‘There’s Nothing Better than Land’: A Migrant Group’s Strategies for Accessing Informal Settlement Land in Port Moresby

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back: The Mobilisation of Customary Land in Papua New Guinea

“…In some circumstances, the buyers or tenants cannot be sure that what they have purchased or rented is in fact customary land, and if it is, whether it has not already been informally sold or leased to someone else (Chand and Yala 2008;Rooney 2017). In the absence of legal contracts, the buyers or tenants are unable to secure bank loans for building purposes, but they also have an incentive to invest in the bribery of government officials in order to obtain the land titles to which they are not entitled.…”

Rubbish sick and the dancing devil

“…While the majority of communities are concentrated in rural villages with an emphasis on small‐scale subsistence agriculture and cash cropping, there is also a rapid growth of urban and periurban populations and lifestyles. In the capital city of Port Vila, where economic class distinctions are also often pronounced, this diversity is especially felt in the poorer, densely populated and architecturally less permanent “settlements.” While reflecting a sense of urban anxiety prevalent throughout Melanesia (Lindstrom, 2011, p. 263; Nayahamui Rooney, 2017), including from the linked dangers of physical conflict and sorcery attack (Mitchell, 2011; Rio, 2011; Taylor, 2015), for some residents these eclectically “mixed” neighborhoods also form a refuge from the demands and jealousies that are sometimes seen as the onerous flipside of being closely enmeshed in a community of extended kin. The immediate locality of David's renthouse was one such place, as evident in the relatively small group of guests who had gathered, approximately half of whom comprised fellow North Pentecost Islanders, along with close friends and neighbors from other island locations.…”

The Problem of the Semi-Alienable Anthropologist

“…For a long time, it was widely held that homelessness was a not a problem in the Western Pacific-that it was structurally and socially impossible in these countries where everyone could either claim some customary connection to a 'place' or rely upon social relations for support or the so-called 'wantok system'. While anthropologists have long documented the challenges faced by rural migrants in urban centres (Levine & Levine, 1979;Strathern, 1975) and the social relations of informal urban 'settlements' (Goddard, 2005;Hukula, 2015;Rooney, 2017;, the issue of homelessness has evaded sustained anthropological attention and generally only been observed in passing. However, rising homelessness in cities such as Port Moresby must be understood as a critical index of extreme inequality and broader socioeconomic shifts.…”