It is nearly half a century from the wave of decolonisation and national independence that swept across the Pacific in the 1970s and early 1980s. Yet despite this, as across the rest of the world, issues of what can be considered appropriate dependence and independence are far from settled. From the achievement of political independence across much of Oceania onwards, debate raged as to whether or

This article discusses concepts of self-government, dependence and independence in the light of Tokelau and New Zealand practices. Kin-based forms of mutual dependence are compared with the demands for specific forms of self-governance practiced by the New Zealand administration. Tensions of value have emerged between village based political leadership, and the public servants of the administrative

This article explores notions of interpersonal dependence and personal independence voiced by university students, graduates, and staff in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It discusses how those obtaining a university education to become regular wage earners reflect on navigating the financial requests of less privileged kin. Wage earners often ascribe dependence to these kin and former sponsors who subsequently

This paper explores ascriptions of dependence and independence in Māori marine environments alongside the entrenchment of colonial constructions of hierarchical kinship organisation. The modelling of independence on liberal understandings of individualism is apparent in the development of the Treaty of Waitangi settlement of Māori commercial fisheries, wherein attributes of self-reliance enabled through

Asmat social worlds are permeated with multiple forms of dependency. In this paper, I ask how different modalities of dependency inter-relate within the space and time of Asmat life, and how this is being reshaped by Asmat's increasing incorporation within broader structural orders during a period of national decentralisation. First, I describe how relations of dependency shape everyday life, through

This article discusses how dependency's antonym, ‘self-reliance’ expresses and shapes aspirations for development, and ideas about citizenship in Vanuatu. This ‘keyword’ was popularized in the process of decolonization and nation-building in Vanuatu, and influenced by Dependency Theory, Pan-Africanism, Black Internationalism, and trans-Pacific visions of decolonization and development. But vernacular

Building on Ferguson's account of ‘declarations of dependence’ and prior Melanesianist work on ‘humiliation’, I examine how enthusiasm for state-formation among Korowai of Papua has been shaped by their understandings of self-lowering as a politically complex way of influencing kin and equalizing relations. I begin with media firestorms in Australia and urban Papua about the need to save two vulnerable

This paper examines how the new material value of land in postcolonial Vanuatu intensifies people's shaping and re-shaping of claims to autonomy and dependence. Ahamb, like many other villages in Melanesia, originated as a mission community with people moving in from various original homelands. The mix of people from different places facilitated new kinship bonds and senses of community. However, it

In this article, I look at the ways in which a number of forms of providing for a livelihood have increased in importance in the region in this period and explore the ways in which they have created the possibility for new ascriptions of dependence and independence. I explore these issue with particular reference to Tolai people of Papua New Guinea's East New Britain province, where the wealth of ethnographic

This article discusses the two terms that convey the concept of taboo in Raga, the language of north‐central Vanuatu originally spoken in north Pentecost, and provides linguistic evidence expanding on the information published previously by the anthropologists Masanori Yoshioka and John Patrick Taylor. Based on the corpus collected in north Pentecost in the period 2015–2017, and on older ethnographic

This article examines a tension at the heart of national leadership in Solomon Islands today: a conviction that national leaders need to spend more time in rural environments to better represent rural interests, needs and values, while having to be in town to access the individuals and organizations that, essentially, make them national leaders in the first place. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic

Between 2012 and 2019, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, hosted Australia's offshore detention centre for asylum seekers and refugees, known as the Regional Processing Centre (RPC). This paper analyses some of the social impacts of the RPC on Lorengau town, the urban centre of Manus, through the analytical lens of the Manus idiom, as basket (Tok Pisin). Materially this refers to the everyday Manus basket

In Dean (2020), the Author Biography section was omitted. The text is given below: Mohseen Riaz Ud Dean is currently working with the UNDP Accelerator Lab, Pacific office based in Suva, Fiji, as Head of Community Research and Ethnographic Solutions Mapping. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Waikato in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Mohseen’s cross‐disciplinary PhD thesis drew upon the agronomic

Charles Elliot Fox (1878–1977) was one of the Anglican Melanesian Mission's most emblematic figures, extending its reputation for scholarship and respect for Pacific traditions. Uniquely among the Mission's European figures, however, Fox is also credited with exceptional powers (mana). Based on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork among the Arosi (Makira, Solomon Islands), I argue that Fox's

The Oceanic region sustains the lowest number of coronavirus infections worldwide, with Pacific Island Countries and Territories registering 3,057 COVID‐19 cases as of 8 September 2020, Australia counting 26,651 and Aotearoa/New Zealand 1,797—a small fraction of the 28,789.698 reported cases across the globe (but disregarding the 260,000 cases in the Philippines not covered here). Yet as the reports

As COVID‐19 began to spread across Malaysia in early‐2020, Jesus began to materialize with increasing frequency on my Facebook feed. A familiar figure with light skin, beard, long hair, and flowing robes, He appeared in many classic poses: praying, healing the sick, carrying a cross, crucified. Overlaid onto these images, however, were references to a disease that we have only recently come to know:

1 INTRODUCTION For Asmat people in Indonesian Papua—hunter gatherers who live in and around approximately 220 village settlements in the mangrove swamps of Papua's coastal and lowland southwest—the spatio‐temporal organization of social co‐presence is a key problematic of everyday life. In a social world in which kin groups often disperse themselves across the riverine environment in which they live

Madang Art Maniacs (MAM) is a team of more than 40 young artists and volunteers who live in the area around Madang, the administrative centre of Madang Province, on the north coast of mainland Papua New Guinea. Founded in December 2019 at the initiative of Robert Banasi, MAM initially consisted of a small group of graduates in Creative Arts at the University of Papua New Guinea who came together to

Masks have always been important aspects of Papua New Guinean societies—be it in terms of their ceremonial uses in singsings (traditional dances or festivals) or in the more tourist‐oriented festivals happening today. All regions of Papua New Guinea had different types of masks, from whole‐body masks to very small ones. Each served different kinds of purposes. For instance, masks were used to entertain

May 2020. I've spent isolation in Sydney, teaching anthropology units online and home‐schooling two children. I offer here a set of personal observations from a vantage point never more limited in this anti‐ethnographic moment. I begin in the home and radiate outwards to the suburb, its edges, and beyond—to the permeable border and the nation state's next door.

1 STORIES Let me tell you a story. But before I do that, let me tell you why stories are important. You see, stories frame our beliefs, understandings, and relationships with each other and the world around us. Our existence is layered with personal and collective stories. Our personal stories are woven with those of others, making it impossible to have a truly individual story—our lives are interwoven

Iọkwe, I'm one of the many poultry workers that haven't been paid. I've worked at Ozark [a poultry factory] in Fayetteville for six months now. Last month, I was feeling sick and coughing so I went to get tested. The results came back positive. I have quarantined since. I haven't gone back to work because I'm still not feeling well. My wife got tested and she was positive too. She has worked at Tyson

Introduction Annually, thousands of people travel from our beautiful Pacific region to access work opportunities in New Zealand's Recognized Seasonal Employer Scheme (RSE). The RSE provides employment opportunities for those in the Pacific Islands to assist with labour shortages in the horticulture and viticulture sectors, with an objective of potential economic development in the Pacific in return

1 INTRODUCTION As Samoan academics, we acknowledge the problematic usage of the term Pasifika. This term does not describe the distinctive, ethnic‐specific nature of each Pacific nation. We also acknowledge the complexities of recording ethnicity itself, given that many people belong to multiple ethnic backgrounds. However, for the purposes of this article, we use the term Pasifika to highlight the

1 INTRODUCTION The Fiji Islands are transforming from polyculture to commercially oriented monoculture farming systems (McGregor 2020). The issue of food security has emerged as a major concern, exacerbated by vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters. The COVID‐19 crisis has exposed high dependence on imported processed food, which has resulted in problems like hidden hunger and non‐communicable

I didn't call today. I was curled up in the blanket that doesn't smell like you anymore, crying until my eyes burned. Happy third year anniversary, my love…..I don't know when I will see you again. Did you see the email from our lawyer? Really nice person, trying to put three terrible options in a hopeful light. Our three terrible options. None of which I can choose right now. They felt like a crushing

1 INTRODUCTION The COVID‐19 pandemic is unlike anything most of us have experienced in our lifetimes, apart from those who survived the 1918 flu pandemic. In the pandemic of 2020, Samoa has managed to date to keep the virus away from its shores, untouched by cases within its borders but inextricably linked to the global interwoven whole to which its people belong. With effects across the health sectors

1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to discuss the significance of intergenerational connections for famili11 Famili is a Tongan concept for family that often includes others outside of the nuclear family, including extended family and often close connections in the church or village that a family belongs to. Tonga, as part of their collective mobility.22 This paper only introduces the topic

I try not to touch my face while shopping at a crowded Costco. I'm lucky to still have a job, to afford food and rent in the most expensive place in the world to buy toilet paper. Today, the governor issued a work‐from‐home order. Community spread, panic. Yet thousands of tourists continue arriving aboard cheap flights and cruise ships—reservoirs of disease. Not even a pandemic can shutdown paradise

Pacific Islanders in diaspora are disproportionately contracting COVID‐19, experience hospitalization and develop complications In Utah, Pacific Islanders have the highest contraction rate in the state Pacific Islanders constitute only 2% of the state's population, but represent 4% of the those infected with COVID‐19, begging the question how we might explain the high rates of contraction? As community

In the shadow of COVID 19 we fear for the health and well being of family, friends, villages, island communities, our world for people we know and don't know, rich or poor, near and far, in our ocean and beyond for a world that has lost key values, cowered to greed, material comfort and success [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Oceania is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may

Considering bridewealth in Melanesia from the angle of women's autonomy, in this introduction we review and analyse the various elements of this marriage practice that reveal its place in the symbolic, social and economic worlds of women. With an accent on social transformation, we discuss women's autonomy and agency in relation to the constraints that bridewealth puts on their lives, and on how they

In the capital city of the Solomon Islands, brideprice is often given to formalize the marriage of young couples from the island of Malaita. For the young wife, brideprice is a reminder that she is expected to work and produce children for the lineage of her husband, an obligation that is at times strongly impressed upon her by her in‐laws. Data gathered in Honiara over the last 15 years, most recently

Bridewealth is recognized as vital in the reproduction and reconfiguration of Pacific environments and women play an integral role in this process. In contemporary Papua New Guinea (PNG), bridewealth is reconfigured by kin to acknowledge the considered actions of women as they enter into relationships with men. This paper will explore how women's choices impact and influence their experience of these

The relationship between bridewealth and women's autonomy is not only discussed amongst anthropologists, development practitioners and other scholars but also amongst brides themselves. Women continue to embrace such marital exchanges, despite their knowledge of ‘modern’ development discourse about the constraints of the practice on women's status and its links to gender‐based violence. This paper

That people value ‘people’ over ‘things’ is argued often by anthropologists, but how people value specific forms and qualities of relations as they do in the example of bridewealth is less so. I explore the perspective of Papua New Guinean‐born fathers in Australia as they advocate innovations in bridewealth traditions and thereby enable daughters to marry for love, cultivate a companionate marriage

Bridewealth in Lifou cannot be discussed on its own; rather it should be considered within the plurality of ceremonial acts which are needed to legitimize a marriage as customary. What do these transactions mean? Where does women's agency lie? Through a longitudinal analysis of ethnographic materials from my fieldwork in Lifou, Loyalty Islands, I consider how Kanak women are engaged in and perceive

This article examines the transformation of marriage‐related exchanges and the agency of women among the Langalanga people in the Solomon Islands. The Langalanga perspective is distinctive because they have been the main producers of shell money in the region, and the persistence of bridewealth is important for their economic and cultural lives. Looking into the three essential components: kwatena

In Vanuatu, the practice of bridewealth is widespread. However, according to international and national development organizations based in the capital Port‐Vila, this practice impedes women's freedom, including women's reproductive autonomy. In this paper, using data gathered in Port‐Vila between 2009 and 2018, I examine the practice of marriage in Port‐Vila and argue against this development discourse

This study focuses on the important role of sharks in the Melanesian mythology. Based on unpublished stories essentially originating from New Caledonia, we show how strong the links are between myths and the physical environment in which Kanak live. As prevalent mythical animals, sharks can indifferently play the role of avengers and righters of wrongs, or vehicles for the spirits of living or dead

This article criticises primitivist caricatures of the Baining in Melanesia as a society that lacks exegesis, symbolic logics, religion, structures of power and control, and even an interest in play. The mytho‐poetics of gender and procreation in Mali Baining society are documented by focusing on how art and sexuality are traced onto each other. The formative power of painting, barkcloth, dancing masks

Recent work in anthropology proposes that the ethnographic study of infrastructure offers a productive way to think about how states and corporations, citizens and consumers, all define their relations and obligations to each other. This article considers the politics of media infrastructure in Papua New Guinea (PNG) by tracing the moral economy of mobile phones. It focuses on (1) how mobile phone

David Schneider is widely regarded as one of the great anthropologists of our times. This article questions this opinion. First it shows that his fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap evidences ethnographic insensitivity, particularly on the matter of an alleged ignorance of physiological paternity, thus calling into question his supposed concern with getting at native understandings. The alleged

This article explores how in Timor‐Leste the implementation of national law is shaped by local conditions. In Oecussi District, the ability of the state to regulate hunting is both constrained and enabled by the continuing importance of indigenous (meto) socio‐spiritual frameworks ontologically distinct from those assumed to be normative by both the State and outside actors. Through the case study

A contentious issue for Pacific Islanders, as well as researchers of the Pacific Islands, is ni‐Vanuatu notions of ‘belonging’ to urban centres. Previous research in Vanuatu has shown that despite generations of people born and raised in Port Vila, the nation's capital, the urban centre is not generally perceived as a ‘place’ to which urban migrants can say they are from. For many, exclaiming that

In the Lio region of Flores Island patrilineal groups coexist with taboos on animals and plants inherited through females, a combination previously interpreted as reflecting a system of double unilineal descent. Drawing on ethnography from the Lio district of Mego, maternal taboos are shown to accompany similar prohibitions conceived as a property of patriclans, most of which, however, are incumbent

In 2019, we returned to Karavar, one of Papua New Guinea's Duke of York Islands. Since our last visit 28 years earlier, many with whom we worked had died. However, their children knew about us and were eager for our recollections about the lives and times of their parents. We, in turn, wished to learn about current lives and times. Our conversations, thus, often focused on multi‐generational changes

This paper considers themes of species maintenance and place engagement in Yanyuwa country, northern Australia. It traces the complexity of interpretations and relational contexts involved in places that are commonly – and we argue – misleadingly, referred to as increase and magic sites. Examining one specific place, at which people carry out maintenance rituals, we explore the complex bonds that unite

Anthropological studies of ritual ‘failure’ challenge the assumed efficacy of ritual in affirming the social order. Drawing from fieldwork in West Papua, I examine the ‘failure’ and ‘success’ of two rain‐making ceremonies – one hosted by an indigenous Marind expert, the other by an Indonesian oil palm corporation. Participants conceived the failure of the first ritual as a punishment meted by ancestral

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

Markets in Port Moresby like elsewhere in the world provide a space for economic activity and social interaction. This article engages with two moral concerns that arise from the market. Firstly, I present a description of how the ban of the sale of betel nut is being negotiated by vendors and customers alike in the face of threats of violence from enforcement officials such as police. Secondly, I

The rise of competitive trade practices represents a significant development in Papua New Guinea's marketplaces. Overt competition and haggling, once conspicuous by their near absence, are now commonplace in the country's betel nut marketplaces, and increasingly visible in many of the large urban fresh food marketplaces. This has emerged with the rise of long‐distance and intermediary trading, and

This paper examines the negative moral evaluations of people who buy and resell fresh food by Gahuku and Gehamo people in and around Goroka, the capital of Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. During my fieldwork from 2010 to 2015, vendors in the Goroka fresh food market argued that the value of fresh food should be based on the work that people did to produce it rather than on price competition

For those women living in villages within accessible range of Goroka town, it is the norm to sell fresh produce in the Goroka market. Fresh produce trading, or maket in Tok Pisin, is common for women throughout the country. To see men selling food in the Goroka market is significantly less common, and those who do, usually sell foods brought from outside of Goroka. The gender divisions that exist in

Fresh food markets have been a fixture of the social and economic landscape of urban and rural PNG since colonial times. They were often the first points of engagement with the market economy, especially for women, who as small‐scale producers, sold surplus produce from their food gardens located on communally‐owned land. Although local food markets have remained an important livelihood for women,

Funding to support the preparation of this paper and 2016 fieldwork was provided through the ANU and University of Papua New Guinea partnership project, funded by the Australian Aid Program.

A demonstration that the spatial experience informing some Central Australian Aboriginal art is topographically precise brings into question the relevance of structuralist methodologies for appraising these maps of country. Qualitative aspects of spatial, somatic, linguistic and emotional experiences are found to inform the way‐finding depicted in paintings by artists of three language groups.

The Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre-Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within

This article examines the transformation of sexual meanings, attitudes, norms, and practices surrounding depletion and pollution across decades (1974–2010) among the Sambia of Papua New Guinea. In the premodern village, all sexual intercourse, whether with boy‐initiates or women, was ritualized and ultimately controlled by the men's secret society. Intimate consumption refers traditionally to a symbolic

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