Roads to Inequality: Infrastructure and Historically Grown Regional Differences in the Markham Valley, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Roads are one of the most salient symbols of development and modernity for rural citizens of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Multinational corporations, members of parliament, and villagers frequently point to roads as a key to development. However, while roads routinely improve the incomes of those connected, many of their effects are far less scrutable. Here, we examine the economic and social consequences of two roads, the Wau-Bulolo Highway and Highlands Highway, for two villages in PNG's Morobe Province, and consider the processes that make their outcomes so different. Tracing the history of the two highways and considering a contrasting pair of case-studies, we explore how roads simultaneously bolster income and drive interregional economic divergence. We demonstrate how the spatial and historical contexts the Highways run through, coupled with the relationships of patronage and dependence they rely on, produce contingent social outcomes and shape local ambivalence towards the outcomes of roads.

‘Em i Stap Bilong En Yet’: Not‑Sharing, Social Inequalities and Changing Ethical Life Among Wampar

“…I suggest that the social inequalities developing under increasing capital investment linked to international markets and spreading global consumerism in the Markham Valley are one reason among others for the changes in social relations described. Emerging social hierarchies are also based on colonial and mission history, as well as the geography of economic differences related to the proximity to the Highlands Highway (Beer and Church 2019) and Lae city, with their markets and locally circulating capital. The village of Gabsongkeg has a prominent position related to all these conditions: it was closest to the former mission station, to the Lae city airport and one of the biggest highway markets on the way to the highlands.…”

“…Growing economic inequality, increased consumption of industrial products, and the conspicuous presence of global capital is hard to miss in the coastal area around Lae, PNG's second city, which has been exposed to colonial and missionary presence for a century (Fischer 1992;Beer and Church 2019). Early ethnography (Fischer 1975) indicates that social relations among Wampar at that time could be characterised as emphasising equivalence in a Burridgean sense (Burridge 1969;Knauft 2007).…”

‘Clan’ and ‘Family’: Transformations of Sociality among the Wampar, Papua New Guinea

“…For further ethnographic detail on the area and different Wampar villages, see [2,5,[43][44][45][46]66,[81][82][83]. The considerations presented here are part of a comparative longitudinal ethnography of international capital and local inequality among the Wampar in the Markham Valley.…”

Intermediary trading and the transformation of marketplaces in Papua New Guinea

“…And, conversely, negative views towards migrants reinforce that reselling is a morally dubious activity (cf. Beer, 2008, p. 109;Beer & Church, 2019).…”