Markets and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Some Comparative and Historical Comments

Gregory, Chris

doi:10.1002/ocea.5223

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…As Busse (2019) argues, in some instances Papua New Guineans have transformed marketplaces, ostensibly the locus par excellence of commodity exchange, by their continued emphasis on food as not completely alienable and not an object that could belong to anyone. In emphasising the origins of food in land and labour (what Polanyi called ‘fictitious commodities’; see also Gregory 2019), they also emphasise the importance of social relationships of production and forms of relational personhood that are rooted in relationships to land and work. For analysts, PNG marketplaces confound our analytic categories.…”

Section: Transactions Morality and Marketplacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Think, when we buy it, untie and retie [the bundles into smaller bundles], sell them, and a customer buys these, we have sinned. We are sinning.While producers in some areas like being able to quickly dispose of their produce, without the need to spend the whole day sitting in the marketplace, making money by re‐bundling and reselling greens goes against ideas of what constitutes a fair price (see Gregory 2019), which in turn is often linked to what types of activity are considered to be work, as Busse's paper in this special issue illustrates.…”

Section: Transactions Morality and Marketplacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The marketplaces in this volume are not spatial manifestations of market models promulgated by economists. Instead, they remind us of the dangers of thinking that the abstract gives rise to the concrete rather than the other way around (Gregory 2019), or that just because one sees a marketplace does not mean that it is a market in the abstract sense that economists use that term (Busse 2019). While marketplaces are places of trade, trade is only part of what goes on in marketplaces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Melanesian ethnography's emphasis on gift exchange has often obscured the presence and role of trade (Carrier ; Gell ; Gregory 2019; Healey ). For instance, far more is known of the Trobriand kula prestations than the more mundane gimwali barter exchanges that accompany the kula (Keesing and Strathern ; cf .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea: Place, Personhood and Exchange

Busse

Sharp

2019

Oceania

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In Papua New Guinea (PNG) more rural people, and especially rural women, earn cash from selling in marketplaces than from any other source. PNG's marketplaces are critical for food security, and for the redistribution of wealth. They are also important meeting places where people gather to see friends, hear the latest news, attend court cases, play cards and be entertained. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Marketplaces and Morality in Papua New Guinea’ reviews the history of PNG marketplaces and their contemporary forms. It charts their transformation from introduced colonial spaces into dynamic Melanesian places, which, as places to buy, sell and socialise, have become pervasive institutions in the lives of both urban and rural Papua New Guineans, and places where people interact with both known and unknown others. From this, marketplaces emerge as important spaces of moral evaluation and contestation in relation to what constitutes morally acceptable exchange and what practices are acceptable in these places. The paper demonstrates that exchange in the marketplace should not be reduced to commodity transactions, and questions assumptions about the types of people marketplaces create. It argues that the country's marketplaces are productive sites to consider ideas of exchange, social relations and social personhood, and that there is a critical need to understand the concrete details of what takes place in contemporary marketplaces.

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Section: Transactions Morality and Marketplacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transactions Morality and Marketplacesmentioning

confidence: 99%