‘Two different worlds’: Papua New Guinean women working in development in Port Moresby

Abstract

This article examines the lives of Port Moresby women who work in the development sector of Papua New Guinea. In particular, it demonstrates how development discourse structures the very fabric of working relationships within this sector in Port Moresby. Underpinned by neocolonial geographies in which those in the global north rescue those in the global south, these discourses produce workplaces in which Papua New Guinean women are seen as lacking the moral and technical capacities to run development projects in their own country. The article argues that the privileges held by expatriates and denied to local women, in conjunction with the workplace discrimination to which they are subjected, ironically undermine the development sector's supposed commitment to promoting gender equality in Papua New Guinea.

Australian aid in Papua New Guinea: Men’s views on pay disparities, power imbalances and written products in the development sector

“…The findings we present extend previous research conducted by the second author which was focused on women working in development in Port Moresby (Spark, 2020b). We explore the views of men in this article because while they might express these opinions in informal conversations over drinks or messaging platforms they have not been formally documented.…”

“…The men with whom we spoke discussed the problems associated with expatriates who fly in from elsewhere to ‘deliver their expertise’, echoing comments made to Spark (2020b). We are part of this system and benefit from it.…”

“…Our work augments the limited explorations of men and masculinity in PNG, most of which have tended to focus either on ‘traditional’ notions of masculinity as is the case in much historical and anthropological literature, or on representations of ‘troubled’ masculinity as associated with urban life (see Macintyre, 2008). In addition, where the women highlighted the ways in which the equity and development goals espoused by aid agencies are undermined by the everyday interactions and practices that characterise the pursuit of these goals, the research presented here broadens these (Spark, 2020a, 2020b) findings and presents the perspectives of expatriates working a rung higher up the aid chain. As Roberts and Lamp (2021, forthcoming) write ‘when dealing with complex and contested issues … considering multiple narratives in a structured way allows us to be conscious of how our approach fits within the broader scheme, and what others might be seeing and valuing that we might be missing’.…”

“…Salary gaps are exacerbated further when one contrasts the different packages in terms of benefits like accommodation, insurance, and a vehicle 4 . Some locally engaged staff do receive some housing subsidy as part of their salary package, but this is of a more minor order and insufficient to cover the cost of renting in an inflated housing market (Spark, 2020b). In a semi‐annual survey (ECA International), Port Moresby ranks as the 11th most expensive city to live in the world, with accommodation costs comfortably on a par with Australian cities.…”

Inequalities of Aspiration: Class, Cargo and the Moral Economy of Development in Papua New Guinea

“…However, this experience also points to a practice where villagers learn to secondguess these self-appointed catalysts of development; therefore, it reflects the same kinds of relationships that characterise political patronage in Melanesia (Cox, 2009). These dynamics closely parallel the racialised and gendered hierarchies that Papua New Guineans, especially women, experience in working with Australian and other international aid programs (Spark, 2020).…”