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5. Buying Betel and Selling Sex Contested Boundaries, Risk Milieus, and Discourses about HIV/AIDS in the Markham Valley, Papua New Guinea

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Despite the widespread epidemic in Papua New Guinea, the Wampar who live near the city of Lae in the Markham Valley (see map 2) do not yet know or talk about specific cases of HIV-infected people or cases of AIDS; nor do I know of any HIV-positive person in the area. Yet HIV/AIDS (sik nogut) is frequently discussed, for it is seen as a general threat to Wampar well-being and identity, as are certain other diseases, immigration, criminality, sorcery, immorality, and the (presumed) importation of drugs and weapons from Papua New Guinea's highland provinces.1 The HIV problem, then, is embedded among threats perceived to come from outside Wampar society.
... Today, all Wampar villages close to the Highlands Highway have public markets, although individual families also offer diesel, decorative flowers, wood or building materials, in addition to the usual garden products, at separate stalls along the highway. Some Wampar open trade stores, bottle shops and bars in these locations (Beer 2008). This has led to Wampar settlements stretching along the roadside. ...
... This has led to Wampar settlements stretching along the roadside. Trade led not only to regular inflows of cash but also to increased interactions with people from town and the highlands, rising rates of interethnic marriage; these, in turn, produced interethnic kinship networks with further implications for Wampar/Wampar marriages and Wampar/non-Wampar sociality (Beer 2008, Beer andSchroedter 2014). The distance of a settlement or village from the Highlands Highway and town became a crucial factor in its access to economic opportunities and the social differentiation of place and local groups. ...
... In an everyday conversation, for example, if a young girl is sitting with her legs apart, the ethnographer heard Wampar men and women saying jokingly in Pidgin 'Lukaut, ol i ken lukim maket bilong yu!' (Look out one can see your market!) (Beer 2008). ...
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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.
... This has been the sentiment in Port Moresby. In other parts of the country the trading of betel nut from the coastal areas to the Highlands also highlights the importance and dominance of Highlands betel nut traders (Beer 2008;Mosko 1999;Sharp 2019). ...
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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 present concerns that arise at the local Village Court, which is also housed at the market. Both activities invoke debate about morality as they raise discussion about citizen and government responsibility, ideas of place and ways of being.
... When Beer went in 2003/4 with Hans Fischer to Gabsongkeg village, her own research was focused on other topics than string figures (cf. Beer 2006Beer , 2008Beer , 2010, but she took a video camera in order to document activities and practices which are difficult to describe or capture by other means. It turned out that the camera proved most helpful in documenting the making of fafoa. ...
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The authors describe the structure, formation and interpretation of 35 different string figures (fafoa) made among the Wampar (Morobe province, Papua New Guinea). The string figures were recorded in 2003/4 and 2013, from families of the village of Gabsongkeg. Aspects of the context in which the string figures occur are described. Placed in a comparative perspective, the Wampar string figure repertoire reflects the various relations that existed and exist with neighboring and more distant ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea. Two of the string figures have (until now) only been recorded among the Wampar, while three have been recorded only among the Wampar and their neighbors, the Watut. Nowadays rapid social change often occurs in the communities of Papua New Guinea, and this is certainly true of the Wampar. The making of string figures now competes with several alternative pastimes. This has led to changes in the string figure tradition, yet the material presented in this paper does not support the conclusion that the repertoire is diminishing or that the tradition will die out soon.
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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 and around the marketplace today in Goroka are maintained through discourses of emotions and practice, specifically the notion of sem (Tok Pisin: shame, embarrassment). As part of a 12‐month ethnographic research project on gender relations in and around the Goroka market, I spoke with market vendors, amongst others living in and around Goroka, about why men do not market. I also interviewed some of the few men who do sell fresh produce in the market. Based on these men's explanations and those of others with whom I spoke, I suggest that these sellers exhibit aspects of masculinity that are caring for their families, putting shame second, and justifying this by their aspirations to transform their and their loved ones’ lives through education and business. These men demonstrate an emergent form of masculinity that both includes and contests aspects of hegemonic masculinity in the Highlands. Whilst selling fresh produce in the marketplace is deemed embarrassing and shameful for the majority of men, those who sell regardless justify doing so by pointing to the importance of providing for their families and loved ones.
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In this paper I analyse changes in the kinship terminology of the Wampar of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and address some problematic questions in cognitive anthropology. In recent decades, Wampar modes of social reproduction have changed as transcultural marriages, and the intercultural kindreds these produce, have increased. One manifestation of this is revealed by longitudinal data on kin terms; these also show how the blending of vernaculars and Tok Pisin (PNG's lingua franca) respond to the hybridizing effects of social life in this part of contemporary PNG. The formal semantic analysis of kinship terms was an important early focus of cognitive anthropology; as complex, systematic and shared realms of meaning, such terminologies were seen as paradigmatically cultural. Later, textual and agency-centred models became more popular than the formal semantic approaches. My analysis of changes to Wampar terms in the face of transformed relations between cultures is relevant to those interested in the connections between cognitive models and cultural practice. A focus on actors' choices of kin terms and behaviours in complex, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous settings that are welldescribed ethnographically can help overcome the polarization between an emphasis on formal structural models and actor-centred case studies.
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Relations between brothers and sisters remain crucial to Wampar patterns of affinity and broader processes of social reproduction, despite a century of significant historical change. Nevertheless, the role that these ties play, under contemporary circumstances, contrasts in important ways with their former place in defining connections within and between corporate groups. Changes in partner choice, rates of inter-ethnic marriage, concepts of intimacy, patterns of social stratification and household composition have all had effects on sibling bonds and their relevance to affinal relations. The effects of these factors are amplified by the Wampar's proximity to the city of Lae.
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