Baias, Bisnis, and Betel Nut: The place of Traders in the Making of a Melanesian Market

Sharp, Timothy L. M.

doi:10.1108/s0190-1281(2013)0000033011

Cited by 16 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The betel nut trade is full of discrete and anonymous transactions, of short‐term self‐interested relationships in which the main purpose is to obtain as much betel nut as possible for the least amount of money. Furthermore, those involved in the betel nut trade, in a local articulation of supply and demand economics, routinely foreground the relationship between things (rather than people) by characterising the marketplace as either oversupplied ( pulap , bam ) or undersupplied ( sot ), features that are seen as the primary basis for fluctuations in price, although not necessarily determining the price any individual might pay (Sharp ) . My intention, instead, is to emphasise aspects of betel nut transactions that would more commonly be associated with gift exchange than with trade.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade's Value: Relational Transactions in the Papua New Guinea Betel Nut Trade

Sharp

2016

Oceania

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The betel nut trade in Papua New Guinea is big business. Betel nut, a mild indigenous stimulant, is considered the ‘green gold of the grassroots’. It is the country's most significant domestic cash crop and, in terms of rural incomes, a rival to the dominant export cash crops. Its sale is an important livelihood strategy in both rural and urban areas, the most visible manifestation of a flourishing informal economy. In betel nut marketplaces money ‘flows’ and ‘overflows’, traders wield large wads of cash, and vast sums change hands. Whether seeking their fortunes or only tinned fish, people trade betel nut first and foremost to make money, but such interests in trade do not automatically displace other forms of value. This paper is concerned with marketplaces and trade in contemporary Papua New Guinea and what is conveyed in those transactions between buyer and seller. Against the often impersonal and utilitarian rendering of trade, this paper seeks to foreground the sociability of trade and the multiple forms of value that may be simultaneously attached to monetised market transactions. This is not to conceal the discrete, unenduring, and competitive dynamics of trade, which prominently feature in many betel nut transactions, but instead to examine an important dynamic often overlooked. Market transactions, far from being asocial, or even socially destructive, have the capacity to generate and sustain diverse social relations including those of kinship and friendship.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade's Value: Relational Transactions in the Papua New Guinea Betel Nut Trade

Sharp

2016

Oceania

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“…This legal stimulant, which is consumed widely throughout PNG, is widely considered the 'green gold' of the grassroots (Sharp 2013a). The sale of betel nut, which evades taxation, 4 is among the most important livelihood activities for Papua New Guineans, contributing to the incomes of around a third of rural households and a quarter of urban households (NSO 2003).…”

Section: Diversified Investmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By employing family members, making decisions about the direction of their businesses, and sharing the income generated from these businesses, they are gaining a degree of prestige and influence that has previously eluded women in the highlands (cf. Curry and Koczberski 2013;Sharp 2013a). No longer meri nating (just a woman), some become women of substance in the eyes of their husbands and others.…”

Section: 'I Want To Eat Steak': Aspiration and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time that betel nut traders and vendors assert themselves as commensurate with educated people and wage earners, they also reinforce that they remain fundamentally grassroots. Although trading betel nut has emerged as a new arena of competition between men in Hagen, few traders see themselves attaining any significant social status through trading betel nut per se (Sharp 2013a). 'I have no education; I just stayed at home ...…”

Section: Betel Nut Class and Aspirationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In business, profit is clearly not the sole objective (Curry 2005;Sharp 2013a). Although doing business in PNG has been foremost a male concern, in Goroka, the capital of PNG's Eastern Highlands, women are similarly embracing enterprise and the opportunities it offers, to engage in relationships of obligation and reciprocity from a new and seemingly more efficacious position.…”

Section: From Wages To Kai Bars and Meri Blouses: Women's Entrepreneumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Transforming communicative spaces: the rhythm of gender in meetings in rural Solomon Islands

Dyer¹

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Market update: Sixty years of change in Papua New Guineaʼs fresh food marketplaces

Sharp

Busse

Bourke

2022

Asia & Pacific Policy Stud

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Open‐air marketplaces are vital to food security, livelihoods, and the national economy in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Over the past 60 years, rapid growth of urban populations, changes in global commodity prices, and the decline in value of the PNG currency have stimulated demand for domestic fresh food. Selling fresh food in marketplaces has also become an attractive way to earn money for rural producers, whose returns on labour on their export crops have declined, and for urban residents struggling to make a living. This in turn has led to significant changes in PNGʼs marketplaces: spatial and temporal changes, changes in what is bought and sold, changes in who is selling, and changes in how food is transacted. In this paper, we bring together research on PNGʼs marketplaces from between 1961 and 2022 to document these changes and their causes, alongside important continuities, and to examine the implications and substantial gaps in our knowledge.

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Baias, Bisnis, and Betel Nut: The place of Traders in the Making of a Melanesian Market

Cited by 16 publications

References 24 publications

Trade's Value: Relational Transactions in the Papua New Guinea Betel Nut Trade

Trade's Value: Relational Transactions in the Papua New Guinea Betel Nut Trade

Transforming communicative spaces: the rhythm of gender in meetings in rural Solomon Islands

Market update: Sixty years of change in Papua New Guineaʼs fresh food marketplaces

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