimate of earnings, but men told me they spent the money at the Okapa store on steel tools, clothing, food, salt, tobacco, and matches. 13. Data presented here on Irakian participation in and compensation for agreement labor were gleaned from files at the HLS office in Goroka in 1972. I thank the staff for their assistance and forbearance. 14. The Native Labour Ordinance (1945) set the minimum rural wage at the equivalent of AUD 1.50 per calendar month plus food, housing and ‘‘some minor issues.’’ By 1961, the cash payment had been raised to AUD 0.75 per week, and stood at AUD 1.00 per week by 1967. During the 1960s, the assumed values of food rations and accommodation were AUD 143 and AUD 30 per year, respectively (Langmore, 1972, p. 311). 15. Cash wages in the early days were in Australian pounds sterling. In 1966, Australia adopted the decimal system based on the Australian dollar (AUD). It was valued at AUD 1=USD 1.12 at the time and has fluctuated around parity ever since. All earnings in the text have been converted to the AUD. 16. Of the nine contracts not completed, five men left their jobs after the murders of the Tauna men, one died of illness, and one received a four-year prison sentence for the killing of a fellow worker. The remaining two men made their ways to Port Moresby where they found casual employment. None of these men received any portion of their deferred earnings. 17. Brookfield (1968, p. 108) reported such a cash-generating arrangement among the Chimbu (Simbu). 18. Buskanaka (lit: ‘‘bush’’ or ‘‘forest’’+‘‘local person,’’ i.e., non-European) generally is a derogatory, abusive term (Mihalic, 1971); it also may connote ‘‘premodern,’’ holding old attitudes and understandings, which conveys a sense of sympathy or resignation. This speaker meant it somewhere in-between these two meanings. It can refer to an individual or a group. 19. PNG currently ranks a dismal 153 of 187 countries – within the bottom 20% – on the UN Human Development Index (HDI). 20. The Panguna mine began production in 1972, and was forced to shut down by an armed insurrection of radical landowners in 1989. After a bloody conflict, a negotiated settlement was reached in 2002. The mine has yet to reopen. 21. The Transparency International (TI) Country Study Report for PNG, prepared by researchers at the PNG Institute of National Affairs, succinctly states: ‘‘Development policy objectives to generate wealth through developing natural

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resources coupled with communal ownership, amidst divers ethnic groups, and acute incapacity of the government, provide a susceptible nursery to germinate corruption’’ (Mellan & Aloi, 2003, p. 8). TI’s Corruption Perception Index, in 2011, ranked PNG 154 out of 183 countries, well into the most corrupt bottom 20%. 22. According to Marciniak (2006, pp. 121–122), per capita income for PNG in 2004 was ‘‘hardly above’’ its 1975 level. 23. In 1991, the manager of a coffee plantation at a remote location in South Fore Subdistrict told me that he had to bring in his payroll cash by helicopter because his company trucks were prime targets for raskol gangs. I also witnessed a payroll helicopter land at an oil palm plantation in West New Britain in mid-1993. 24. PNG Vision 2050 was prepared by the National Strategic Plan Taskforce and can be accessed at: http://www.treasury.gov.pg/html/publications/file/pub_files/ 2011.png.vision.2050.pdf. 25. I met the assigned teacher, briefly, in Okapa in July 1981. He told me that there was an illness in his family and he did not know when he would be able to take up his post. 26. In 1996, after repeated inquiries over the years, an Irakia man told me in strict confidence that he and a companion caused the fire. Returning from the store in Okapa, they fired up their new butane lighters to peer into the school and accidently set the thatch roof on fire. It was an accident, not arson. 27. Webster (2011), in an account based on experience in the Okapa area, attributes much of the problem to widespread corruption. 28. Detailed interviews with Irakians indicate the amounts actually paid were between PGK 450–500, still an alarming inflation. In 1981, the PNG kina (PGK) was worth USD 1.50. 29. Gambling was illegal under colonial rule until 1974. A patrol, in February 1971, caught men playing cards in Tauna, confiscated the money and the cards; 12 players were charged in the Okapa court and each fined AUD 6 (Pelepczuk, 1971). 30. I wish to thank, posthumously, Morabe Anagu, Tabobo Anagu, and E’o Po’nanua for eyewitness accounts of the preparation and conduct of prior singsing, on which this description is largely based. During my stay in Irakia in 1981, I observed the construction of the dance ground and other preparations for the upcoming singsing, but was unable to attend the event. 31. PNG kina=100 toea. 32. More than a decade after the cessation of hostilities between Irakia and Mobutah, people from Mobutah still carried their coffee on a long two-day walk through South Fore to buyers in Okapa to avoid passing through Irakia. In 1993, coffee sellers from Tainoraba Village walked through Irakia to Okapa, also a twoday walk, due to the hostile closure of the Obura-Wonenara road. 33. The 1991 exchange rate was near parity: PGK 1.00=USD 1.04. 34. One man, with a wife and two young children, had started a chicken-raising project for this purpose. He had acquired the use of a small space in a plantation barn and had purchased 100 chicks for one kina each. He purchased feed, heated the space with a light bulb, and 95 four-week-old chicks were still thriving during my visit. He anticipated selling each bird for PGK 10. By 1996, he and his family were back in Irakia, transportation paid for, he proudly said, from profits of his project. 35. These 1995 sales data are from sellers’ recall in 1996; coffee sales for 1996 had not yet been completed. Population and exchange rate (PGK1=USD0.75) are from 1996.

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36. For context, Gibson et al. (2004, p. 5, cited in Rogers, Bleakly, Ola, & CARE Integrated Community Development Project Team, 2011, p. 15) report the annual ‘‘poverty line’’ income for EHP in ‘‘1996 prices’’ was PGK 468 ‘‘per adult equivalent’’. Even with the large intra-provincial variability, Irakia’s annual per capita income for residents from coffee + peanuts of PGK 43 would rank them among the poorest of the poor in the province. 37. See Newman and Boyd (1982) for a detailed treatment of Awa male initiation practices. 38. See Gewertz and Errington (2010) for an extensive analysis of ‘‘cheap meat’’ in the Pacific region.

REFERENCES Allen, B., Bourke, R. M., & Gibson, J. (2005). Poor rural places in Papua New Guinea. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 46(2), 201–217. Alpers, M. (1965). Epidemiological changes in kuru, 1957–1963. In D. C. Gajdusek, C. J. Gibbs, Jr., & M. Alpers (Eds.), Slow, latent, and temporate virus infections (pp. 65–82). National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, Monograph No. 2. Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health. Auty, R. M. (1993). Sustaining development in mineral economies: The resource curse thesis. London: Routledge. Berndt, R. M. (1962). Excess and restraint: Social control among a New Guinea mountain people. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Boyd, D. J. (1975). Crops, kiaps, and currency: Changing behavioral strategies among the Ilakia Awa of Papua New Guinea. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. Boyd, D. J. (1981). Village agriculture and labor migration: Interrelated production activities among the Ilakia Awa of Papua New Guinea. American Ethnologist, 8(1), 74–93. Boyd, D. J. (1985a). The commercialisation of ritual in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Man (n.s.), 20(2), 325–340. Boyd, D. J. (1985b). ‘‘We must follow the Fore’’: Pig husbandry intensification and ritual diffusion among the Irakia Awa, Papua New Guinea. American Ethnologist, 12(1), 119–136. Boyd, D. J. (2001). Life without pigs: Recent subsistence changes among the Irakia Awa, Papua New Guinea. Human Ecology, 29(3), 259–282. Boyd, D. J. (2005). Beyond the Ipomoean Revolution: Sweet potato on the ‘‘fringe’’ of the Papua New Guinea highlands. In C. Ballard, P. Brown, R. M. Bourke, & T. Harwood (Eds.), The sweet potato in Oceania: A reappraisal (pp. 137–147). Ethnology Monograph 19, Oceania Monograph 56. Pittsburgh, PA: The University of Pittsburgh. Brookfield, H. C. (1968). The money that grows on trees: The consequences of an innovation within a man-environment system. Australian Geographical Studies, 6(2), 97–119. Brookfield, H. C., & Hart, D. (1971). Melanesia: A geographical interpretation of an island world. London: Methuen. Brown, W. T. (1954). Patrol report, Kainantu, No. 8 of 1953–54. Unpublished government document, Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Kainantu Subdistrict Office, 1971. Browne, C. (2006). Pacific Island Economies. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund.

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CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). (2008). Papua New Guinea, Economy – Overview. World fact book. Retrieved from http://cia.gov Curry, G. N. (1999). Markets, social embeddedness and precapitalist societies: The case of village tradestores in Papua New Guinea. Geoforum, 30, 285–298. Curry, G. N. (2003). Moving beyond postdevelopment: Facilitating indigenous alternatives for ‘‘development’’. Economic Geography, 79(4), 405–423. Curry, G. N., Koczberski, G., & Connell, J. (2012). Introduction: Enacting modernity in the Pacific? Australian Geographer, 43(2), 115–125. Dalsgaard, S. (2013). The politics of remittance and the role of returning migrants: Localizing capitalism in Manus province, Papua New Guinea. In F. McCormack & K. Barclay (Eds.), Engaging with capitalism: Cases from Oceania. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Darrouzet, C. (1982). Drinking: A sign of things to come in Bogia, Morobe Province. In M. Marshall (Ed.), Through a glass darkly: Beer and modernization in Papua New Guinea (pp. 289–304). Research Monograph 18. Boroko: Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research. Filer, C., & Macintyre, M. (2006). Grass roots and deep holes: Community responses to mining in Melanesia. In P. West & M. Macintyre (Guest Eds.), Special issue: Melanesian mining modernities: Past, present, and future. The Contemporary Pacific, 18(2) pp. 215–231. Foran, S. P. (1967). Patrol report, Okapa, No. 15 of 1966–67. Government document, Territory of Papua New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Okapa Subdistrict Office, 1972. Foran, S. P. (1969). Patrol report, Okapa, No. 17 of 1968–69. Government document, Territory of Papua New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Okapa Subdistrict Office, 1972. Gewertz, D., & Errington, F. (2010). Cheap meat: Flap food nations in the Pacific Islands. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Gibson, J., Datt, B., Allen, B., Hwang, V., Bourke, M., & Parajuli, D. (2004). Mapping poverty in rural Papua New Guinea. Pacific Economic Bulletin, 20(1), 1–26. Grossman, L. S. (1984). Peasants, subsistence ecology, and development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hayano, D. M. (1989). Like eating money: Card gambling in a Papua New Guinea Highlands village. Journal of Gambling Behavior, 5(3), 231–245. Hayano, D. M. (1990). Road through the rain forest: Living anthropology in Highland Papua New Guinea. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Hide, R. (1975). Aspects of pig production and use in colonial Sinasina. PhD thesis, Columbia University, New York, NY: University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI. Langmore, J. V. (1972). Rural wage policy in Papua New Guinea. In M. W. Ward (Ed.), Change and development in rural Melanesia (pp. 311–321). Fifth Waigani Seminar. Canberra, AU: The Research School of Pacific Studies Lindenbaum, S. (2013). Kuru sorcery: Disease and danger in the New Guinea highlands (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Maclean, N. (1984). Is gambling ‘‘bisnis’’?: The economic functions of gambling in the Jimi Valley. Social Analysis, 16(1), 44–59. Marciniak, P. (2006). Papua New Guinea. In C. Browne (Ed.), Pacific Island economies (pp. 121–132). Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. McArthur, J. R. (1955). Patrol report, Kainantu, No. 3 of 1954–55. Unpublished government document, Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Kainantu Subdistrict Office, 1971.

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Mellan, A., & Aloi, D. (2003). Transparency International country study report, Papua New Guinea 2003. National integrity systems. Retrieved from http://www.transparency.org. Accessed on April 13, 2012. Mihalic, F., S.V.D. (1971). The Jacaranda dictionary and grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Milton: The Jacaranda Press. Morauta, M. (2012). Managing the boom in mineral revenue in Papua New Guinea. Retrieved from www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/01/02/managing-the-boom-in-mineral-revenue-inpapua-new-guinea. Accessed on October 1, 2012. Newman, P. L., & Boyd, D. J. (1982). The making of men: Event and meaning in Awa male initiation. In G. L. Herdt (Ed.), Rituals of manhood: Male initiation in Papua New Guinea (pp. 239–285). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Okole, H., & Kavanamur, D. (2003). Political corruption in Papua New Guinea. South Pacific Journal of Philosophy and Science, 7, 7–36. Pataki-Schweizer, K. J. (1980). A New Guinea landscape: Community, space, and time in the Eastern Highlands. In J. B. Watson (Ed.), Anthropological studies in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea (Vol. IV). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Pelepczuk, J. (1971). Patrol report, Okapa, No. 16 of 1970–71. Unpublished government document, Territory of Papua New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Okapa Subdistrict Office, 1972. Piau-Lynch, A. (1982). The Simbu liquor ban of 1980–1981. In M. Marshall (Ed.), Through a glass darkly: Beer and modernization in Papua New Guinea (pp. 119–129). Research Monograph 18. Boroko: Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research. Ploeg, A. (1972). Sociological aspects of Kapora settlement. In R. J. May (Ed.), Hoskins development: The role of oil palm and timber (pp. 21–118). (New Guinea Research Bulletin, No 49.). Port Moresby, PNG: New Guinea Research Unit, The Australian National University. Ploeg, A. (1973). Feasting for gain and help. Mankind, 9, 15–24. Ploeg, A. (2013). Capitalism among the me. In F. McCormack & K. Barclay (Eds.), Engaging with capitalism: Cases from Oceania. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Post-Courier (PNG). (1970). Seven die in tribal fight (March 12). Two battered to death in hospital (March 13). Doa slaying, 18 are charged (March 16). Murder hearing is adjourned (July 1). Rarua, K. M. (1965). Patrol report, Okapa, No. 10 of 1964–65. Unpubished government document, Territory of Papua New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Okapa Subdistrict Office, 1972. Rogers, C., Bleakly, R., Ola, W., & CARE Integrated Community Development Project Team. (2011). Rural poverty in remote Papua New Guinea: Case Study of Wonenara-Obura District. Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Economics and Management, The Australian National University, and CARE Australia. Retrieved from http:// devpolicy.anu.edu/publications/reports.php. Accessed on on July 19, 2012. Salisbury, R. F. (1970). Vunamami: Economic transformation in a traditional society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sharp, T. (2013). Baias, bisnis and betel nut: The place of traders in the making of a Melanesian market. In F. McCormack & K. Barclay (Eds.), Engaging with capitalism: Cases from Oceania. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Sillitoe, P. (2010). From land to mouth: The agricultural ‘‘economy’’ of the Wola of the New Guinea highlands. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Skinner, R. I. (1947). Patrol report, Kainantu, No. 5 of 1947–1948. Unpublished government document, Trust Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Kainantu Subdistrict Office, 1971. Smith, M. F. (1984). Wild villagers and capitalist virtues: Perceptions of Western work habits in a preindustrial community. Anthropological Quarterly, 57(4), 125–138. Standish, B. (2010). Papua New Guinea’s elusive stability. East Asia Forum. Retrieved from http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/08/02/papua-new-guinea-elusive-stability/. Accessed on on July 30, 2012. Strathern, A. J. (1972). Social presurres on the rural entreprenuer. In M. W. Ward (Ed.), Change and development in rural Melanesia (pp. 489–503). Fifth Waigani Seminar, Port Moresby, 1971. Canberra, AU: Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. Todurawai, M. (1970). Patrol report, Okapa, No. 29 of 1969–70. Unpublished government document, Territory of Papua New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Okapa Subdistrict Office, 1972. Webster, T. (2011). Working against corruption in PNG. Development Policy Blog, Development Policy Centre. Retrieved from http://devpolicy.org/papua-new-guineawork-against-corruption/. Accessed on September 19, 2012. West, P. (2012). From modern production to imagined primitive: The social world of coffee from Papua New Guinea. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wiltshire, J. A. (1959). Patrol report, Kainantu, No. 4 of 1958–59. Unpublished government document, Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Reviewed by the author at Kainantu Subdistrict Office, 1971. Ziyadov, T. (2012). Conclusion: Constant perils, policy responses, and lessons to be learned. In B. Shaffer & T. Ziyadov (Eds.), Beyond the resource curse (pp. 352–370). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

DEVELOPMENT IMPLICATIONS OF THE ENGAGEMENT WITH CAPITALISM: IMPROVING THE SOCIAL RETURNS OF DEVELOPMENT George N. Curry and Gina Koczberski ABSTRACT Purpose – The authors conclude the ‘‘Engaging with Capitalism’’ volume with a discussion of social theory focusing on the implications of the volume for practices in international and community development. Approach – This chapter draws together some of the key themes in this collection to identify the development implications of the efforts of local communities to socially embed their engagement with capitalism and markets to better serve their socioeconomic and cultural needs. Discussion is informed by the literature on social embeddedness of economies, critical development theory, and the authors’ ongoing empirical research in rural Papua New Guinea. Findings – There is growing recognition within anthropology and geography of the enduring influence of indigenous social and economic

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practices and values and their capacity to condition the introduced market economy and capitalist economic practices. The chapters in this collection, from the ‘‘Engaging with Capitalism’’ sessions of the 2011 and 2012 ASAO conferences, speak to this issue directly by exploring how indigenous forms of socioeconomy interact with introduced capitalist and market processes to influence sociocultural and economic change at the local level. Research and social implications – The challenge for development researchers is how to conceptualize local engagements with capitalism, and to identify how such concepts and concerns might be applied in development practice to better serve the needs of local communities. We outline some key principles that could be incorporated into development planning to make development projects more sustainable and better tailored to the needs of recipient communities. Keywords: Social embeddedness; rural development; indigenous economies; labor value; development policy

INTRODUCTION The chapters in this collection contribute to an expanding body of literature from the Pacific region that shows how indigenous economic logics underpinned by culture-specific values condition local expressions of global capitalism to give it cultural meaning (e.g., Cahn, 2008; Connell, 2007a, 2007b; Curnow, 2008; Curry, 2003; Curry & Koczberski, 2012; Curry et al., 2012; Gregory, 1982; Jolly, 2005; LiPuma, 1999, 2000; McGregor, 2009; Patterson & Macintyre, 2011; Sahlins, 2005; Thornton et al., 2010). This also includes the degree to which modernization, in terms of marketization and possessive individualism, has been adopted by rural communities. In each of the chapters, attention to place-based factors and the role of local agency has revealed how indigenous economic and social structures have shown remarkable resilience and a capacity to accommodate change while retaining and even enhancing indigenous socioeconomic practices and values that people hold dear to them (e.g., Boyd; see also Connell, 2007b; Curry, 2003; Curry & Koczberski, 2009; McDougall, 2005). Thus, the earlier prognosis of an inevitable, indeed, scripted, transformation of indigenous economies, societies and cultures into capitalist and market societies is giving way, to a greater appreciation of the importance of local agency in

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determining the pace and pattern of change. This chapter draws together some of the key themes in this collection to identify the development implications of the efforts of local communities to socially embed their engagement with capitalism and markets to better serve their socioeconomic and cultural needs.

THE RELATIONAL ECONOMY In a Polanyian sense the process of accommodation or hybridization of indigenous and introduced economic forms outlined in the chapters can be understood as the embedding in social relationships of introduced economic forms and values (Curry et al., 2012; McCormack, 2013; Polanyi, 1944; Polanyi et al., 1957; see Curry & Koczberski, 2012 for a fuller discussion). Polanyi’s notion that economies reflect how they are socially embedded (McCormack & Barclay, 2013) means that an array of place-based economic and social forms can emerge (see Block, 2001; Curry & Koczberski, 2012; Granovetter, 1985; Hefner, 1998; McCormack, 2013; Zukin & DiMaggio, 1990). Indeed, recognizing that the economy is socially embedded challenges some of the common assumptions regarding modernity and the workings of market capitalism. It enables new spaces to be opened that offer different perspectives on people’s engagement with capitalism and the way they adapt to their changing environments. Thus, an altogether different view of capitalist transformation emerges that captures the role people and communities play in shaping their futures by pursuing their own notions of development. This view does not dismiss completely global economic forces or processes of commoditization. Rather, it acknowledges that the outcome of local encounters with capitalism and introduced markets is variable thereby making generalizations difficult and, recognises ‘‘‘development’, like globalisation, is a contested notion both in theory and practice’’ (Patterson & Macintyre, 2011, p. 9). In discussions of development theory in the social sciences there is an emerging interest in the concept of social embeddedness of economies, especially from a Polanyian perspective (Block, 2001; Granovetter, 1985; Hefner, 1998; McCormack & Barclay, 2013; Misztal, 1996; Platteau, 1994a, 1994b; Sidaway, 2007; Thrift & Olds, 1996; Turner, 2007; Zukin & DiMaggio, 1990). Polanyian perspectives on the economy share characteristics with some other theoretical approaches such as hybrid economies and postdevelopment. The hybrid economies perspective, which encompasses a range of approaches, emphasises the ongoing influence of indigenous

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economic logics within global capitalism (e.g., Nabudere, 1997; Nederveen Pieterse, 1994; Perreault, 2003; Simon, 1998, 2007). Much of this research has highlighted the co-constitution of society and economy and has stressed the significant role that indigenous economic logics and social values play in shaping contemporary forms of socioeconomy following engagement with capitalism and markets (e.g., Bainton, 2011; Banks, 1999; Barclay, 2006; Cahn, 2008; Carrier & Carrier, 1989; Curry & Koczberski, 2009; Goddard, 2000; Imbun, 2000; Minnegal & Dwyer, 2007; Sahlins, 2005; Thomas, 1991; Thornton et al., 2010; Van der Grijp, 2004). Postdevelopment theory, like the hybrid economies perspective, rejects the universalism and reductionism of western-derived models of development (e.g., Crush, 1995; Escobar, 1995; Esteva & Prakesh, 1998; Nederveen Pieterse, 2000; Rahmena & Bawtree, 1997). However, while postdevelopment rejects development, the hybrid economies perspective recognises there are social as well as material gains to be gained from engaging with capitalism through a process in which indigenous economic and social forms condition introduced elements of the market economy. The literature on social embeddedness, hybrid economies, and postdevelopment critiques notions of modernisation and development premised on the narrative of an all-powerful capitalism that transforms noncapitalist socioeconomic forms. Despite the rise of poststructuralist perspectives, universal theories of development still dominate development thinking. Structural perspectives such as neo-Marxist theories and functional interpretations based on neoclassical economics still underpin much thinking on development. This can be illustrated by examining alternative ways of valuing labor. For example, the supply and demand determinants of labor value in a free market, or labor value related to the value of the product of labor, are so deeply ingrained in our thinking that it is extremely difficult to conceive of labor value in other ways. Yet in PNG, as illustrated among the Mekeo of Central province (Mosko), the Me of the central Highlands (Ploeg), and in our own work among oil palm smallholders (Curry & Koczberski, 2012), labor is intimately entwined in the relational economy and is strongly embedded in networks of obligations and reciprocity that typically extend well beyond the household (see also Fajans, 1993; Kuehling, 2005; Modjeska, 1982, pp. 51–65; Sillitoe, 2006; Strathern, 1982, 1990). Gift exchange, of which labor is a key item transacted, is the foundation upon which social relationships and networks are built, affirmed, and expanded. From this point of view, labor’s value is specific to the persons giving or receiving the labor. As Strathern observed, ‘‘there is no objectification of work apart from its performance y work cannot be measured separately of relationships’’ (1990, p. 160). Thus,

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it is the social dimensions of labor that give labor its value, and not solely the market value of the work performed or the value of the product of that labor. It is therefore more appropriate to gauge labor’s value using a relational concept of the economy thereby enabling us to move beyond undersocialised and universal theories of labor (see also Curry & Koczberski, 2012; Lee, 2006; Miller, 2008). The social value of labor can arise directly from its performance (the gift of labor), and indirectly as wage income from labor sold on the market is used to acquire goods or traditional wealth items like cowrie shells (Ploeg, 2013), which are transformed into gifts for social reproduction. It can also be realised when commodities produced by labor are sold for cash and the cash itself is gifted or used to purchase other wealth items that are then channeled into exchange networks. In an iterative process these social values of labor shape personhood and relational identities that are important for resource access such as land tenure (Dalsgaard, 2013). Different registers of value can also determine the extent and type of engagement of labor in commodity production. Among oil palm smallholders with whom we work, the culture-specific meanings and values attached to labor in commodity production are defined within these relational structures of sociality and economy. When members of the family contribute labor to the household or broader kinship group they are affirming or nourishing their relationships with each other and reinforcing their collective identity. By giving and receiving labor, social order is maintained, social reproduction occurs, and people’s sociocultural wellbeing is enhanced. To emphasise the social value of labor, smallholders stress that they do not pay for family labor. To commoditise family labor by paying wages undermines labor’s social value. Instead, labor value is derived from what it symbolises in terms of the specific relationship between the two parties. When labor in oil palm is reciprocated with a gift of cash, it is incorrect to view such transactions as market transactions (wage labor) or to assume that ‘‘payments’’ reflect the value of the product of that labor, that is, the value of oil palm harvested (as Mosko points out, wage labor is comparatively rare in rural villages). As a consequence, the ‘‘payment’’ of labor is governed by indigenous social values such as gender, age, and kinship status, in a similar way to how labor is valued in the nonmarket subsistence economy. Ways of valuing labor are not static; they may be contested when, for example, indigenous labor values conflict with introduced values associated with the market or capitalism. Different notions of value may therefore

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compete for validation especially during periods of rapid social and economic change. Indeed, increasingly during the past 10–15 years, a younger generation of oil palm smallholders who have adopted more modern values are demanding their fathers remunerate them at rates of pay more in keeping with market values of labor rather than in accordance with the cultural norms associated with the domestic moral economy of labor. Thus, market-based economic relations are being privileged over indigenous economic and social relations of production and exchange. Whether or not this change represents a permanent shift toward market-based labor relations is a difficult question to answer. However, what is clear from the younger generation’s arguments for market rates of pay is that they are pursuing new economic and social relations that are governed less by reciprocal moral obligations as they seek more financial independence and individual autonomy to enjoy the experiences of modernity. Thus far, we have emphasised the enduring influence of indigenous social and economic practices and values and their capacity to condition the introduced market economy and capitalist economic practices. What is also evident in several papers in the volume (e.g., Dalsgaard; Horan; Bainton & Macintyre; Mosko; Ploeg) are the moral tensions that arise as societies and economies embrace capitalism. The desire for development brings to the fore the tensions between individual autonomy and family obligations and the quandaries over how to preserve and adapt cultural values and practices in a rapidly changing social and economic environment. For many, the transition is from a moral economy to an amoral one in which indigenous economic and social values are debased and social relationships are undermined. People are confronted with moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding the given social order, the viability of sociocultural values, and the type and extent of change desired as they seek to develop meaningful and viable livelihoods. These moral challenges and struggles are often overlooked in the literature on development, yet are evident in communities in PNG and elsewhere as people attempt to negotiate economic development and modernity in the context of conflicting regimes of value (Bebbington et al., 2004; Brison, 1999; Englund & Leach, 2000; Giddings & Hovorka, 2010; Koning, 2005; Kray, 2001). Several scholars writing on modernity in contemporary PNG have pointed out similar sentiments regarding the anxieties that emerge between the ideologies, cultural logics and lifestyles of modernity, and the more relational aspects of Melanesian personhood and economy (see Banks, 2008; Bashkow, 2006; Barker, 2007; Jorgensen, 2007; Knauft, 2002; LiPuma, 1999; Robbins, 2004; Smith, 2002). In writing about

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how people in Kragur village in the East Sepik Province in the postindependence period eagerly sought social change and economic development, Smith (2002, p. 9) noted: y although villagers were often harshly self-critical, they did not seek wholesale change. They did not want to become exactly like the Australians who were leaving, or even the new Papua New Guinean elites. They wanted to change so they could fulfil familiar aspirations: to endure as a community, to be secure and prosperous, and to be able to meet other people as equals. The world taking shape around them, however, operated according to different principles than those of the village. So they were faced with a problem of how to take a respected place in that world without abandoning much of what made Kragur what it was.

Thus, while most people are responsive to change, they are often selective and creative in their responses to the social challenges of development and modernity. Like Kragur villagers, the communities documented in this volume generally do not seek wholesale change of indigenous values and social institutions, but rather want to shape their own modernity and pursue their own culturally defined goals (e.g., Boyd). As each chapter has highlighted, communities display considerable agency and are able to inflect development to forge modernities compatible with their own indigenous registers of value (see Sharp). These local practices challenge notions of development based on transforming rural communities through the establishment of individualistic market relations of production and exchange (as presumed in the theory of possessive individualism), and compels us to rethink notions of development in societies where the indigenous economy is resilient, the profit motive is attenuated, and great importance is placed on the social value of labor and exchange. Thus, the challenge for development researchers is how to conceptualise these processes at various scales, and in different places, and to identify how such concepts and concerns might be applied in development practice to better serve the needs of local communities. In the next section we consider some of the key principles that could be incorporated into development planning to make development projects more sustainable and better tailored to the needs of recipient communities.

PRINCIPLES TO IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE The rest of this chapter turns to consider the development and social policy implications of the relational aspects of local economies as they engage with

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capitalism and markets. The chapters in this volume suggest that projects and policies must pay close attention to place-based conceptions of economy and society. A theme running through many of the chapters is that insufficient attention has been paid to the social, which can cause projects to fail. Moreover, it goes without saying, as some authors in this volume have highlighted (Bainton and Macintyre; Barclay and Kinch), that international and community development practitioners should learn from previous development failures (and successes) to avoid repeatedly funding projects that are unsustainable when project support is withdrawn. This should involve practitioners and policy-makers being more cognizant of the contingent nature of development and taking greater account in project design of the effects of relational economies on project sustainability. This is necessary if we are to broaden our perspective beyond universal theories of value which often conflict with indigenous registers of value in communities where indigenous social and economic practices are strong. In this way, we can reach a more informed understanding of the constraints on the sustainability of particular types of projects in specific settings. The chapters in this volume suggest four key principles that could be taken into account in planning to improve outcomes. They are: (1) profit is not always a primary motivating force for engaging with capitalism or participating in markets; (2) the deployment of labor and the pooling of resources and capital are central to social reproduction through the formation and affirmation of social identity and relationships; (3) the capacity to participate in indigenous exchange is an important determinant of life quality and therefore should be pursued as a development objective; and (4) ensuring that the level of reinvestment of operating surplus in the enterprise is sufficient for sustainability. Each principle is discussed in the following subsections.

Profit Incentive When the people of Oceania engage with capitalism and markets the profit motive is often not present, greatly attenuated or subsumed within other nonmarket incentives (see Macintyre and Bainton; Sharp; Yang). As noted by Curry (1999, 2007), people’s engagement with the market economy as wage laborers and as proprietors or investors in village businesses is not driven solely by a desire to accumulate profits. The social dimension is extremely important, to the extent that profit and market imperatives can

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become subsumed within other imperatives such as indigenous exchange. As Imbun (2000) reported, Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine workers will ‘‘invest’’ their wages in village enterprises operated by village kin despite being aware that these enterprises are highly likely to become insolvent. Their investment behavior appears irrational from a market perspective. Similarly, loss-making village tradestores that are propped up by regular injections of hard-earned income from cash crops are difficult to comprehend from a market framework of understanding (Curry, 1999). Yet, if our conceptual framework extends to nonmarket exchange and indigenous notions of prestige and concepts of value, labels like ‘‘irrational economic behavior’’ and ‘‘market failures’’ seem inappropriate. The loss-making village store in a prominent location in the village is a source of prestige for its manager and his wider kin-group. Tradestores also provide a vehicle for performing indigenous exchange as discussed earlier. The question must be posed, then, does financial failure matter if the primary purpose of the enterprise is to generate social returns rather than profits? Assessing such enterprises in terms of solely their profitability risks devaluing alternative registers of value, which project beneficiaries value. It is important, therefore, to understand what registers of value a community will use to assess the worth of a project or enterprise.

The Deployment of Labor and the Pooling of Capital and Resources The theories of value used to frame much development research and planning often bear little relation to the value registers of project beneficiaries. This is partly because development planners bring their own values and assumptions into the design of projects which they tend to think other people must share. As Sillitoe (2006, p. 121) states with regard to labor: [t]he capitalist hierarchy depends to a large extent on the sort of work you do and, up to a certain point, the income you receive and hence your material standard of living, and there is a tendency to import these values into interpretations of arrangements elsewhere.

If there is a large gulf between project beneficiaries and development planners’ registers of value, project sustainability can be undermined. When funding ceases at the end of a project, beneficiaries may see little benefit of continued participation in the project (the flow of money has stopped) which they believe is not capable of meeting their social goals (Barclay and Kinch; Bainton and Macintyre). In extreme cases, where opting out is not possible,

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development projects may even be harmful to communities. Miller (2008) contends that the adoption of universal bottom-lines of value can marginalise the values of the host community to the extent that projects can be damaging to their welfare. Thus care must be taken in development planning not to become solely reliant on universal sources of value to assess the worth of projects. There is a need to consider indigenous notions of value that emphasise the relational dimensions of economy. In other words, we must assume that a community’s registers of value are a measure of their own sense of well-being. Finally, the pooling of capital and other resources, including labor, facilitates group identity, belonging, and well-being because of the meanings and values that people attach to such communal enterprises (see Sharp on the social embeddedness of the betel nut trade). Several chapters discussed the extent to which possessive individualism has taken hold in the communities under discussion (Boyd; Dalsgaard; McCormack; McCormack and Barclay; Mosko; Ploeg). It is evident from these chapters that many instances of apparent possessive individualism in economic behavior bear only superficial resemblance to these economic constructs, and ‘‘dividualism’’ remains central in identity formation (McCormack; McCormack and Barclay; Mosko; Ploeg). While not wishing to repeat the insightful discussion in these other chapters, suffice it to say that relational identities constituted through the performance of indigenous economic practices remain dominant, especially in rural PNG, despite some market development such as in cowrie shells (Ploeg) and betel nut (Sharp).

Indigenous Exchange and Life Quality It follows from the previous principle that the capacity to participate in indigenous exchange is a key factor determining quality of life in these societies. Participation in exchange requires resources – labor, cash, traditional wealth items, and resources like land, livestock and cash crops – as well as the knowledge and the management skills to be an effective participant. Having the resources and skills to practice exchange enables an individual or a group to meet their social and moral obligations associated with their position in the family and wider community, and to enhance their social status in relation to other individuals and groups. The important point here is that development projects should be capable of advancing these social objectives. Indeed, advancing social objectives should be a central concern in project planning. Ensuring such objectives can be met without

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undermining the sustainability of projects will facilitate ongoing and longterm support for projects because they meet the sociocultural as well as the material needs of project beneficiaries. For example, the root cause for the collapse of many of the fisheries projects documented by Barclay and Kinch was a failure to consider the social embeddedness of these projects. Projects were designed with no recognition of the host communities’ desires to use these projects to achieve social objectives. Inevitably, the assumptions underpinning the project concerning the level of engagement in a capitalist enterprise were invalid, leading to project failure.

Ensuring that the Level of Reinvestment of Operating Surplus in the Enterprise is Sufficient for Sustainability Business enterprises or development initiatives vary in their capacity to accommodate the demands of the indigenous exchange economy. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge this differential capacity and how the institutional context in which they operate can influence sustainability in project environments where the demands of the exchange economy are high. For example, as several chapters highlighted, demand sharing undermines attempts to meet business operating costs and build capital to support the long-term sustainability of the enterprise (Barclay and Kinch; Dalsgaard; Macintyre and Bainton; McCormack and Barclay; Sharp; Yang). When projects collapse, invariably, the putative beneficiaries of well-intentioned aid programmes are blamed for their failure. Given these constraints, what characteristics should be present in development initiatives to increase the likelihood that they will be sustainable on a long-term basis while generating social returns for project beneficiaries? Other things being equal, economic development initiatives that are most likely to be sustainable on a long-term basis are those able to accommodate a high proportion of the revenue generated being redirected to the indigenous exchange economy without causing the enterprise to become insolvent. Ideally, such initiatives should also be compatible with labor strategies where the social value of labor is able to be realised. In other words, these enterprises should be able to tolerate high levels of social embeddedness. Examples of such projects include cash crop development that does not require a high proportion of revenue to be reinvested to sustain the enterprise. While yields may be sub-optimal from a profit perspective because of low levels of investment in farm inputs like pesticides, fertilisers,

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and capital equipment, the social returns can be high over an extended period while almost all revenue is redirected to the indigenous exchange economy. Cocoa fermentaries in PNG are an example. Running costs are low and they require little maintenance which can generally be carried out by villagers themselves at relatively low cost. Even if fermentary owners were to dissipate all their profits through gift exchange for a prolonged period, the business would remain viable indefinitely, although eventually dry bean quality would decline because of smoke taint as kiln pipes rusted out and were not replaced. Very importantly, cocoa fermentaries, like cash crops, lend themselves to communal production practices through sharing of the asset or the gifting of labor. Members of social and kinship networks can be gifted temporary access rights to use the asset – the fermentary or a stand of cocoa – without the long-term viability of the asset being eroded. Conversely, some types of projects or businesses are at risk of insolvency if they become fully enmeshed in exchange networks. Typically, these are enterprises requiring regular reinvestment in stock to sustain them. To succeed in a market sense, a high proportion of the surplus generated must be retained for reinvestment in the business. Village tradestores and livestock businesses are examples of enterprises that can, from a market perspective, be undermined by the social economy. Potential profit margins are already low, so stock redirected to the gift economy (or becomes a gift because credit for goods is not repaid) heightens the risk of insolvency. Similarly, transport businesses, vehicle repair workshops, and enterprises requiring substantial commercial bank loans for their establishment are typical examples. A significant proportion of their revenue must be expended on fuel, machinery, tools, spare parts, lubricants, and loan repayments thus limiting the surplus that can be redirected to the indigenous exchange economy. Unless a sufficient portion of their operating surplus can be quarantined from the indigenous exchange economy they are very vulnerable to insolvency (see Bainton and Macintyre). While certain types of development initiatives or business enterprises are more susceptible than others to insolvency due to the demands of the indigenous exchange economy, much can be done to make them more sustainable in terms of profits. A range of internal and external factors affect sustainability. For example, a tradestore located on a public road at the boundary of a village is much more likely to be patronised by ‘‘outsiders’’ who are not part of the village exchange network of the tradestore manager than one in the center of a village. The tradestore operator is thus under less pressure to give store goods as gifts to outsiders, and will be less likely to sell goods on credit. Similarly, on Lihir successful store owners were those who

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employed workers and managers from outside their kinship group who were more able to resist the demands of the store owner’s relatives (Bainton and Macintryre). The net profits from the enterprises, after provision for new stock and other costs, can therefore be fully disbursed by the store owner through exchange networks without the profitability of the business being undermined. Partnerships with the private sector may assist the sustainability of local business enterprises, although this is certainly not guaranteed, as illustrated by Macintyre and Bainton. Oil palm in PNG provides a good example of how industry support can make a smallholder enterprise viable. It is the most capital intensive of all the export cash crops in PNG and requires roads, transport, mill, and port infrastructure. It also requires significant capital outlays for its establishment and replanting after 20 years of production. It appears to have characteristics that make it unsuitable as a smallholder cash crop. Yet, despite these appearances, the smallholder oil palm sector has been very successful because of the institutional support it receives from the large multinational milling companies. If the crop were managed entirely by smallholders, it is unlikely that it would have achieved its present success. The companies provide extension advice, interest-free credit for farm inputs, and transport services to bring smallholder fruit to the mills and milling capacity (see also Bainton and Macintyre on mining company support for landowner businesses). Loans for the costs of inputs are deducted from growers’ gross incomes. In this way, part of the income from oil palm is isolated from the demands of the gift economy to meet operating costs. Oil palm companies have also been encouraging private contractors to transport smallholder fruit to the mill. To assist contractors obtain trucks, the companies have negotiated bank loans on behalf of these entrepreneurs at favorable rates (they can guarantee loan repayment) and deducted loan repayment instalments on behalf of the banks. They have also made provision for vehicle maintenance and repairs through deductions from their payments to contractors. These companies have ensured the viability of their contractors by isolating a component of the operating surplus from the demands of the indigenous exchange economy. If the milling companies were to limit their relationships with transport contractors to buying fruit from them delivered to the mill gates, it is doubtful whether these businesses would have survived. Like the out-of-service fishing boats described by Barclay and Kinch, contractors’ trucks would have been off the road for much of the time because of their inability to fund maintenance costs.

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CONCLUSION So, what are the implications for development practice and how can development initiatives take account of indigenous economies? We can conclude that the chances of implementing more successful development projects must begin by acknowledging the resilience of indigenous economies. Development agencies should strive to understand how production, distribution, and consumption can best accommodate indigenous systems of labor and exchange and indigenous registers of value. The pooling of labor by kinship groups facilitates group identity and well-being as does the distribution of surplus through exchange. This suggests that for agents of development, whether state or NGO-managed or private companies working with communities, there are opportunities to work within a relational economy to generate social returns while putting in place measures to promote sustainability (see Horan). This could involve, as noted above, introducing mechanisms to isolate a sufficient portion of the operating surplus from the demands of the gift economy for reinvestment in the enterprise. However, as indicated in this book, care must be taken with such processes to ensure particular groups are not marginalised in the process (Bainton and Macintyre; McCormack; Van Meijl). In addition, greater consideration by donors and policy-makers must be taken of the types of income generating projects they seek to support in terms of how they will be embedded in local place-based practices of exchange. While projects may run successfully during the funding phase, their long-term viability can be eroded by the demands of the gift economy by excessive gift exchange (insufficient funds are retained for reinvestment), loss of community support when social returns are perceived to be too low, or they are seen to create wealth inequalities in the community. In cases where donor support is limited in time and funding, it would be more appropriate to support projects that have a greater probability of remaining viable despite a high proportion of the surplus being redirected to the social economy. For example, cash crops and cocoa fermentaries are more likely to be sustainable than village-based motor repair workshops. Even when most of the operating surplus is redirected to indigenous exchange, these types of businesses can operate indefinitely. As a final comment, while many of the critiques of modernisation and universal theories of development, more generally, have rightly criticised the Eurocentrism and assumptions underpinning much of development thinking and practice, they have been less forthcoming about how these problems can be addressed. One way forward is to begin to focus on the nonmarket

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economic relations associated with gift exchange and the social embeddedness of economies. By emphasising the social dimensions of economy, development strategies that seek to strengthen the engagement with capitalism should strive to identify and enhance opportunities for the inflection of market economic relationships and practices to better align development efforts with indigenous sociocultural meanings of development. This would mean, for example, working with communities to identify economic alternatives that enhance the quality of life in indigenously defined ways.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Nicholas A. Bainton is currently the Principal Advisor Social Responsibility for Newcrest Mining Ltd at the Lihir gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Nick manages the social impact monitoring program, and the community development and cultural heritage management programs for the Lihir operation. Nick holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Melbourne, and between 2007 and 2010 he was a research fellow in the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland. He is a honorary research fellow with the Centre and with the School of Social Sciences at The University of Queensland. Nick continues to research and publish on the social and economic impacts and changes associated with large-scale resource development in Melanesia. He has recently published a book on his earlier work in Lihir called The Lihir destiny: cultural responses to mining in Melanesia (ANU ePress, 2010). Kate Barclay researches the social aspects of the production of and trade in food, especially fisheries in the Asia Pacific region. One current research interest is the sustainable development of tuna resources in the Pacific island in the context of changing governance systems and globalization, especially the opportunities and pitfalls presented by ‘‘ethical consumption.’’ Another interest is how to meaningfully integrate social factors into assessments of sustainability in fisheries. She has published in journals including Critical Asian Studies, Japan Forum, Nations and Nationalism, The Contemporary Pacific, and Marine Policy. Her books include Foreign bodies in tinned tuna (Routledge, 2008) and Capturing wealth from tuna (ANU ePress, 2007). Kate teaches in the International Studies program at the University of Technology Sydney. David J. Boyd is an emeritus associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1975, and has conducted intermittent research in the highlands of Papua New Guinea since 1970. His research interests include political ecology, horticultural subsistence systems, and the process

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of transformation as subsistence-oriented, exchange-based societies engage with monetized, market-dominated socioeconomies. George N. Curry is professor of geography at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. His research and teaching interests are in sustainability in the broad area of rural development in the developing world. Most of his recent research has been in Papua New Guinea examining sociocultural and economic changes associated with the transition to a market economy through the adoption of export cash crops. Steffen Dalsgaard is a postdoctoral fellow at the Demtech Project at the IT University of Copenhagen. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and ethnography from Aarhus University, Denmark. Since 2002 he has worked in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea, specializing in state formation and political leadership with particular focus on tradition, exchange, and elections. He is currently working on a number of projects focusing on the state and democracy, and on the introduction of carbon as a form of value. Jane Horan is a professional teaching fellow in anthropology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She completed her Ph.D. in 2012 on the production and use of tivaivai in what constitutes the Cook Islands ceremonial economy in New Zealand, Australia, and the Cook Islands. Her research interests include the anthropology of value, gift exchange, and development. Jeff Kinch completed his anthropology Ph.D. fieldwork on marine resource use and access arrangements in the Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 1999. After implementing the United Nations’ ‘‘Milne Bay Community-based Coastal and Marine Conservation Program’’ for three years, he moved to Fiji in 2003 to work as a community development specialist with the Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific International, focusing on the ornamental aquarium trade. In 2004, Jeff returned back to PNG to work as the coastal fisheries advisor with the University of Papua New Guinea, providing technical assistance to the European Union’s ‘‘Rural Coastal Fisheries Development Project,’’ the Asian Development Bank’s ‘‘Coastal Fisheries Management and Development Project,’’ and the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council. In 2006, Jeff freelanced and acquired an extensive knowledge of coastal livelihood strategies throughout the Pacific, broadening his skills in socioeconomic and environmental impact assessments, analysis of market

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chains, and more recently, issues surrounding climate change impacts for coastal and island communities. Jeff has also conducted several project evaluations and research programs for government, nongovernment Organizations, and regional agencies in the Pacific. From 2008 to 2010, Jeff was employed as the coastal management advisor with the secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, based in Samoa; before returning back to PNG to take up his current position with the PNG National Fisheries Authority as the principal of the National Fisheries College, as well as overseeing the Nago Island Mariculture and Research Facility in the New Ireland Province. Gina Koczberski is a senior research fellow at Curtin University. Her research interests are in sustainability in the areas of migrant and smallholder livelihood practices, socioeconomic change, and rural development in PNG. She is involved in several research projects examining socioeconomic change in smallholder oil palm and cocoa production with an emphasis on how changing demographic, economic, and social circumstances influence household relations of production and strategies of commodity crop production. Martha Macintyre is a honorary associate professor in anthropology at the University of Melbourne and editor of The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Her research has concentrated on gender and social changes associated with resource extractive industries in Melanesia. She has worked also as a consultant since 1986, preparing social impact reports on two major PNG gold mining projects – Misima and Lihir. Her publications include: Lahiri-Dutt, K. and Macintyre, M. (Eds.). (2006). Women miners in developing countries: Pit women and others. Ashgate, Abington, UK, and Patterson, M. and Macintyre, M. (Eds.). (2011). Managing modernity in the Western Pacific. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Fiona McCormack is a lecturer of anthropology at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Research interests include the development of Maori fisheries in the context of the reparation of indigenous claims, property and exchange, the articulation of indigeneity and neoliberalism, and, more recently, small-scale subsistence fishing in Hawai’i. Mark S. Mosko is Professor of Anthropology in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Four years of ethnographic fieldwork among the North Mekeo of Papua New Guinea involving 13

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fieldtrips over four decades has enabled him to document numerous aspects of the traditional culture and social organization and their historical transformations. He has authored Quadripartite structures (1985) and coedited Transformations of hierarchy (1994) and On the order of chaos (2005). In 2008, his essay, ‘‘Partible Penitents: Dividual personhood and Christian practice in Melanesia and the West,’’ was awarded the Curl Prize by the Royal Anthropological Institute. His current research interests include personhood, agency, chieftainship, commodification, and Christian conversion among Trobriand Islanders as well as North Mekeo involving conceptual modifications of the ‘‘New Melanesian Ethnography’’ for the sake of enhancing understandings of Melanesian social change. Anton Ploeg is a Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has done field research in both Papua and Papua New Guinea. Currently he is engaged on a comparative study of social and cultural formations among highlanders in Papua at the eve of the colonial era. Timothy L. M. Sharp is a human geographer in the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. His doctoral research is on the social construction of the highland betel nut trade in Papua New Guinea. His current research interests include livelihoods, trade and marketplaces, food security and natural resource development in Melanesia. Toon van Meijl studied social anthropology and philosophy at the University of Nijmegen and at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1991. Since 1982 he has conducted thirty-three months of ethnographic fieldwork among the Tainui Maori in New Zealand. Currently he is a professor of anthropology and head of the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. He is also academic secretary of the interdisciplinary Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies at Nijmegen and chair of the European Society for Oceanists. He has published widely on issues of cultural identity and the self and on sociopolitical questions emerging from the debate about property rights of indigenous peoples. Shu-Yuan Yang is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of

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Anthropology, London School of Economics, in 2001. She has extensive fieldwork experiences, and conducted research among the Bunun, an Austronesian-speaking indigenous people of Taiwan, and the Bugkalot (Ilongot) of Northern Philippines. Her research interests include kinship and personhood, Christianity, sociocultural change, historical memory, cultural politics, and state-minority relations.