We present demographic, social, historical and ecological data to challenge the generalization that traditional tenure and fishing taboos constitute cultural adaptations that evolved to prevent over‐harvesting of subsistence fisheries in the Pacific. In particular, we re‐examine the seminal and widely cited arguments of Johannes (Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1978; 9, 349–364), which constructed tenure and taboos primarily as traditional fishery management tools for the entire Pacific region. While it is difficult to disprove Johannes’ logic for some sites, particularly in formerly densely populated parts of Polynesia and Micronesia, our review of data and literature for Melanesia indicate very different origins and functions for these institutions. Our study shows that human population densities in most of the Western Pacific prior to European colonial intrusions were too low to have generated sufficient fishing pressure to drive the evolution of a conservation ethic. Our review for Melanesia shows that customary marine tenure and fishing taboos are primarily designed to manage relationships between social groups, rather than to sustain food security from fisheries. We argue that proper recognition of the cultural role of tenure and taboos is critical to progressing marine resource management in Melanesia.

A growing volume of recent research on small-scale fisheries governance has a focus on local perspectives and priorities of small-scale fisherfolk. This paper develops from this local perspective a novel focus on what is a fundamental priority of many small-scale fishers: concerns about inequality. The paper begins with a critical review of the literature on small-scale fisheries governance and suggests how a focus on inequality can make a useful contribution. The paper uses case-studies of small-scale fisheries in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Philippines to highlight local priorities about inequality and the implications for small-scale fisheries governance. PNG and the Philippines have very different social, political and environmental contexts, yet in both cases, local inequalities were a key pre-occupation of fisherfolk and posed major challenges for fisheries governance. While in both of the case-studies, fishers were aware of and keen to act on resource sustainability, this concern was overridden by concerns over: who obtained benefits from the fishery; who was responsible for resource degradation; and who should bear the costs of regulation. We conclude by discussing how our emphasis on the importance of inequality at a local level can potentially be integrated within many influential approaches to small-scale fisheries governance.

The image of the ‘man with a gun’ is pervasive in Papua New Guinea and connotes not only the state's capacity to use force, but that of men to resist and subvert state control. At the same time, the association of beer and marijuana with both modernity and violent masculine behaviours provides the context, the justification and the forms of homosocial activities involving violence. In this paper, I explore the ambiguities surrounding guns as instruments of state force and as symbols of masculine autonomy in so‐called ‘weak states’ by examining some stories about the ways that guns are acquired for illegal activities. In particular, I shall discuss the ways that guns and beer are instruments of violence and potency for police, tribal warriors and criminals as well as some of the means whereby men gain access to new forms of power. Drawing on ethnographic research with young men in New Ireland Province, the paper will deal specifically with the ways that adolescent boys construe ‘modern masculinity’.

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In this paper, we draw on fieldwork with middle‐class investors in ‘fast money schemes’ (Ponzi scams) to consider how Neo‐Pentecostal Christianity may be mediating social and economic change in Papua New Guinea, particularly in relation to gender equality. Ideas of companionate marriage and the cultivation of an affective self imply masculinities that are more sensitive and less domineering. As these images of fulfilled modernity flow out from Pentecostal churches into broader Papua New Guinean society, they corroborate Taylor's theory of how change occurs within the modern social imaginary.