What women want: Fashion, morality and gendered subjectivities in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh

This article brings Papua New Guinean women’s perspectives on fashion, gender and morality into conversation with questions of colonial histories and global consumerism. The article shows that adherence to social norms is policed by women in the public sphere and that one person’s choices are enmeshed in ideas of responsibility and obligation to others. Increasingly, younger generations of women believe it is an individual woman’s right to wear what she wants in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Yet young women confront their peers in much the same way older women do. What women wear in PNG is embroiled in ideas of collective morality; plays out at intersections of class, age, race and gender; and demonstrates tensions between ideas of autonomy and collectivity. On whose terms do contemporary Papua New Guinean women get to decide how to dress: their own, or in accordance with community norms and standards? What are the contemporary and historical contexts of whiteness and colonial power that have influenced these norms and standards? This article brings together the experiences and perspective of a young professional Papua New Guinean woman, and her relatives, in dialogue with a young English–Iranian woman anthropologist.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Demian

AbstractThis article employs a consideration of Peter Fitzpatrick’s early work in Papua New Guinea to reflect on legal and social developments in the country since his residence there during the independence period. In particular, Fitzpatrick’s concerns about the emergence of a Papua New Guinean bourgeois legality that would shape the postcolony are shown to have been prescient in some respects, and also to have had other outcomes unanticipated by the Marxist legal and anthropological imagination of the 1970s. Finally, I use examples from the heterogeneous lawscape of Papua New Guinean cities to illustrate how the ‘true people’s law’ envisioned by Fitzpatrick is in the process of emerging in spaces outside of formal legislative or court processes.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4411 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
WILLIAM T. WHITE ◽  
ALFRED KO’OU

An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, rays, and chimaeras) of Papua New Guinean waters is herein presented. The checklist is the result of a large biodiversity study on the chondrichthyan fauna of Papua New Guinea between 2013 and 2017. The chondrichthyan fauna of Papua New Guinea has historically been very poorly known due to a lack of baseline information and limited deepwater exploration. A total of 131 species, comprising 36 families and 68 genera, were recorded. The most speciose families are the Carcharhinidae with 29 species and the Dasyatidae with 23 species. Verified voucher material from various biological collections around the world are provided, with a total of 687 lots recorded comprising 574 whole specimens, 128 sets of jaws and 21 sawfish rostra. This represents the first detailed, verified checklist of chondrichthyans from Papua New Guinean waters. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Dina Afrianty

AbstractIndonesian women were at the forefront of activism during the turbulent period prior to reformasi and were a part of the leadership that demanded democratic change. Two decades after Indonesia embarked on democratic reforms, the country continues to face challenges on socio-religious and political fronts. Both the rise of political Islam and the increased presence of religion and faith in the public sphere are among the key features of Indonesia's consolidating democracy. This development has reinvigorated the discourse on citizenship and rights and also the historical debate over the relationship between religion and the state. Bearing this in mind, this paper looks at the narrative of women's rights and women's status in the public domain and public policy in Indonesia. It is evident, especially in the past decade, that much of the public conversation within the religious framework is increasingly centred on women's traditional social roles. This fact has motivated this study. Several norms and ideas that are relied on are based on cultural and faith-based interpretations - of gender. Therefore, this paper specifically examines examples of the ways in which social, legal, and political trends in this context affect progress with respect to gender equality and gender policy. I argue that these trends are attempts to subject women to conservative religious doctrines and to confine them to traditional gender roles. The article discusses how these developments should be seen in the context of the democratic transition in Indonesia.


1991 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 11-14
Author(s):  
Leo Marai

Twenty male and five female undergraduates were assessed in a study designed to test for three dimensional pictorial perception in a Papua New Guinea sample. A version of Hudson's (1960) and Deregowski's (1968) test stimuli was used; the stimuli were slightly modified to make them culturally appropriate. The major result of the study was a finding of consistent sex differences in pictorial depth perception. Males tended to perceive three dimensionally while females tended to perceive two dimensionally.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole L. Hinchcliff ◽  
Megan Fitzgibbons ◽  
Claudia Davies

AbstractIn this paper Carole Hinchcliff, Megan Fitzgibbons and Claudia Davies review free resources that can be used when researching the law in Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Background descriptions of the countries' legal systems are provided, along with brief descriptions of websites which provide access to the legislation and case law of the relevant jurisdictions. The article is based on a presentation developed by Carole, and subsequently delivered by Megan and Claudia, at the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) meeting in August, 2013.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 160940692095718
Author(s):  
Vincent Backhaus ◽  
Nalisa Neuendorf ◽  
Lokes Brooksbank

In Oceania, Papua New Guinea (PNG) appears large in the consciousness of exploring social life through the notion of sociality. Scholarship within the Melanesian region employs sociality to interrogate forms of social life and the different ways research methods account for the understanding of interactions between individuals and communities. Yet for the three PNG authors this assumed coherency between epistemes and method highlighted specific conceptual challenges for us as researchers and participants. We identified with two conceptual notions: “pasin” and “luksave” as distinct Austronesian language ideas derived from Tok Pisin—a creolisation of English utilized as a lingua franca throughout the country. We explored the development of pasin and luksave and the ways the conceptual claims served a dual function of developing a methodological and epistemic pathway toward an ethical assurance of meaningful relationality. We extend on current understanding in two ways. Firstly employing the methodology of story as critique of research assumptions and secondly, extend on the process of story work to suggest storying as a novel but relatable research methodology. Storying such research experiences as both method and epistemic accountability, guided our responsibility toward the relationships we hold to people, community and knowledge. Pasin and luksave embed an emancipatory and de-colonial intent through the guise of oral stories. These intentions in our scholarship fostered a form of coherent expressions of research claim and method assumption and also raised questions for us regarding what decolonizing Papua New Guinea ought to consider. Our paper also highlights a reformulation of the different ways research considers Oceania in particular Melanesia and the Papua New Guinean research context.


Author(s):  
Shino Konishi

This chapter examines the way in which the Howard government and its supporters revitalized colonial tropes about Aboriginal masculinity in order to progressively dismantle and undermine indigenous rights and sovereignty, culminating in the quasi-military intervention into supposedly dysfunctional Aboriginal communities towards the end of Howard's fourth term. It critiques and historicizes a range of demeaning representations that assume Aboriginal men are violent and misogynistic. These representations can be traced back to initial encounters between European and indigenous men. The aim is to bring academic, media, and governmental discourses about Aboriginal masculinity into conversation with masculinity studies, which means contextualizing notions of Aboriginal masculinity in ways that avoid unreflective colonial conceptions. Finally, the chapter examines the public response of Aboriginal men to this demonization, and how they negotiate their own masculine identities in the face of a colonial culture that disparages them for their race and gender.


Zootaxa ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 929 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON VAN NOORT ◽  
JEAN-YVES RASPLUS

Two new species of Robertsia, R. weibleni and R. vaamondei are described from Papua New Guinea. Four species of Robertsia are now known from a single host fig tree species, Ficus xylosycia. Illustrations and keys are provided for both sexes of all four species. An online key is available at: http://www.figweb.org/Fig_wasps/Pteromalidae/Sycoecinae/Key/Robertsia.htm. Host relationships and biology are discussed.


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