The New Port Moresby: Gender, Space, and Belonging in Urban Papua New Guinea 9780824882792

Citation preview

The New Port Moresby

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Brij V. Lal

Jack Corbett

General Editors

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The New Port Moresby

Gender, Space, and Belonging in

Urban Papua New Guinea

Ceridwen Spark

University of Hawai‘i Press

Honolulu

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© 2020 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Spark, Ceridwen, author.

Title: The new Port Moresby : gender, space, and belonging in urban Papua

New Guinea / Ceridwen Spark.

Other titles: Topics in the contemporary Pacific.

Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020. | Series: Topics

in the contemporary Pacific | Includes bibliographical references and

index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020007875 | ISBN 9780824881801 (cloth) | ISBN

9780824882792 (pdf) | ISBN 9780824882815 (epub) | ISBN 9780824882808

(kindle edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Women—Papua New Guinea—Port Moresby—Social

conditions—Case studies. | Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea)—Social

conditions.

Classification: LCC HQ1866.5.Z9 S63 2020 | DDC 305.409953—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007875

Cover art: Female hotel staff await plane arrivals at Jackson’s

Airport in the weeks before APEC 2018. Photo courtesy of

the author.

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free

paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and

durability of the Council on Library Resources.

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To my parents, Raymond and Helen Spark, who made PNG my first home. Thank you for being adventurers.

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Contents

From the General Editors ◊ ix

Acknowledgments ◊ xi

Prologue ◊ xiii Introduction: Women in the City

◊

1

1

Representations of Port Moresby: Gender, Class, and Culture in Films about the City ◊ 21

2

At Home in the City: Educated Women, Housing, and Belonging in Port Moresby ◊ 42

3 Getting Comfortable in the “New” Port Moresby 4 5

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65

From Mosbi to “POM City”: Gender, Transnationalism, and Development in Port Moresby ◊ 85

“The Heat of the PNG Sun”: Women in Development Conclusion

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104

123

Notes ◊ 129

References ◊ 131

Index ◊ 149

vii

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From the General Editors

Ceridwen Spark’s The New Port Moresby: Gender, Space, and Belonging in Urban Papua New Guinea is the sixth volume in the Topics in the Contempo­ rary Pacific Series and we are very pleased to see it published. Urbanization has brought many challenges to Pacific states, but Port Moresby has long had a reputation for being the most violent city in the region, and indeed one of the most violent in the world. For many, Moresby’s manifold prob­ lems symbolize the persistent underdevelopment, political instability, and corruption that has plagued Papua New Guinea since independence. It is a place where rascals roam the streets and the corridors of parlia­ ment. Where wealthy houses need the security of guards, dogs, and barbed wire. Where women in particular face constant threats of harass­ ment and assault. Spark invites us to take a more considered view of Moresby. The lens she offers are the lives of those for whom Moresby should be most inhospitable: educated, professional women. By illuminating the history of the city, including its colonial, masculine origins, Spark observes that Papua New Guinean women were never meant to be “at home” there. She also shows, however, that Moresby’s Papua New Guinean inhabit­ ants have been represented largely by outsiders and in ways that reflect racist and sexist tropes. Taking an intersectional feminist approach, the book expands the scope of research and writing about gendered experi­ ences in Moresby, moving beyond the idea that the city is an exclusively hostile place for women. Rather than constructing Moresby as inherently or immutably troubled, the book presents the city as a place in which women face challenges but also where they experience new possibilities ix

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x

◊

From the General Editors

for autonomy and pleasure. In doing so, it offers an ethnographically rich perspective on the interaction between the global and the local and what this might mean for feminism and the advancement of equity in the Pacific and beyond. To illuminate this more nuanced account of Moresby, Spark gives priority to educated women’s voices, and observes that they are making home in the city, both through their increasing capacity to navigate the challenges of accommodation and their ventures into the city’s new sites of consumerism and leisure. Without discounting the problems of uneven development, she argues that these changes and Port Moresby’s new spaces offer women a degree of freedom and autonomy in a city predomi­ nantly characterized by fear and restriction. Specifically, she offers a novel account of the way urbanized women involve themselves in development by exploiting their liminality to combine a Melanesian sense of obligation with emerging middle-class ideas about good citizenship. Spark concludes by powerfully illustrating that Papua New Guinean women working in the field of international development are as oppressed by colonialism and racism as masculine domination. The book is genuinely and refreshingly original. Its strength lies in Spark’s ability to speak to multiple audiences. We expect that it will become a touchstone text for students of Pacific studies, gender studies, human geography, development studies, and urban studies. It therefore characterizes some of the best virtues of the area studies approach that this series is designed to showcase, and we are therefore delighted to see it published. The publication of another outstanding volume also provides us with the opportunity to express our gratitude to the series’ acquiring editor, Masako Ikeda, whose support for all things Pacific is unwavering. Brij. V. Lal and Jack Corbett General Editors

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Acknowledgments

Many people have helped make this book possible. First, it could not have been written without the cooperation and generosity of the Papua New Guinean women who have talked with me since 2006. Because they are research participants, it is important they remain anonymous, so I cannot identify anyone by name here. Never­ theless, I thank each and every one of them for their time, honesty, and insight. It has been a privilege. Thank you also to my friends who read drafts of a chapter: Stepha­ nie Lusby, John Cox, Timothy Sharp, and Jack Corbett. I am particularly grateful to Andrew Singleton for reading the entire manuscript before submission. I have had excellent research assistants in Johnny Bell and Zoë Goodall. Johnny contributed to the historical research and writing in chapter 1 and Zoë did many hours of formatting and reference checking. Thank you both. Chapters 2 and 4 draw on interviews conducted with Emmanuel Narokobi, Brendan Walsh, Joys Eggins, Amanda Donigi, Jacqui Joseph, and Susil Nelson. I thank each of them for this as well as for taking the time to talk with me and to answer supplementary emails when I had more questions. Thanks also to Annamarie Laumaea, Alexander Rhee­ ney, Mercy Masta, Barbra Thomas, Martha Macintyre, Rashmii Bell, and Theresa Meki for helpful conversations over the course of this research. I am also grateful to Junior Muke for assistance in taking photos around Port Moresby. xi

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xii

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Acknowledgments

The research conducted for this book has been generously supported by grants from RMIT University, including the flexible funding provided through the university’s Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellowship Scheme. This has made possible multiple trips to PNG as well as supporting me with various costs, including transcription, research assistance, and a publication subvention for the images in the book. The support has been invaluable. Some of the material in chapters 2, 3, and 5 has been previously published (Spark 2016, 2017, 2017b; Pinto et al. 2019; Spark 2020). Finally, thank you to the lively, loving, and laughing people I am lucky to call my family, Andrew Singleton, Tamas, Mairead, and Hamish Spark. They not only sustain and interest me every day, but also willingly embark on new adventures in the name of fun and exploration.

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Prologue

In October 2017, Rosalyn Albaniel Evara died at the Port Moresby Gen­ eral Hospital in Papua New Guinea (PNG). She was forty-one years old and the mother of three children, two of whom predeceased her. At her funeral, Evara’s aunt, Mary Albaniel, showed mourners images of her niece’s bruised body. Wearing a shirt that read “say no to violence against women,” Albaniel told those assembled that her niece had died as a result of her husband’s violence. Albaniel sought a full investigation into the cause of the death, including a postmortem before Evara’s body was laid to rest. Before her untimely death, Evara had been a senior journalist and the business editor of the Post-Courier, one of two national newspapers in Papua New Guinea. The Post-Courier reported her death in a small column on page 16; The National covered it on the front page. When criticized for “burying” the story, the Post-Courier editor defended the decision, stating that Evara was a “completely private person, never one to talk about her personal experiences, life, marriage or what goes beyond the limits of the workplace” (Post-Courier 2017). Days later, a small article appeared in the online news platform, looppng.com: According to the homicide unit, four women have lost their lives after allegedly suffering beatings. . . . The other three women [other than Evara], who were all identified to be in their early 30s, were from East Sepik, Wabag and Simbu provinces respectively (Wavik 2017). xiii

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Prologue

In contrast to the three unnamed women mentioned briefly here, Rosalyn Albaniel Evara made the news because of her aunt’s courage in speaking out at the funeral. But perhaps other explanations are also true, because although violence is still a “taboo topic, particularly among professional women” (ABC News 2017), it seems possible that greater attention was paid to Evara’s death because of her career and professional identity. Discussing what she calls the five faces of oppression, Iris Marion Young (2005) writes of “powerlessness,” defining this as the lack of respect accorded to groups other than professional workers. The anonymity of the “other three women” (Wavik 2017) in the Evara account suggests that the city of Moresby is a place in which some women are valued more than others. The investigation into Evara’s death continued after the postmor­ tem proceeded on October 25, 2017. Powes Parkop, the governor of the National Capital District in which Moresby is located, became involved, seeking a court order and working with police to ensure this occurred (Pacific Media Centre 2017). No further discussion appeared in the media about whether Port Moresby police followed up on the suspicious deaths of “the other three women.” The tragic story of Evara’s death raises questions about what hap­ pens to women who are victims of violence and, more broadly, about the place and perceived value of women in contemporary Port Moresby. On the one hand, the story suggests that the apparently violent death of a professional woman garners more attention than the deaths of women without advocates to speak on their behalf. But are women who are employed in the city’s formal economy actually afforded greater protec­ tion because they work in contexts beyond their homes and families? The story of Rosalyn Albaniel Evara’s death suggests not, or at least not uniformly. Indeed, it may be that discussing violence is particularly taboo among this cohort, a point Dianne Johnson (1984) makes in her study of “government women.” Perhaps because they are assumed to have greater resources to protect themselves against violence, Port Moresby’s educated and employed women feel less able than their non-educated counterparts to seek help when they do so. What, then, is the place of professional women in Port Moresby? They appear to embody an ambiguity—on one hand, they are named, noticed, and defended posthumously; on the other, they remain unde­ fended while alive. Furthermore, Evara’s story illustrates that they are not necessarily able to access assistance if they are experiencing violence. Yet, in the days and weeks following her death, powerful men in the media, local government bodies, and police argued that violence against women was no longer a domestic matter but rather “everybody’s business,” This

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xv

position was epitomized by Police Chief Gari Baki, who said, “Domestic violence is no longer a ‘family issue’. It is a criminal act and perpetrators can and must be prosecuted” (Loop PNG 2017). Echoing Baki’s idea that “family, friends, colleagues and strangers can no longer turn a blind eye” (Loop PNG 2017), Alexander Rheeney, former editor of the Post-Courier, argued that the newspaper that employed Evara “had an obligation to keep track of their employees’ welfare” (2017). As these responses show, Evara’s death has provoked calls for the broader community and workplaces of Port Moresby to take greater responsibility for women’s safety and well-being. These calls, though, raise questions about whether and for whom the city supports initiatives and actions to make the city a safer place. On the one hand, some donor driver initiatives, including those associated with UN Women, for exam­ ple, appear designed to benefit women in the informal economy who are perceived as victims in the streets and markets where they seek to make a living. At the same time, the discourse of smart economics is also play­ ing a role in shaping Port Moresby. The Business Coalition for Women (BCFW), for instance, emphasizes the economic gains to be made from reducing violence against women. Although this has led to the develop­ ment of some empowering policies in the private sector (see BCFW n.d.), the focus on “gender equality as economic growth” (Calkin 2015, 306) does not bode well for women who are not seen as economically produc­ tive. As Sylvia Chant and Caroline Sweetman remark, addressing urban inequality involves recognizing the equal rights of all women and girls, “regardless of . . . the extent or nature of their economic contribution” (2012, 527). Within the development sector, the establishment of wom­ en’s economic empowerment as a key pillar in aid programs can at times reflect a less than critical endorsement of capitalist values in a context where these may undermine feminism’s other goals (see Commonwealth of Australia 2017). All of this takes place within the context of a changing city being shaped by the various forces of globalization. This book is about gender and place in contemporary Port Moresby. Focusing on the experiences of the small but growing cohort of pro­ fessional women in Port Moresby, I elucidate their experiences of this rapidly changing city. Reflecting on their emergent sense of belonging, I consider how educated and employed women relate to others with whom they share the city and the factors that produce their sense of “feeling comfortable” (Radice 1999) or otherwise. My purpose is to expand the scope of research and writing about gendered experiences in Port Moresby. I draw on more than a decade of research, which includes interviews, focus group discussions, media

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xvi

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Prologue

analysis, observation, conversations, and photos and comments about Moresby sent to me by research participants. Bringing these together, this book reveals how the city is itself being shaped by women’s “coming out” into the malls, parks, and cafes that are proliferating in response to PNG’s resources boom. Without discounting the problems of uneven development, I explore the possibility that the city’s new places offer some women a degree of freedom and autonomy in a city predominantly characterized by fear and restriction (but see Goddard 2005; Spark 2014a, 2018). Offering an ethnographically informed perspective on the inter­ action between the global and the local, and what these effects might mean for feminism and the advancement of equity in Port Moresby, the book adds to an emerging and important body of literature on the lives of urban women in the global south. Methods, Participants, and Positionality The mixed methods approach evident in the book has evolved during research projects I have designed and led since 2006. Throughout the book, I discuss the views of a range of women, some of whom I have known since before this time, some of whom I have met only once or more recently. Over the course of many research visits, I have conducted “pure” (academic) and commissioned research, two film projects, and more recently, an evaluation. During this time, I estimate that I have spo­ ken with at least 150 Papua New Guinean women, most of whom live in Port Moresby and are tertiary educated. In some cases, we have discussed a specific topic—their views on the magazine Stella, for example, or how they navigate transport issues in Port Moresby. With some women, I have had multiple conversations over several years, traversing a wide range of topics, from intimate relationships and life in Port Moresby to fashion and politics, both everyday and formal. More recently, I have conducted research projects on a women’s organization, in schools, and in the devel­ opment sector in Port Moresby. Where appropriate, I discuss the research methods and participant details more fully in the chapters that follow. In regard to terminology, as Julien Barbara, John Cox, and Michael Leach note (2015, 11; see also Cox 2014), middle-class Papua New Guin­ eans are increasingly describing themselves as working class. Discussing the emergence of class in Tonga, Niko Besnier (2009, 215) writes, “as social scientists, we continue to have difficulties apprehending social class, particularly in contexts that are not traditionally viewed as the locus of class hierarchies.” Despite the slipperiness of the category in

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every context, including PNG, it is generally agreed that being middle class involves more than “narrow economic indicators” (Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015, 3). This is certainly true in PNG; in this book, I discuss some of these indicators, including having a global outlook, reduced vulner­ ability, and higher levels of education. Nevertheless, emphasis is implicit in local understandings of the category of holding a professional salaried position, as opposed to earning money in the informal sector, relying on others for support and social protection, or indeed being wealthy as a result of possible involvement in high-level corruption or business ven­ tures. Indeed, it seems likely that urban, employed Papua New Guineans who use the term “working class” do so to remind their less-employed counterparts and relatives both that they are not getting money for noth­ ing (that is, they work to earn it) and that having a salary does not mean they are wealthy. Although being urban may support “the consolidation of middle-class values and behaviours” (Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015, 8), the high cost of living in Port Moresby and the expectation of shar­ ing with others mean that even those with secure salaried positions can and do struggle to make ends meet. Reflecting these complexities, I use various terms in this book to refer to the women I describe, including middle class, working class (in the way this is used in PNG), professional, employed, and educated. Overall, I use pseudonyms to refer to the women who have partici­ pated. When this is not the case (and indeed in many situations when it is), I have checked with those named regarding the ways in which their stories have been represented and allowed them to correct mistakes, aug­ ment a point, or clarify what I have written. This book is testament to the willingness of these women to share their time, views, insights, and challenges. I am thankful to them and hope I have honored their perspec­ tives in these pages. But I am not Papua New Guinean and do not live in Port Moresby. Like anyone, but particularly any visiting outsider, I am blind to many aspects of the city and the lives therein (see Goddard 2005). As a Papua New Guinean colleague once said to me, “you have a particular view of Port Moresby.” I do indeed, and that is what is represented here. At the same time, I consider that by virtue of many interactions and conversa­ tions, my views have been shaped by Mary Louise Pratt (1993, 55), who argues that, by focusing on the city as a “contact zone,” it is possible to “unravel gender . . . [and] to tell a nuanced and expanded story . . . a tale of ambiguity, contradictions, diversity, interwoven dimensions of class and gender power, resistance and change.” Most of the conversations I have had in the contact zone have been with women rather than men.

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Thus, although this book is about gender and gendered experience, it overwhelmingly addresses the experiences of women. There are other books to be written about masculinity in Port Moresby just as there are other books to be written by and about Papua New Guinean women. That I am writing this one now reflects my privileged location as a white Aus­ tralian researcher in secure employment in Melbourne. Over the years I have been conducting this research, I have pri­ oritized listening to the voices of educated, urban Papua New Guinean women. At the risk of inserting myself too much in to the narrative, it is perhaps worth offering some reflections on how this focus emerged. It incorporates various threads, one of which is my own background in PNG. Having been born in Wewak in 1971, I lived there and in Goroka until 1984, at which point I came and went from boarding school in Aus­ tralia four times a year on school holidays. Over six years, the place that had been home came to seem increasingly strange, even intimidating. As my sister and I journeyed between Melbourne and Goroka, we killed the time between flights at the Gateway Hotel. This entailed walking from the domestic terminal up a gentle hill and spending the intervening hours by the pool. Our parents warned us to go quickly and indeed we were often taunted during the brief walk. But in light of the restricted mobility of Papua New Guinean girls and women, let alone white visitors to Port Moresby, it now seems remarkable that adolescent expatriate (waitskin) girls were allowed to make this journey at all. It would be disingenuous to draw a direct line between such experiences and those of my research participants. But such moments and, more broadly, that time spent in Australia rendered PNG less comfortable, laid the foundations for my interest in Papua New Guinean women who had experienced time over­ seas only to return and remake home there. My interest in the topic was nurtured when, in 2006, I interviewed the adopted Papua New Guinean children of medical scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (Spark 2007, 2009). Although almost all the Gajdusek adoptees had struggled in some way with returning to PNG from the United States, his two daughters faced particular challenges adjusting to local gendered expectations about their behavior. Gendered conven­ tions tend to serve men’s interests, at least in the short term and on the surface, but for Gajdusek’s female children returning to PNG entailed additional losses, including the dream of finding a partner who would respect their autonomy and right to live without jealousy and violence. In later research, I learned more about overseas educated women’s fears about partnering with Papua New Guinean men (see Spark 2010, 2011). I

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have not focused on the topic in this book, but it continues to be a thread in some of the conversations I have with Papua New Guinean women, though of course some intimate relationships defy this negative con­ struction (see, for example, Caroline Evari’s poem in My Walk to Equality [2017]). This combination of personal experience and research interests offers some insight into my focus on educated Papua New Guinean wom­ en’s perspectives, but it is meeting E. that clinched it. I did so thanks to my father, who introduced himself after seeing her near his workplace in Melbourne. Having spent twenty-five years in PNG, he was always keen to meet and talk with Papua New Guineans. The two formed a friendship, and in time I was invited to join them, a happy situation that has led to a valued friendship, many conversations, and mutual support. E. was born and grew up in Moresby and then left to complete her secondary and tertiary education overseas, supported by aid scholarships. In her early twenties, she returned to urban PNG to take up a role in a government organization. Visiting her there, I encountered a young woman strug­ gling with various losses, including her personal freedom and the sense of equal opportunity she had imagined to be hers. Instead, she and her female colleagues, bright and educated as they were, were overlooked, criticized, and unsupported, including when their home was broken into by a group of men. The laughing, optimistic, and passionate person I knew in Melbourne had receded. E. seemed depressed in a society that rarely uses the word, let alone has the resources to support those expe­ riencing the symptoms. E. now lives in Australia, where her educational and professional success allows her to support her family and others in PNG. I tell her story not to suggest that leaving PNG is the best outcome for women in her position, but rather to show how painful and fraught with tension the experiences of migration and return can be. The experiences of E. and others like her suggests the significance of changes in Moresby, shedding light on why it matters for women to be able to enjoy a sense of personal empowerment, possibility, and belong­ ing in a place typically associated with restrictions. Being able to connect with people who are similarly educated and international in their experi­ ence and outlook offers welcome succor, enabling the development of networks and outings that consolidate the idea of being at home. This is especially important for women whose lives in Moresby have always been more constrained than those of their male counterparts. Even as a visitor to the city, I appreciate this. Where once the options for outings were few, the range of safe places one can now go has increased exponentially in the

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last five years. To dismiss such developments merely as the dominance of global capitalism is to miss some of the nuanced ways in which changes in cities can be empowering for women. The book is organized as follows. In the introduction, I explore the his­ tory of Papua New Guinean women in Port Moresby, engaging with feminist geography, colonial history, and anthropology to investigate the place of professional women in town. Although accounts of women’s lives in town are sparse, and those that do exist tend to be submerged in the histories of male migrants, studies from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s suggest that women without roles are portrayed as maladaptive in the urban context. In contrast, women who are gainfully employed are depicted as well suited to life in Moresby (Oeser 1969; Whiteman 1973). Exploring the emergence of this narrative, I lay the foundation for my focus on illuminating the milieu of educated, urban women, despite their status as a minority population. In chapter 1, I examine representations of Port Moresby in film with a particular focus on gender. Commencing with a 1991 documentary, I analyze a range of films, including some made by outsiders and other more recent films that are collaborations between expatriates and Papua New Guineans. The assumption of a nexus between real life and represen­ tation underpins my analysis. As “the means by which we come to know, embody and perform reality” (Moreton-Robinson 2000, xxii), representa­ tions of gender, class, and ethnicity form an integral part of the broader social conversation about Port Moresby, its possibilities, and challenges. My examination of a range of films enables me to see Port Moresby as “complex and contradictory” (Anderson 1999, 213–214) and to query the consistency of derogatory representations, particularly in relation to gen­ dered, urban experiences. From here, the book examines women’s lives in a range of places, including home, places of leisure, and the workplace. Chapter 2 discusses women who are making home in the city and chapter 3 considers wom­ en’s relationships with some of the new commercial and semipublic places that have emerged in Port Moresby. Arguing that recent transformations in Port Moresby are allowing for the creation of new “spatial texts” in a place notorious for constraining women, I suggest that as women chal­ lenge conventional boundaries of gender, asserting themselves outside the home and in the city, they redefine “who belongs to a place and who may be excluded” (McDowell 1999, 4), as well as the place itself. Chapter 4 draws on three case studies of mover and shaker women to illustrate their role in and contribution to development. Arguing that

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these figures marry their transnational status and connections with a keen appreciation for the inequities of their local context, I suggest that women with the privilege of coming and going from the city, whether for education, work, or to visit family, bring new points of view to bear on the creation of their home town. In chapter 5, I discuss the narratives of women employed in the devel­ opment sector in Port Moresby, arguing that the underlying economic rationale of aid endorses and produces inequities that are experienced in and through place. The conclusion reasserts the value of looking at Moresby from the hitherto underrepresented perspective of educated and employed women, who (as noted) are often referred to in PNG as working class because they are formally employed. Overall, the book shows that working-class women continue to face challenges, including familial and sociocultural expectations that con­ strain women, the absence of safe and affordable public transport, and the threat of private and public violence. As I also show, however, women in this cohort are making themselves at home in Port Moresby in ways that were not intended, would once have been considered unlikely, and remain little understood. Documenting the complexity of these experi­ ences has value because media, academic, and development discourses about Port Moresby tend to occlude middle-class women in favor of a focus on troubling and violent masculinity and its female victims (for a recent example, see Zand 2018). In addition, by exploring the interaction between categories of dif­ ference, including gender alongside space and power, it is possible to challenge the idea that the urban centers of Melanesia attest exclusively “to the failures of postcolonial development” (Connell 2003, 245). By taking the heterogeneity of women’s voices and experiences of the city seriously, I hope the book goes some way to providing a more nuanced account of gender in Port Moresby than has hitherto existed.

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I N T R ODU CT ION

Women in the City

T

he story of professional women in Port Moresby is intimately entwined with the city and the changes within it, the pace of which continues to surprise even those who are frequent visitors. Elucidating how educated and employed women have gone from being scapegoats in a patriarchal society to valued members of this evolving urban com­ munity (Rosi and Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1993; Spark 2011), this book challenges the prevailing image of the city as a place that is only ever hostile to women. As Moresby endeavors to assert itself as “a global city with a global capacity” (Jinimbo 2016), educated and employed women are increasingly represented as the most convincing symbols of change, “evidence” that this oft-maligned place “can set standards and become an example” (Radio New Zealand 2012). Thus, although middle-class urban women’s lives continue to be constrained by a range of factors, this cohort as a group now appears more likely to be lauded than vilified in public discourse (but see Spark 2011, 169). Globalization, and its most significant driving force, the internet, mean that novel and in many cases less constraining versions of woman­ hood circulate widely and at an unprecedented pace. Papua New Guinean women, especially those in urban areas, are enthusiastic social media participants. They write blogs, contribute to Facebook discussions, share tweets, and host podcasts. As a result, they “have helped generate new regional, international and . . . virtual avenues for participation and dialogue” (Brimacombe 2017, 142; see also Cave 2012). In 2007, young women told me they lacked local role models. Today they are featured in 1

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Introduction

locally produced magazines as passionate advocates and champions of gender rights and equality promoting the voices and agency of young peo­ ple and advocating on behalf of those with HIV/AIDS (see Spark 2014b, 2015a). They are not alone. Women long seen as leaders within Papua New Guinea (PNG) (Turner 1993)—Lady Winifred Kamit, Dame Meg Taylor, and Lesieli Taviri, to name but three prominent examples—serve as high-profile members of company and organizational boards. Their reach extends beyond PNG’s shores, including when they take prestigious roles in regional leadership, as exemplified by Meg Taylor’s appointment in 2015 to secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum, and Leslieli Taviri’s appointment to general manager of Origin Energy. The diverse voices represented in My Walk to Equality (Bell 2017a), an anthology of Papua New Guinean women’s writing, and the passionate and groundbreaking discussions on the new podcast Who Asked Her? offer exciting examples of the ways in which Papua New Guinean women are shaping ideas about women and feminism in PNG. Rashmii Bell, the editor of My Walk to Equality, remarks on “a surge in talented, articulate PNG women writers who are able to match the male writers who have long dominated PNG-authored literature” (2017b). Whereas once women in “positions of influence” were considered exceptional (Turner 1993, 1), their status as leaders has come to seem more familiar across a range of professions and industries. Much about these changes can be celebrated. But it is important to subject any shift in public discourse—whether about a gender, place, or both—to critical inquiry. If feminism has taught us anything, it is that women should be wary of institutionalized praise and esteem as well as public denigration. It is also important to historicize and contextualize these shifts. To begin, it is necessary to look back. Port Moresby: A Brief History From its humble origins as a center for the London Missionary Society, Port Moresby soon graduated into a small outpost of European colonial administration. Passing from British to Australian hands after the first world war, Moresby was a port that also brought benefits of copra and rubber, and smaller benefits in sisal, hemp, and coffee. According to Nigel Oram (1976, 27), the town was a “small, sleepy, colonial backwater.” By the end of 1941, in both character and appearance, Port Moresby had come to resemble an Australian town. As Oram writes, “its residents were

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almost entirely European, and they enjoyed standards of services and amenities similar to those of an Australian country town of the same period” (41). This resemblance to white Australia was achieved similarly, through the persistent exclusion of the non-European local populations. A range of laws were introduced throughout the colonial period to restrict the rural-city movement of the Indigenous population, making their presence within the towns illegal in the absence of a permit. The assump­ tions underpinning, for example, the 1914 Native Labour Regulations in Papua New Guinea, the Police Offenders Ordinance 1919–1939 (Papua), and the Public Health Ordinance 1932–1938 (New Guinea), were that the “true homes” of temporary male sojourners would always be the villages, and that the presence of such men would only bring their moral decline and lawlessness (Koczberski, Curry, and Connell 2001, 2019–2020). Port Moresby was, as John Connell (1997, 189) notes, a town for white men. After the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, life in Moresby became more lively and somewhat diverse. Although most of Moresby’s Euro­ pean administrators were evacuated, by August 1942 around twenty-two thousand Australian and US members of the armed forces were occupying the town in their stead (Oram 1976, 66). Confirmed as the administrative capital of the combined territo­ ries of Papua and New Guinea, the increased attention and investment from Australia greatly facilitated the postwar growth of Port Moresby. The population grew from less than five thousand in 1946 to nearly seventy-seven thousand in 1974, and rapid expansion throughout the 1960s meant that Moresby soon contained “far more Melanesians than did any other town in the southwest Pacific” (Jackson 1977, 24; see also Oram 1976, 84). As Melissa Demian (2017, 407) suggests, the growth seemed to stem from a rural population that either ignored, or did not know about, the regulatory framework that sought to exclude them. Although policies reserving clerical and public service employment for Europeans remained in place until 1968, the dismantling of some restric­ tions and the haphazard enforcement of others encouraged migrants to become more permanent dwellers. The opportunities for local peoples only increased after Port Moresby gained its independence, when exclu­ sion was replaced by localization. Expatriate public servants were given a golden handshake, and new Prime Minister Michael Somare pledged to cut the number of expatriates from seven thousand to three thousand within three and a half years (Denoon 2005, 144). Although some gloom­ ily pondered what this upheaval would mean for the fledgling economy, Donald Denoon (2005, 143) notes that the new workforce “performed as

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Introduction

well as their Australian predecessors.” Hank Nelson (1982, 1216) echoes this, writing that, though they may have “been untrained and in deep water[,] . . . most of them swam.” Nevertheless, after independence in 1975, expatriate men domi­ nated writing on the establishment and history of the town (see, for example, Crawford 1979; Hawthorne 2011; Norwood 1984; Stuart 1973; on “mixed race society,” see also Burton-Bradley 1968). A number of books in this vein are nostalgic and paternalistic. Although also written by expatriates, Michael Goddard’s Unseen City (2005) and the chapters in the collection he edited, Villagers in the City (2010), both articulate per­ spectives that are typically occluded from studies of Port Moresby, which tend rather to focus on “the problems of urbanization.” Goddard (2005, 6) takes a more rounded approach, seeking to give the reader some sense of the background and contemporary soci­ ality of these urban people, displacing popular generalisations with more detailed accounts that do justice to their vitality, their resiliance [sic] and their creative responses to the problems of living in a bur­ geoning Melanesian city.

Geographer John Connell has also written extensively about Port Moresby and urbanization (see, for example, Connell 2003, 2011, 2017; Connell and Lea 1994). His work, like that of fellow geographer Paul Jones (2012, 2016) pays particular attention to the inequities exacerbated by globaliza­ tion as well as to the city’s settlements as places inhabited by a diversity of residents, many of whom are not the temporary sojourners outsiders often imagine them to be (see Jones 2017). Putting forward the idea of the urban village, Jones (2016, 77–78) argues that “the city takes on the character of a village, or village city,” offering “opportunities for increased engagement in social and economic activities, making urban village, kin, and ethnic boundaries less local and territorial.” Aspects of this idea emerge in recent discussions of contemporary sociality in urban PNG. In the following section, I focus on exploring the place and experi­ ence of professional and educated women in Port Moresby over the last fifty years. I show that although, on the one hand, professional women have been seen as more valuable and appropriate inhabitants of Port Moresby then their non-employed counterparts, on the other, as the sad case of Rosalyn Evara makes clear, this view has not protected them from discrimination and violence. Nevertheless, and as I proceed to argue in subsequent sections, it is also clear that changes in Port Moresby have enabled professional women to move in and between places deemed safe,

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enhancing their opportunities for independence. Because these ambigui­ ties are not captured by a focus on the city as an exclusively dangerous and disempowering place for women, it is helpful to draw on feminist geographies. My discussion about the place of women in Port Moresby is therefore followed by a consideration of writing on the gendered dimen­ sions of life in cities and the need for such studies to include cities in the Global South. Women in Port Moresby Academic research on the development of urban life in Melanesia, includ­ ing Port Moresby, was taken up in earnest in the 1960s and 1970s. Lynn Oeser’s 1969 study of women’s experiences in the Port Moresby suburb of Hohola is an influential contribution to this literature. This work did not come from an explicitly feminist perspective, but the experience of women was central to its concerns, and it succeeded in illustrating the importance of social networks for women’s emotional and material well­ being in Port Moresby. With a somewhat broader focus, on the transition of Chimbu family life to an urban setting, Josephine Whiteman’s (1973) exploration of twenty Chimbu families in Port Moresby is also attentive to the particular challenges of urban life for women. Here, the uncertain place of women within the household economy is an important focus, but the environment of Port Moresby itself emerges as a source of threat. Whiteman (1973, 53) finds that “Chimbu women did not like being left by themselves in Port Moresby.” Although boredom was one cause of this antipathy, they also felt “very nervous with so many strangers around them. They said there were many murders in the city” (Whiteman 1973, 53). In the 1970s, it seemed that the place of women in Port Moresby could be quite tenuous, a drifting existence as women struggled with­ out the relative predictability of village life. As Whiteman and others point out, women in the towns were reliant on men to an unprecedented degree. Employment opportunities for women were scarce, and the sub­ sequent dependence of women upon men “reduced their status in the husband-wife relationship.” It is reasonable to suggest that this placed many Port Moresby women in a vulnerable position; in any case, it seems that it was a source of irritation and conflict (Whiteman 1973, 139–140). Marilyn Strathern’s (1975) investigation of Hagen migrants in Port Moresby puts this in starker terms. “There is no real place,” she writes, “for women in urban Hagen society” (1975, 394). This marginal status

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Introduction

seemed to underpin Strathern’s overwhelming focus on the migration experience of Hagener men, as much as the fact that Hagener women made up less than 5 percent of the Hagen population in Port Moresby at the time. Even in the rare instances when Hagen women found work, their lack of social outlets or financial networks gave them little on which to spend their money. Their independence, Strathern finds, was “incom­ plete” (1975, 391). It is some compensation that the marginalization of women in Port Moresby should at least be noted and discussed, but it is unfortunate that this status could also marginalize women in the literature. It could be argued that the experiences of urban women during the 1970s were, if not quite invisible, at least a peripheral concern among considerations of urbanization and its discontents. The population disparity between men and women in Papua New Guinea towns might be offered as some explanation, and yet many authors at the time noted the increasing presence of women through­ out the 1960s and 1970s, and also their increasing participation in the workforce. For example, Nigel Oram observes a rapid increase in women’s employment from the early 1960s; he forecasts that the new employ­ ment opportunities for women “and their resulting emancipation are likely to effect considerably the economic and social organisation of the indigenous population” (1969, 29). Hal and Marlene Levine also observe that in 1979 the predominance of men in the towns had been diminish­ ing for some time. The number of men in towns had doubled between 1966 and the late 1970s, and the number of women had increased by 250 percent, so that they made up 38.2 percent of the total town popu­ lation (1979, 35). However, although the overall number of women in Port Moresby may have grown, according to Dianne Johnson (1984, 69–70), no evidence indicated that the proportion of women employed actually increased during the 1970s in either the private or public sector. As Johnson (1984, 70) notes, women in the public service made up only 18 percent of the workforce and most were clustered at the lower levels. Another part of the explanation for women’s absence from studies of Moresby might be that the desire of researchers to explore the experi­ ence of women during these decades was thwarted by the elusiveness of the subject. Hal and Marlene Levine suggest that, in relation to women’s experiences in towns, any discussion “suffers from the lack of breadth of available data” (1979, 55). They note that Lorraine Zimmerman was unable to talk to any of the Buang women living in Lae, and that they experienced “considerable difficulty” in their own efforts to interview a cross-section of Mount Hagen and Port Moresby women (55–56). This

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was less about the reticence of the women and more about “the insistence of local men that the women could not possibly be of enough significance or have anything of interest to say to warrant a European interviewer wasting his or her time on them” (56). In this way, the perspectives and experiences of urban women in Papua New Guinea in this period were often pushed to the borders of academic inquiry. This was undoubtedly an outcome of women’s marginalization, of their social and economic vulnerability. At the same time, their relative obscurity in the literature reinforced this status. Amirah Inglis’s Not a White Woman Safe: Sexual Anxiety and Poli­ tics in Port Moresby (1974) provides a powerful historical account of the introduction of the White Women’s Protection Ordinance in 1920s Port Moresby. Taking a progressive view, particularly for the time, Inglis shows that indigenous women in Moresby were neither perceived as being at risk of sexual violation or as subjects worthy of the same protection as white women who lived in the town. Thus, despite “much intercourse between white men and black women” (Inglis 1974, 15), these relation­ ships were typically overlooked. Instead, white Australian residents, particularly men in government, focused their energies on combating the sexual threat Papua New Guinean men were perceived to represent to white women. Inglis makes clear that, in the 1920s and 1930s, Papua New Guineans were not welcome in town and that when they were there, they were under strict watch and allowed only to serve the ruling Austra­ lians. Demonstrating that the ordinance had nothing to do with actual attacks but instead the desire for control, one commentator wrote that it was important to show that Moresby was “a European town and not a Native Playground” (Inglis 1974, 107). The relative absence of Papuan women was sometimes construed as a factor underpinning Papua New Guinean men’s alleged appetite for sexual encounters with white women. The lack of equivalent interest in protecting “native women” from attack either by Papuan or white men suggests the early emergence of discourses in which only some women in Moresby were seen as worthy of defending. This provides a disturbing echo with the Rosalyn Evara case and suggests that Port Moresby has a long history of distinguishing between women who are valued and “worth protecting” and women who are not. Women’s perceived place and value also emerge as themes in Dianne Johnson’s “The Government Women: Gender and Structural Contra­ diction in Papua New Guinea” (1984). Taking an explicitly feminist perspective, Johnson provides nuanced insight into the lives and chal­ lenges of “elite” women in Port Moresby. Arguing that despite the rhetoric of inclusion and equity, women who reach the higher echelons of Moresby

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Introduction

society are tokens in an otherwise male-dominated system, Johnson is prescient in her view that analyses of gender relations in Moresby ought also consider the importance of class and the role of expatriates, advice I take up in chapter 5. Her insight into the lives of educated and employed women in Moresby is an important contribution to the literature on life in Port Moresby. Many of her observations about the lives of professional women remain relevant today. In the decade or so after Johnson’s thesis, Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi wrote several papers about the lives of urban Papua New Guinean women, focusing on changing marriage patterns and intimate relationships. Two chapters published in 1993, “Bachelors, Spinsters, and ‘Pamuk Meris’ ” and “Love and Marriage Among the Educated Elite,” which was coau­ thored with Pamela Rosi, provide insight into the forms of power to which some employed women have access when they live in town. In the first of these, Zimmer-Tamakoshi (1993a) describes Barbara, a Gende woman, who worked as an air hostess and set up home in Port Moresby. Barbara was valued by her extended family because she was able to provide for them. Seen as being “like a man,” she contributed to ceremonial payments and sent money and goods to those who remained in the village. Barbara was able to use her “education to get ahead and . . . achieve real autonomy,” but women married to “elite males” do not fare as well (Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1993a). This is clear in Rosi and Zimmer-Tamakoshi’s (1993, 175) chapter in the same volume, in which they note of couples in Port Moresby that “differences in elite men and women’s expectations of marriage motivate some educated women either to marry across racial and national boundaries or to consider remaining single.” Although the pressures of life in town, including economic and social pressures and “conflicting expectations on the parts of husbands and wives” affect all residents, Rosi and Zimmer-Tamakoshi argue that they “have the great­ est bearing upon the educated elite” (180). Women without paid work could readily be seen as burdensome because of their lack of capacity to contribute financially (see also Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1998). On the other hand, educated, professional women faced both the double burden of engaging in waged work while being expected to perform the full suite of “wifely” duties at home. Educated women considered their careers to be as important as the men’s (Rosi and Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1993, 182), but men wanted and expected their wives to put their careers a firm second to their own. Zimmer-Tamakoshi further explores the theme of elite men restricting women in “Nationalism and Sexuality in Papua New Guinea” (1993b). Arguing that men draw on the idea of the “authenticity” of rural women to denigrate and contain urban, professional women, she shows

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why, despite their aspirations and achievements, women in this cohort continue to face societal discrimination. These expectations scaffold into contemporary gender relations. More recent research picks up on these themes, including the lives of professional women and intimate relationships among those living in town. Martha Macintyre’s (2011) discussion of PNG women in the modern economy demonstrates that the challenges faced by educated and employed Papua New Guinean women are not greatly different from their counterparts in more economically developed nations. Macintyre (2011, 118) notes that “they share the difficulties of managing this real­ ity [of paid employment] with women in other developing and advanced capitalist societies.” I have written about urban Papua New Guinean women’s reluctance to marry their countrymen because they fear that doing so will thwart their personal and career ambitions and place them at risk of harassment and violence (Spark 2010, 2011). More recently (Spark 2017a, 2017b), I consider urban women’s agency in their intimate relationships, revealing the decreasing significance of kin networks and the increasing influence of individualism and ideas of gender equity and personal fulfillment on attitudes to marriage. Melissa Demian’s (2017) compelling article on the lives of women residents in a boarding house in Port Moresby illuminates the challenges and opportunities experienced by single women seeking to make a life in town, as well as the nature of their interrelationships with those who came to the boarding house seek­ ing protection from family violence. Both Demian’s article and my writing (Spark 2016) demonstrate that women’s social connections with one another, financial indepen­ dence, and emotional support from their families of origin, are allowing them new forms of urban belonging. Unsettling both masculine domina­ tion of these spaces and traditional constructions of gender, these factors underpin the emergence of more expansive and perhaps more felicitous experiences of Port Moresby than were thought possible for Papua New Guinean women in town. Although set in the town of Goroka rather than Port Moresby, the excellent film Aliko and Ambai (Anton and Eby 2017) celebrates a supportive friendship between two young women, formed in adverse circumstances created in large part by their family members. Although not exclusively focused on women, but instead on both male and female residents in the blok settlement in which she conducted field work, Fiona Hukula’s (2017a, 2017b) research supports the idea that social networks in urban areas have changed such that they are no lon­ ger based exclusively or even primarily on links with kin and the village. Discussing residents’ use of the terms wanstrit, wanlotu, wanskul (one

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Introduction

street, one church, one school), Hukula draws attention to the ways in which shared location, employment, and friendship are providing women (and men) with “post-village” forms of connection and belonging in Port Moresby. This reflects a shift, particularly for women living in Moresby, who historically were seen as having their primary supports in their places of origin and as lacking support networks in the city. The emer­ gence of a variety of reciprocal relationships is also evident in Michelle Rooney’s (2017a) recently completed study of livelihood and social safety networks in ATS, a Port Moresby settlement. Drawing on this research, Rooney (2017b) notes separately that “big people”—lawyers, engineers, and public servants, for example—are cultivating relationships with peo­ ple in settlements in order to buy land, on which they plan eventually to build homes. Such relationships provide settlement dwellers with access to “otherwise inaccessible institutions and people” and “big people” with introductions to influential decision makers inside the settlement (Rooney 2017b, 135). Thus, where once inhabitation of a settlement was negotiated largely through kin relationships, now both women and men gain access to land in Port Moresby in other ways. This examination of the literature makes clear that working-class women have made gains in terms of their development of a sense of agency and belonging in Port Moresby. In particular, finding work in the formal sector appears to have multiple benefits for women, some of whom rely on this to make steps toward financial and other forms of autonomy. The increasing trend in Port Moresby toward finding networks within nongenealogical contexts, at church, work, through schools, and clubs, for example, shows that women, like their male counterparts, are less reli­ ant on family members for support. Such networks can in some instances open up more enabling social environments for women. However, these gains are offset by the likelihood that employed women carry the double burden of paid and household labor, as well as social challenges that arise from the need to navigate their new roles and status in a patriarchal and in many respects still traditional society. As the case of Evara appears to indicate, doing so can be especially difficult in intimate relationships (see also Johnson 1984; Spark 2011). Although not focused on women’s urban experiences, the recent efflorescence of writing by and about women is also worth mentioning because it offers insight into women’s views on a range of subjects from love and relationships to corruption, development, and sexual abuse. In 2011, the first anthology of writing collected for the National Liter­ ary Awards of PNG (Crocodile Prize 2018) was published. The Crocodile

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Prize, which has since published six anthologies, encourages both male and female authors to produce essays, poetry, short stories, and “heritage writing.” One regular contributor is Rashmii Bell, who has also written many blogs for PNG Attitude, a website designed to encourage conver­ sation between Papua New Guineans and Australians (Jackson 2018). Inspired by the network created through PNG Attitude, Bell sought sub­ missions for and edited My Walk to Equality, an anthology of Papua New Guinean women’s writing. The volume, published in 2017, offers insight into Papua New Guinean women’s perspectives on a range of topics from relationships to glass ceilings and the legacies of colonialism. Combin­ ing the voices of urban Papua New Guinean women and those in the diaspora, the collection challenges the idea of an “authentic” version of womanhood. This view is also clear in Bell’s 2016 essay for the Croco­ dile Prize: “In this day and age, Papua New Guineans, like Barbie dolls, come in various body shapes, hair and eye colour, accents and attire. We can be heel-encased, flats-wearing and yes even, bare feet” (2017c, 132). Although Bell considers herself particularly outspoken in identifying as a feminist (interview, October 2018), her voice resonates with other contributors to the collection, who write of their desire for supportive partners, describe nurturing friendships, and the joy of “sharing spring rolls and Chinese tea” at Vision City, “the place to shop and eat in bustling Port Moresby” (Ravuriso-Kali in Bell 2017c, 199). Although consump­ tion has been identified by various commentators as a key component of being middle class (Besnier 2009; Gewertz and Errington 1999; Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015), for women this often comes in combination with another aspect of being middle class, namely, “the tendency of individuals to associate with other individuals who share similar characteristics and experience” (Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015, 7). Urbanization in PNG Alongside and within recent writing about Port Moresby by women are also more publications about urban Melanesia, reflecting the increasing interest in, and commitment to, understanding the burgeoning cities of the Pacific. A benefit of this interest is that towns and cities, includ­ ing Port Moresby, are taken seriously as subjects of inquiry, rather than being overlooked in favor of a focus on the rural and remote sites of PNG long construed as the proper loci of anthropological attention. As Sarah Mecartney and John Connell (2017, 57) write of urban Melanesia,

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Introduction

Growing numbers, often now extending beyond formal urban bound­ aries, emphasize the need to recognize urbanization and urbanism, and its permanency, and understand these new urban contexts, the processes used by these different communities to access land and ser­ vices, and how this influences and requires urban development and management.

Much of this recent writing demonstrates the value of seeking to under­ stand the lives, challenges, and resilience evident in Port Moresby (see, for example, Goddard 2005, 2010; Jones 2017; Rooney 2017a). However, for the most part, this expanding urban literature only incidentally focuses on gender. Research is on urbanism and urbanization (particularly its discontents) in PNG and, somewhat separately, on gender inequities in relation to economic empowerment, gendered violence, education, and health (see, for example, Brouwer, Harris, and Tanaka 1998; Herm­ kens and Lepani 2017; Heward and Bunwaree 1999; Jolly, Stewart, and Brewer 2012). When the “urban” and “gender” are brought together in initiatives to make Port Moresby a safer city, for example, the emphasis tends to be on what Caroline Moser (1989) calls practical as opposed to strategic gender needs. An example of this is the provision of women only (Meri Seif) buses, a UN Women initiative. Because these interventions tend to construe women primarily as victims or potential victims of violence, they have their usefulness, but appear not to be performing the deep work of transforming gendered relations in Port Moresby in ways that might truly advance gender equality. Reflecting a focus on women’s con­ dition rather than their position, such approaches, as Sylvia Chant and Cathy McIlwaine (2016, 221) note, have frequently proved “inadequate in destablising gendered hierarchies except in marginal ways.” Thus, to bet­ ter understand and theorize the ambiguity of Port Moresby it is helpful to draw on ideas emerging from feminist geographies. Although, to a large extent, this research emerges from studies of cities in the Global North, the pattern is beginning to change, some studies beginning to consider women in the fast growing cities of the Global South, as I now explore. Feminist Geographies As Linda McDowell (1999, 228) writes, “from the early days of feminist geography almost three decades ago, it has been argued that women and men are positioned differently in the world and that their relationship

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to the places in which they live is thus different too.” Women’s different experience of the city has been recognized in a particular way in Port Moresby—that is, by virtue of their sex, women are seen to be vulnerable and at risk in this context. But, as I argue in this book, the situation is more complicated than that. Indeed, women of a certain class are making a place for themselves in the city, a phenomenon that needs to be theo­ rized through intersectional feminism that attends to class differences and to the ways in which experience in the city is shaped by a range of factors beyond gender. In the 1920s, scholars in the Chicago School of Sociology began exploring the ways in which urban inhabitants interacted with the physi­ cal and social environment of the city of Chicago. As part of this, they considered the impact race and class had on the construction of spatiality in cities. But, within these studies, gender tended to be seen as “natu­ ral,” perhaps because, as McDowell (1999, 97) notes, “men and women are spread throughout the urban area rather than confined to particu­ lar localities.” According to Gillian Rose (1993, 2), “criticism of women’s under-representation in geography began to be published . . . in the early 1970s.” Arguing that the “insistence that women matter had led to a radi­ cal reworking of how geographers . . . think of social life,” Rose’s (1993, 3) explanation helps account for the kind of work that took place in Port Moresby in the 1970s and 1980s. To some extent, this includes research such as that described earlier, in which the lives of urban women began to be seen as a worthy subject in its own right. In the 1970s, feminists in diverse disciplines, including geography, sociology, and urban studies, became more vociferously critical of inequi­ ties in relation to long-held and naturalized divisions between men and women. This extended to analyzing the spaces men and women occupied and the power relationships evident within them. Taken-for-granted asso­ ciations between femininity and domestic and private spaces as well as between masculinity and public and work spaces were shown to reflect and reproduce gendered hierarchies. Whereas the nineteenth century saw a valorization of women’s domestic lives—most evident in her celebrated role as the “angel of the house” (see Stansell 1987), twentieth-century feminists began to expose the oppressive aspects of the cult of domesticity. Arguing that the spaces women occupy and the activities in which they are engaged need to be understood in relation to underlying gender inequities, feminist scholars in various disciplines focused on exploring the complex and mutually constitutive relationships between places and bodies. Feminist geography has and continues to include both theoretical examinations of the discipline of geography as a masculinist enterprise

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Introduction

(see, for example, Bowlby et al. 1989; Rose 1993), studies of the lives of women in cities (see, for example, Deutsch 2000; Stansell 1987), and more recently, scholarship which takes an intersectional approach to ana­ lyzing urban spaces (see, for example, Jarvis, Kantor, and Cloke 2009; McDowell 1999; Mills 2009; Puwar 2004) in relation to gender, race, class, and colonialism. For the most part, however, this discussion has focused on gendered inequalities as these are manifest in the cities of the Global North. To take one instance, Linda McDowell (1993, 98) notes in Gender, Identity and Place that her examples “are drawn from Western industrial societies.” Signs point to this shifting. For example, in Cities and Gender, Helen Jarvis, Paula Kantor, and Jonathan Cloke (2009, 2) consider a variety of examples including cities in the “developing world,” arguing that challeng­ ing the “ethnocentrism of orthodox views of cities and gender” involves studying locations outside the Anglo-American center. This view has also been articulated by “third world feminists” and those whose research is focused in less economically developed countries (see, for example, Huang in Peake and Rieker 2013; Mohanty 1984, 1993; Mohanty, Russo, and Torres 1991; Moser 1989, 1993, 1995, 2012; Patel 2010). Investigating gender in the city of Port Moresby thus constitutes a valuable contribution to the current, postcolonial effort to ensure that diverse cities in the Global South are included in feminist accounts of urban spatialities. This inclusive anticolonial agenda underpins Chant and McIl­ waine’s book, Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South (2016). Noting that the conditions and theoretical constructions from advanced econo­ mies do not easily map on to developing countries, they argue there is a real need to focus on the Global South in its own right, especially given that this is where the vast bulk of current and future urban growth is occurring. Here, we wish not only to rectify a tendency for debates around inclusive or transformative cities either to neglect gender altogether or to focus on only one or two aspects of women’s experiences such as violence . . . but also to broaden our knowledge and appreciation of gender in relation to intra-urban heterogeneity by considering the socio-spatial significance of residence, especially as this pertains to slums. (4)

Two of their points have particular resonance in relation to Moresby. First, Moresby fits readily into being seen as a city where “only one or two aspects of women’s experiences such as violence” come into view (4). Whether one examines media portrayals of Port Moresby in the

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international media, or representations of its problems as these emerge within international donor and nongovernment organizations, the dis­ course of women as disadvantaged victims is pervasive. The second and related point is that it is important to consider “intra-urban heterogeneity.” Although Chant and McIlwaine (2016) do this by focusing their book on slums, slums are not the only places women inhabit in the developing world. Indeed, as I argue in this book, an emerging class of professional women in Moresby move between a variety of places, including some that are salubrious and they experience as liberating. Thus, even in this much maligned city, women experience a diversity of relationships with places and are not only ever endangered and at risk. Given that Moresby is typically constructed in relation to the problems of urbanization, it seems potentially more radical to focus on the diverse and sometimes liberating aspects of women’s experiences than it is to focus on disadvantage and the lives of those living in slums. In contrast to the containment and restriction that many women associate with home, professional women’s economic freedom brings them out into the city to meet with friends, see movies, or visit shops. As McDowell (1999, 156) argues, city spaces outside the home are associ­ ated with the possibility of “transgressing hegemonic versions of [gender and] sexuality.” Offering women the chance to experience a degree of lib­ eration from the private, confining, and often violent space of “home,” some of Moresby’s new spaces are places in which “the active independent woman [comes] into her own” (155). As middle-class women access new and secure places, moving between these in their own cars or as passen­ gers in vehicles provided by their employers, they experience a degree of freedom. In Moresby this freedom relies on insulation from the city’s Others, it simultaneously enables new modes of place inhabitation in which women are arguably better situated than their grassroots coun­ terparts, who must continue to rely on family members for protection. Nevertheless, as Martha Radice (1999, 88) reminds us, “feeling com­ fortable with the city is never finalized; it must be endlessly renegotiated as long as the doubts lurk.” Although recent literature explores the rela­ tionships between diverse women (Demian 2017; Hukula 2017a, 2017b; Spark 2017a, 2017b), including those in different layers of Moresby’s social strata, doubts do lurk in the minds of Moresby’s women, including about their fellow inhabitants who are less well off and about their right to enter and be comfortable in some of the city’s still-colonial places. These too are considered in the ensuing chapters. But first, to better understand Port Moresby, it is necessary to describe the city and some of the recent changes that have taken place there.

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Introduction

“No Longer the Sleepy Hollow” In recent years, Port Moresby has grown considerably, as has the popula­ tion of the country overall. Census data from 2011 cite 194,834 males and 169,291 females in the National Capital District, the area in which Port Moresby is located (National Statistical Office 2011). According to the 2000 census data, 115,184 females lived in Port Moresby (National Statistical Office 2011). However, a UN report from 2010 suggests the city’s population is “a little over 400,000” (UN-HABITAT 2010, 8) and a recent report from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade funded Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development midterm review notes that “urbanisation is occurring much faster than is sug­ gested in the 2011 census” (Braun and Yuave 2017, 63). The city has the highest growth rate in the country, the most populous “town areas” being Tokarara and Hohola (National Statistical Office 2011). As the authors of the UN-HABITAT report (2010, 22) write, “most of the city’s low income work force lives in settlements, however, the trend is changing with mid­ dle- and high-income earners moving into settlements because of the limited access to formal housing.” The authors continue, remarking on “an emerging trend where women are going into careers that were for­ merly dominated by men such as engineering and other technical careers” (28). Although the figures quoted are not specific to urban areas, women now “occupy 23 per cent of all senior management positions and 31 per cent of middle management positions in central government agencies” (Braun and Yuave 2017, 61). Further, The demand on women to generate income in addition to domestic responsibilities is a major shift from the past and gaining economic opportunities is a pressing need. More women are seen to have money, be effective as financial managers, be in positions of leadership, have the means to be mobile and become educated, although they continue to lack full control over decision-making. Youth hold different value [sic], and marriage is changing, with more youth choosing their own partners and living together without parental approval. Young women who gained education in the last decade are finding expression in new and unprecedented ways. (Braun and Yuave 2017, 61)

These shifts are most evident in urban areas, particularly in Port Moresby, such that it is often said to be anomalous in the broader context of PNG. Since I first spoke with educated Moresby women in 2006, the city’s physical landscape has changed considerably. Those who live in Moresby

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Women in the City

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17

delight in informing prospective visitors that the city is no longer “the sleepy hollow” (Steve Sims, email, July 2015) of times past. As Marie wrote to me in 2015, “Moresby has changed, there are more roads, there is a bigger airport, and there are a lot more people in the city, the city is more connected by roads and is moving at a faster pace” (email, August 2015). Where, as noted, the city was once a place from which Papua New Guineans were “physically and socially excluded except as workers” (Oram 1976, 27), in today’s Port Moresby Papua New Guineans of diverse ori­ gins inhabit the city not only as workers but also as consumers, leisure seekers, home buyers, volunteers, and activists. The disparities between the lives of those who find it hard to feed themselves and their families and those who have the financial security to be able to enjoy some of the new venues on offer are significant. The boom in the country’s resources sector yielded an increased demand for local business and commercial spaces. Between 2011 and 2014, urban residents witnessed the construction of the Malaysian-owned Vision City mall, the Waterfront Food world retail complex, the Grand Papua Hotel, and the Waigaini Central Shopping Complex (which includes the supermarket Stop N Shop) and the Paradise movie complex. On a smaller scale, Duffy, a popular cafe which opened in Gordons in 2012 now has cafes at two additional locations, one at Harbour City and the other in the departures area of the international airport (for a discussion of Duffy, see Spark 2018). Like most cities preparing to host large, internationally televised events, Moresby underwent considerable development of infra­ structure during the lead up to the 2015 South Pacific Games and more recently, in preparation to host the 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Coopera­ tion (APEC) meetings. Before the games, upgrades were made to major sporting stadiums, such as the Rita Flynn Netball Stadium, the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium, and the Sir John Guise Precinct; the international air­ port was renovated; and the Kumul Flyover, a four-lane highway costing K161 million ($58 million), was built. In 2016, the Malaysian logging company that owns Vision City completed The Stanley, a luxury hotel located adjacent to the shopping mall. The sheer opulence of this hotel is astounding (The Stanley n.d.). It seems likely, though, that the luxury of The Stanley will be matched if not trumped by the Star Mountain Plaza, a Hilton Hotel built for APEC that opened in October 2018 in time to host international attendees. Star Mountain also manages the Kutubu Con­ vention Centre, described as “Papua New Guinean’s premier meeting and events venue” (Hilton 2018). Other major APEC constructions include APEC Haus at Ela Beach, said to become a “world class museum” (Mou 2017) after the APEC summit, even though it was not built specifically to

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◊

Introduction

house precious collections, and a new road leading directly from Waigani to Parliament House and funded by the Chinese government (Esila 2018). Major housing and retail developments at Ela Beach continue, as does the construction of apartments and houses all over the city. Alongside the development of commercial, office, and residential spaces, activity and leisure sites have been upgraded, among them Nature Park (previously the National Capital Botanical Gardens) and the Murray Barracks Leisure Centre, which now has a gym and twenty-five-meter pool. In themselves, these developments both reflect the growing num­ ber of people in the middle class and, in turn, can bring about changes in the lives of women. For instance, where previously four women (out of eighty employees) worked at the Botanical Gardens, the remaking of it as Nature Park has been led by an Australian woman who has increased the proportion of female staff to 40 percent (interview, October 2017). The new Adventure Park at “14-mile” has water slides and paddleboats as well as housing the National Orchid garden. With support from the Australian funded Australia-PNG Partnership, PNG’s National Museum and Art Gal­ lery (NMaG) was refurbished in 2015 to house a new exhibition, “Built on Culture.” After leadership and financial challenges, reflecting a lack of support from the PNG government, NMaG was reopened in October 2018, also in time for APEC (Post-Courier 2018). Alongside these changes, Powes Parkop, the controversial governor of the National Capital District

Figure 1. Owen’s Store at the Stanley Hotel in

Waigani. Photo by author, October 2018.

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Women in the City

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Figure 2. The new APEC Haus at Ela Beach. Photo by author, October 2018.

(see, for example, Tlozek 2018), has overseen the construction of chil­ dren’s playgrounds around Moresby and implemented health initiatives, including the Sunday morning Walk for Life and free yoga sessions at Murray Barracks. As Barbara, Cox, and Leach (2015, 12) note, these changes embody “distinct middle-class values.” Although they are still forced to manage concerns about personal safety, working-class women can experience a more expansive Port Moresby through access to these facilities and initiatives. The discussion in this chapter demonstrates that in the last fifty years a new version of Port Moresby has emerged, one with the potential to give rise to new forms of femininity. Whereas once Papua New Guinean women had little presence in this colonial town, today PNG’s capital city is home to a small but growing cohort of Papua New Guinean women of diverse ethnicities. Reflecting their middle-class identification and status, their lives are shaped as much by exposure to the world beyond PNG, as by their own families and communities. Only a decade ago, this group was a minority, not only in terms of number but also and more significantly because they felt themselves to be outsiders in a nation, which appeared to place greater value on their rural and apparently more “authentic” coun­ terparts (Spark 2010, 2011). Despite being from educated families and having grown up in Port Moresby, they faced challenges reconciling their desire for autonomy—personal, financial, and sexual—with familial and

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Introduction

societal expectations about proper and safe conduct for young women in the city they called home. Today, they remain a minority in number and, as the story of Evara shows, continue to experience challenges despite their professional lives and status. Without discounting these challenges, it is time to move beyond an exclusive focus on problems. By doing so I hope to show that Port Moresby, as a city of the Global South is not only a place that perpetuates and exacerbates poverty. Like its counterparts in the Global North, it is experienced in a range of ways by the women who inhabit its diverse spaces. Reflecting class-based opportunity, degrees of autonomy, and self-determination alongside gendered constraints, it is at least as complex, ambiguous, and interesting a place as the cities that tend to be construed as more enabling places for women. As Elizabeth Wilson (1991, 7) writes in her discussion of some of the world’s greatest cities, the city “might be a place of liberation for women,” balancing the forces of conformity with opportunities for its opposite— “pleasure, deviation, disruption.” These words are rarely if ever heard about the experience of women in the cities of the Global South, and yet Wilson’s image of urban contradiction can also be seen in these con­ texts. In this book, I put forward case studies in which Moresby women tell their experiences of life in the city. Although the challenges of life in Moresby for women are always present, it also becomes clear that the representation of Moresby as a city in desperate and perpetual need of external intervention has obfuscated the powerful agency that middleclass women exercise in their lives and the life of their communities. In the next chapter, I focus on films about Port Moresby. Doing so enables me to demonstrate the range of people who inhabit the city and some of the factors that influence their experience of the places within it. In addition to demonstrating the emerging significance of class as a deter­ minant of belonging, the chapter provides a window into the breadth of experiences of the city, calling into question the consistently derogatory representations of it as a place exclusively associated with violence and suffering.

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C H A PT ER 1

Representations of Port Moresby Gender, Class, and Culture in Films about the City Oh, my friend, why do you leave your village and come? Hanging around Moresby is no good Food and everything must be bought with money If you have no money you’ll stay hungry (Cowboy’s song in Cowboy and Maria, 1991) In PNG’s capital, things are starting to look a little different (Moresby Modern, 2009)

I

n September 2016, the feature film Lukim Yu premiered at Paradise Cin­ ema at Vision City in Port Moresby. Directed by Canadian Christopher Anderson, Lukim Yu explores the lives of four young people living in the city. The main characters are Melissa and John, who come from different social classes in Port Moresby, John being less well off than Melissa. We see them alongside their friends, Jamie and Maria, in Duffy cafe, Nature Park, on the rugby pitch, in Lamana night club, Paradise Cinema, and the cemetery, to name just a few of the locations familiar to Moresby residents. Although class differences are at the heart of the film, Lukim Yu also focuses on portraying Port Moresby as a more expansive and mod­ ern place than it is typically represented to be. The characters face their share of troubles and violence, but the film presents Port Moresby as a city in which people of diverse means pursue educational opportunities and catch up with friends at local parks and nightclubs. Moreover, in an unexpected turn, it is Melissa’s single-minded and snobbish mother— and not “gangs from the settlements”—who is the biggest threat to John. Described as “a story of hope,” Lukim Yu clearly aims to explore sides of Moresby that are rarely seen in media depictions of the city. This has the positive effect of rendering Moresby a more multidimensional place than is typically the case. But local viewers with whom I have spoken criticize the film’s depiction of John’s life as unrealistic. For instance, a 21

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Chapter 1

friend observed that, as a gardener, John would never meet friends at Duffy because he could not afford to eat there. Given the exorbitant cost of housing in Moresby, the coy love scene in which John takes Melissa home to a seemingly new and well-maintained apartment is also unlikely. Despite these clumsy moments, Lukim Yu offers a different perspective on the city from those that typically appear in the international media. In doing so, it may reflect inhabitants’ aspirations while demonstrating that here, as in other urban contexts, life is characterized by humorous, excit­ ing, and sensual experiences as well, as by poverty, fear, and uncertainty. Thus, despite some grating inaccuracies, the film makes an important contribution to narratives about this oft-maligned place. Lukim Yu offers a useful prompt to consider how Port Moresby has been represented in film over the last few decades. This representation is the topic of this chapter. Commencing with the documentary Cowboy and Maria (McLaren 1991) and moving to more recent films, I argue that though some films reinforce the dominant discourse that the city is no place for women, others offer more subtle and polyvocal insights into the range of factors shaping lives and belonging in Port Moresby. Teas­ ing out how the city has been constructed in films, I analyze some of the differences between local and international perspectives on the city, particularly in relation to film representations of ethnicity, gender, and class. This analysis reveals that some recent films about Port Moresby are collaborative efforts between Papua New Guineans and expatriates. Reflecting the hybrid nature of cultural production in contemporary Port Moresby, this change is itself suggestive of the city’s ethnically diverse population and the increasing complexity of its interrelationships. Dem­ onstrating that, historically and overall, women’s voices have tended to be less prominent in films about the city than men’s, I suggest that some among the more recent films are bringing collective visibility to men’s and women’s multifaceted experiences of insecurity and belonging in the city. Films about Port Moresby: 1991–2016 As a collection, the films discussed here differ from one another in many ways. For instance, two are fictional and the remainder are documentary. Some have been made for television, some for the purposes of entering a film festival, and others to convey a message. They also differ in length: Hands Up: Your Betelnut or Your Life is seven minutes whereas Lukim Yu is a rather tedious ninety-three. Part of the reason for discussing such diverse representations is that not many films are about or set in Port

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Representations

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23

Moresby. Also, the differences are interesting in that each of the films constructs gender, class, and ethnicity in particular ways. They thus afford valuable insight into how the city is seen, by whom, and the politics of representation. My analysis demonstrates that though singular, colo­ nizing perspectives persist, these are also being contested and refuted in cross-cultural productions that tell a more complex story of life in Port Moresby. In the introduction, I discuss the idea that Moresby was never meant to be a “home” for the ethnically and culturally diverse migrants arriv­ ing from rural and remote areas. In the following section, I consider Les McLaren’s Cowboy and Maria in Town (1991), an hour-long documentary that explores the lives of people in the city’s urban settlements. Overall, the film demonstrates that security and comfort are far from guaranteed in a city that presents multiple challenges for migrants. Interestingly, however, McLaren does not represent Maria’s life as inherently more vul­ nerable than Cowboy’s. Instead, both men and women are shown to face challenges and demonstrate resilience. Cowboy and Maria in Town (1991) Cowboy and Maria reflects the efflorescence of documentary films about Papua New Guinea (PNG) made by Australians in the 1970s and 1980s.1 Alongside Chris Owen, the additional cameraman for Cowboy and Maria, director Les McLaren is one of the main contributors to this body of work. Indeed, the ways in which Western cameras have represented the lives of Papua New Guineans is itself the subject of Taking Pictures (1996), another film by McLaren and his filmmaking partner Annie Stivens, both of whom lived and worked in PNG for many years. As well as Chris Owen, other expatriate filmmakers from this era include Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson, Dennis O’Rourke, and Gary Kildea. Between them, they produced most films about PNG made in the years after independence. Seeking to distinguish themselves from the paternalism associated with the Commonwealth Film Unit’s productions, these directors tended to produce more culturally sensitive and nuanced perspectives about PNG than had hitherto existed (for further discussion of filmmaking in PNG, see McLaren 2003; Spark 2013; Sullivan 2003; Thomas 2010). Cowboy and Maria is in the “observational mode” in that it proceeds more “by implication . . . than demonstration” (Barbash and Taylor 1997, 28). Because McLaren is a presence in the film both as narrator and as the interviewer who can be heard asking questions, the film can also be

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Chapter 1

described as reflexive (31). The film focuses on the lives of the titular characters, and commences with the following script: Since gaining Independence from Australia in 1975, Papua New Guinea has faced the challenge of bringing development to its cul­ turally diverse peoples, who live mainly in rural villages. Though the country is resource rich, economic strategies have not created wide­ spread employment for the rapidly expanding population. Attracted by the chance of work and higher wages, many people migrate to the urban centres. (McLaren 1991)

Avoiding the sensationalism that characterizes most international media portrayals, the film sets up the desire for employment as the main if not exclusive reason for coming to town. This is perhaps overly simplistic for, as the film itself makes clear, despite the high rate of unemployment in Port Moresby, people continue to arrive. That they do suggests that the desire to take part in the excitement and diversity of urban life is as sig­ nificant a driver of urban migration as the desire for employment. Within this framework, we are introduced to Cowboy, a onetime raskol (the Tok Pisin word for criminal) who earns a little money as a street busker. Having been jailed many times, Cowboy decided during his most recent imprisonment that he would not return to Bomana jail. Once released, he faced the inevitable hunger of urban dwellers who have neither income nor garden nor other means to secure food. To avoid returning to a life of crime, Cowboy made himself a guitar. However, as the film observes, because the novelty of his performance is beginning to wear off, Cowboy needs to find new ways to ensure that his music contin­ ues to provide him income. McLaren interviews Cowboy’s parents, but Cowboy’s girlfriend and sister remain shadowy figures. We do not hear their views, except when his sister is invited to agree with her father’s claim that the family disap­ proves of Cowboy’s ways. We do, however, hear from Cowboy’s mother, who provides an account of when she and his father were courting. Cow­ boy’s father appears to consider his son a “good for nothing,” not least because he left school too early and has not helped provide for his family. About ten minutes into the film, we also meet Maria and her extended family, “who are from Simbu province in the Highlands.” The introduction to Maria occurs via a seemingly tangential route through the golf course that abuts Parliament House. This, McLaren tells us, is “where business leaders and politicians play.” But “on the other side” is “one of the more recent migrant settlements,” where Maria lives. These brief

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Representations

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25

scenes depict an apparently wealthy Papua New Guinean playing golf as a large group of boys jostle outside the gates competing to be his caddy. We learn little to nothing about this apparently middle-class figure, only that he has eaten cornflakes rather than “sweet potato” for breakfast and that he will pay the caddy later. That McLaren shows no sustained interest in the golfer suggests that he sees Moresby’s grassroots inhabitants as his real subjects. Hence, although he signals class discrepancies—such as by panning down from shots of tall office buildings to the settlements where Maria and her fam­ ily have made their home—he does not make them a focus. This does not mean that emerging class differences in Moresby were not part of urban life in 1991. By this time, Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Err­ ington (1999) were documenting emerging class differences in the coastal town of Wewak in their book on the subject. Instead, just as anthropolo­ gists have passed through Moresby in search of the “real PNG,” so too have expatriate filmmakers tended to be more interested in the lives of “traditional” people and practices in rural and remote areas than in the lives of urban dwellers. As Emmanuel Narokobi, coproducer of Hands Up and Moresby Modern, noted, he made these films because he wanted to see himself—“not the usual traditional sorcery or whatever” (interview, June 2018; for a discussion of the importance of seeing Papua New Guinean stories reflected in films, see Thomas 2010). Perhaps McLaren’s interest in struggling urban migrants constitutes less of a departure from these “traditional subjects” than focusing on Port Moresby’s emerging middle class would be. McLaren also takes an exploratory path in relation to gender. As the film unfolds, he represents Maria’s marginal existence as reflecting intersecting factors, including her limited education, employability, and connections, alongside her gender. Given the more typical discursive con­ struction of the city as no place for women, this more complex view is valuable, especially given the film takes one male and one female char­ acter as its main subjects and could easily have portrayed their lives as being dichotomous. Instead, as Cowboy and Maria’s stories unfold, we learn that both are vulnerable as well as resilient. Cowboy’s vulnerability stems largely from his precarious existence within a city where a minority have what they need but most are forced to survive in the margins. Early in the film, McLaren interviews a large group of urban men who describe their places of origin outside Port Moresby, that they are unemployed and that they are required to “make their money at night.” This creative recasting of raskols as men who have no choice but to pursue survival illicitly, situates

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Chapter 1

Cowboy’s own story of raskolism. But as we learn later, when Cowboy tells a story, not all members of Port Moresby society take such a prag­ matic view. He describes being assaulted by both vigilantes and police for stealing a white woman’s purse while she was shopping. His vulner­ ability in this moment—Cowboy describes himself crying for his mother as the crowd beats him—reverses the usual portrayal of vulnerable white women and predatory Papua New Guinean men. Because the expatriate woman called out, people rounded on him, revealing that—despite its reputation as unsafe for expatriates—the city protects these inhabit­ ants better than it does Papua New Guineans living there, particularly those without money. Like many urban dwellers, Cowboy is also vulner­ able because of health issues. Leprosy has damaged his fingers, making it harder for him to play the guitar, a situation that only exacerbates his precarity. Maria also faces challenges making ends meet. Her husband David works as a security guard and consequently has access to a fortnightly income. Maria earns some money growing vegetables to sell during the rainy season. Although they obviously rely on one another and a mix of formal and informal income for survival (Barber 2010), it seems that it is David who determines how and on what money is spent. During the film, we see Maria in a shop asking David for 95 toea (just short of a kina) to purchase something. He responds that it is not her money and to “stop nagging,” a view that reflects the locally prevailing idea that the money men earn is theirs to control and spend (Eves 2016, 2017). Maria also describes women’s vulnerability. Connecting this with the corrupting aspects of the city, which turn ethnic affiliates and kin into “strangers, rascals who might steal from us,” she says, “Once women could walk freely to their gardens. Now they can’t. Rascals prevent this. If women come, rascals bail them up, steal their string bags, money and assault them. That’s what they do. And on the roads, that’s what’s hap­ pening too” (Cowboy and Maria, McLaren 1991). But the film conveys Maria’s strength and capability as much as if not more than the idea that she is a victim. For example, we witness her description of building the settlement house in which her family live, learning that she dug the holes and nailed the walls in herself. She says that David was not able to help because his hands were injured from getting drunk and fighting. As part of the process of making home, Maria encouraged her father and other relatives to come from Simbu. In turn, they have assisted her by purchas­ ing the materials for a roof. Maria asserts, “Having a house in Moresby means you are somebody. With no house, we’re just like children. Noth­ ing.” Maria displays her savvy in other ways too, describing how she

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Representations

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27

takes whatever the political candidates give out but votes for whomever she chooses, and intervenes in efforts to make peace when ethnic-based fighting breaks out in the settlement. At one point, she also reports David to the police for being drunk and throwing a bottle at her. Although she drops the charges because she feels sorry for him, such moments sug­ gest that Maria is able to exert a degree of agency and control despite her challenging circumstances (for discussions of women’s resilience in settlements, see Rooney 2017a and Hukula 2017b). Overall, the main difference that emerges between Cowboy and Maria is that he has no desire to return to the village, and that she describes the Highlands province of Simbu as home and declares her strong desire to return there. Cowboy says, “I don’t think about the vil­ lage. Since I came to the city I’ve seen many things. I don’t want to go back.” Maria, however, talks a lot about Simbu, encouraging her daughter to think of the province rather than Moresby as her true home. It is also clear that whatever Cowboy’s struggles, he has a degree of autonomy; meanwhile, Maria is unlikely to be able to survive in the settlement with­ out the support of others. Consequently, despite echoes in their mutual experiences of the city, their respective abilities to navigate the challenges of life in Port Moresby are affected by gender because it intersects with poverty and class. The point is not that Maria is vulnerable and Cowboy is not, but that gender shapes vulnerability and survival in different ways for women and men. Moreover, it does so in interaction with a city in which most inhabitants experience a high degree of precarity, including as a result of coming from “elsewhere.” Although gender continues to have an impact on the embodied experience of Port Moresby in the pres­ ent, as I demonstrate in chapter 2, in some cases, women who have come from elsewhere now have a better chance of making home in the city. In the section that follows, I discuss two television episodes that reflect no such complexity pertaining to either gender or class. I then consider Hands Up: Your Betelnut or Your Life (Walsh and Narokobi 2006), a short film that constitutes a humorous response to the kinds of narra­ tives evident in the television episodes. This analysis demonstrates that though the international media seek to present their knowledge of the city as authoritative, their representations are in fact partial, singular, and reflective of an imperialist geography in which PNG and its capital city are seen as “wild space” in comparison with the “civilized” space of the global north, whence the television crews emerge (see Puwar 2004). Before I discuss these films further, it is important to note that between 1991 and 2012, the internet had profoundly shifted the audience for films about PNG. Whereas in 1991 McLaren was probably addressing

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Chapter 1

a small but relatively well-informed group of outsiders, by 2012 Port Moresby had been long represented in the international media as a place of violence and corruption. The productions I discuss in the next sec­ tion exemplify a narrative that would be familiar to audiences overseas. Equally, however, by this time, the internet was also enabling Papua New Guineans themselves—or at least those who had access to data—to view how they were being represented, and to some extent to respond by com­ ing up with their own representations (for a discussion of examples of local filmmaking, see Thomas 2010; Spark 2013, 2015b). Toughest Cops and Extreme World In 2012, Vinnie Jones, a British television presenter and former star footballer, went to Papua New Guinea to make an episode titled “Tough­ est Cops, Papua New Guinea.” Not to be outdone, fellow Brit Ross Kemp followed a year later, shooting the material for episode 2, series 3 of his Extreme World, which aired in 2014. Jones focuses almost exclusively on Port Moresby, but only the first fifteen minutes of Kemp’s episode is set there. Subsequently, Kemp takes viewers to other parts of PNG in an effort to display more of this “lawless and violent” place. Thus, in my analysis, I discuss only the first part of Extreme World, in which Kemp is in Moresby. So little subtlety and insight is afforded by the representations of these British television episodes that it is reasonable to question my inclu­ sion of them here. But, as many films about Moresby, including Cowboy and Maria, and these episodes themselves observe, the city “only seems to get negative headlines” (Extreme World) in the international media. Referring to “cannibalism” and “witch burning” along with “rape, tribal violence, and corruption” (Extreme World), the episodes reflect the inter­ national media’s preoccupation with the city’s reputation for violence and trouble. My discussion of them is intended to substantiate the claim that the international media tends to produce a one-sided and deeply negative view of Port Moresby. Within this overall portrayal of Moresby as a dangerous place, local masculinity is shown to represent the greatest threat. Interwoven with the idea of “fierce tribal culture” (Extreme World), local masculin­ ity is equated with criminality and violence. Against this construction of local men who are described as forming “raskol gangs” and engaged in perpetual violence, Jones and Kemp proffer their own hypermasculine identities. Their heroic task, as presented within the narratives of their

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respective eponymous episodes, is to discover the source of the problems. For instance, having reiterated all the tropes about Port Moresby, Kemp says, “This is a country where violence appears to be endemic” and “I’ve come to find out why.” To find answers, both presenters claim to go “deep inside the settle­ ment” (Toughest Cops), construed as the prime locale of violent, “tribal” masculinity. Because of his series’ focus on “tough cops,” Jones describes going to “the settlement” to “meet a gang member.” This reflects the production’s commitment to making Jones himself seem particularly “tough” because, according to the voiceover, the settlements are “usually controlled by the rascals [and thus] are no go areas even for the police.” It seems, however, that the television crew’s time in the settlements must have been uneventful, for Toughest Cops relies extensively on Australian television footage from 1995 to tell its story. When we do meet a “gang member” it is in a car, and thus is a conversation that could have occurred anywhere, including a hotel parking lot. Perhaps inconveniently for the makers of Toughest Cops, the ras­ kol they feature spends much of his time describing police brutality. He notes, for example, that “everyone is afraid of the police” and that “if they want to shoot you they shoot you.” Toughest Cops then minimizes the impact of the gang member’s claims about police corruption and vio­ lence by reporting the police response, which is unsurprisingly that “the police said there is no place in the constabulary for members who abuse the public” and that “they investigate all claims of abuse.” It then returns to its central narrative that the police represent the front line in the war against “the traditions of tribal culture.” Like the makers of Toughest Cops, Kemp is similarly persuaded that “tribal conflict” and “payback” (Extreme World) rather than economic and social inequality are to blame for the country’s failings. He thus goes “to Nine Mile [settlement] to get a better understanding of payback.” Here, the local men welcome him to a game of darts and to share a beer. Rather than being threatening, they display a friendly, group masculinity, one man telling him that he had come to Moresby to escape tribal fighting. Kemp seems almost disappointed if not surprised when he departs, say­ ing, “they’ve all been very welcoming” and are “good people.” But lest the viewer begin to query the fearsome nature of the settlement’s “ethnic” inhabitants, Kemp reminds us, “if you step out of line it goes horribly wrong.” In both television episodes, the footage is overwhelmingly of men. Indeed, women (let alone policewomen) are completely absent from Toughest Cops. Extreme World features only two, one who remains

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voiceless but whose injuries are shown, and the other who is support­ ing her injured partner in the hospital. But despite their invisibility and silence, women’s status as victims of rape and domestic violence looms large, particularly in Extreme World. Kemp mentions the word “rape” repeatedly and at one point asks a group of male prisoners why they com­ mit rape. He does not engage with the explanation they provide—namely that they are influenced by the internet—perhaps because this reference to global influences is less interesting than if they had referenced their “tribal” ways. The footage is presented as confirming the view that these men are senselessly and randomly brutal, thus reinforcing the idea that savagery emerges from this “wild” landscape and not from the interaction between local and global worlds. In short, both Toughest Cops and Extreme World repeat primitivizing tropes about Moresby and the masculinity therein, while failing to offer insight into the conditions that might produce the challenges faced by the city’s inhabitants. Indeed, when interviewees try to allude to such com­ plexities, such as police brutality, these are quickly suppressed in favor of an overarching discourse about tribal violence. Issues of class are absent from Extreme World and Toughest Cops makes only the sweeping claim that “the rich hide behind razor wire while the poor live in shanty towns.” That many of these wealthy people are white expatriates remains a mys­ tery, disguising the ethnicity of advantage and disadvantage in the city. In the next section, I discuss Hands Up: Your Betelnut or Your Life, which was made in 2006. Though it precedes the episodes of Toughest Cops and Extreme World just discussed, discursively Hands Up constitutes a response to their construction of Port Moresby as a violent and trou­ bled place, tropes about Port Moresby established before Jones and Kemp made their films. Hands Up: Your Betelnut or Your Life! Hands Up is the first film about Port Moresby to have been coproduced by a Papua New Guinean and an Australian. As such, despite its brevity, it constitutes an important moment in filmmaking about Port Moresby. Using humor, it portrays armed hold-ups as opportunistic attempts by men who are less bad than they are bumbling. As becomes clear, the film was made for Tropfest, described as “Australia’s most prestigious short film competition and the largest short film festival in the world” (Trop­ fest n.d.).

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Figure 3. Hands Up! actors Emmanuel Narokobi and Golonzo Buase Jr. adopt poses for a publicity still for the film. Courtesy of film director, Brendan Walsh, who says that “Despite appearances, they were unused to holding guns and it took them a while to find a pose that looked convincing.”

The film tells the story of two pairs of men. One pair conducts armed robberies but instead of being menacing, are comic fools moti­ vated by the need to raise money. The scenes of their bungled attempts at carjacking are interspersed with footage of a second pair; a roadside buai (betel nut) seller and his customer who also lament the hardships of life in Moresby. The betel nut seller and his customer complain about crime, the high cost of living, and the challenge of saving money for bride price and school fees. The would-be raskols discuss the same challenges as well as the potholes on the roads and the wantok system (traditional kinship system denoting extended social network). In these ways, both victims and perpetrators are depicted as doing their best to get by in a challeng­ ing environment. Unlike Toughest Cops and Extreme World, which credit no Papua New Guinean involvement, Hands Up was coproduced by Emmanuel Narokobi and Australian television producer, Brendan Walsh, both of whom were living in Port Moresby when the film was made. Walsh, who was working

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as the producer at local television station EMTV, wanted to make a film for Tropfest. Observing that crime and security were “getting worse” when he first moved to Port Moresby, Walsh said he wanted to make a film about carjackings but in doing so to “think about what caused” them. He said it was important for him that the film was not “just an expat observation. . . . I wanted it to be something that is equally Papua New Guinean, so I was looking for someone that could produce it and help me produce it and become a partner in it and go back over the ideas with me, and work with me on it” (interview, May 2018). Producing cross-cultural collaboration hitherto absent from film­ making about Port Moresby, this approach was substantiated when Walsh met Narokobi at a party in Port Moresby. Narokobi, a lawyer who runs a multimedia production company, is the nephew of Bernard Narokobi, author of The Melanesian Way (1983). Educated in Australia, Narokobi also features in and coproduced Moresby Modern (2009), a second collabo­ ration with Walsh, which I discuss shortly. Narokobi became coproducer of Hands Up, advising Walsh about the script, assisting with casting, and providing the location for the shoot. Since this time, Walsh has managed distribution of the film outside PNG and Narokobi has done so within the country. As Narokobi noted, the film was not designed to convey a message, but instead merely to entertain: “We were just trying to get into Trop­ fest. . . . I didn’t consciously go into it trying to say anything or provide any message. We just wanted to do something funny that could tick the boxes to get into Tropfest, and it did.” Indeed Narokobi finds it some­ what annoying when people look for a message in the film: “Everything is development-driven and in order to get the money, you have to have a message in it. There’s the usual, gender, violence, that sort of thing. So I haven’t seen anything that’s been done just to be a good story” (inter­ view, June 2018). Walsh shared this perspective, indicating that his goal was to show that life in Moresby is “not as bleak as people think” (inter­ view, May 2018). Inspired by City of God (2002) and Pulp Fiction (1994), the film was made to be entertaining. It reached Tropfest’s “Best of the Rest 2006” in Sydney and Melbourne. Noting that Hands Up was enthusiastically received at the launch in Port Moresby, both Walsh and Narokobi commented that expatri­ ates and Papua New Guineans laughed at different moments. Observing that “because it is pretty cross-cultural there may be stuff in there that they’re [Papua New Guineans] oblivious to or that doesn’t ring true,” Walsh believes Hands Up was a hit “because PNG audiences are starved of

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content, of their own stories,” a view supported by local bloggers (inter­ view, May 2018; see also Namun 2008). Although a minority have criticized the film for showing crime in Port Moresby, I argue that by doing so humorously the film subverts the characteristic depiction of Moresby as a grim dystopia inhabited by longsuffering (female) victims and (male) predators. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the two Safe Cities films I discuss next. Safe Cities I noted earlier that the hypermasculine nature of the British television productions merely imply the presence of women via repeated references to rape and danger. In contrast, the Safe Cities films focus explicitly on the hazards of Port Moresby’s markets for female inhabitants. They thus constitute a representation of gender in the city that is familiar in devel­ opment discourse, one in which conveying a message about the dangers of the city’s public spaces enables an outside agency to be positioned as rescuer. Safe Cities is an international project run by the United Nations and in which the international nongovernment organization UN Women in Port Moresby takes a lead role. The project commenced in 2011 with fund­ ing from the Spanish aid program, with the initial aim being to improve the city’s markets, by redesigning infrastructure and in this way enhanc­ ing women’s safety and opportunities to earn a living (see UN Women Asia and the Pacific 2015). To publicize the work of UN Women, the Safe Cities team made two films about its work in the markets, the first in 2012 and the second in 2013. The first is fifteen minutes long and the second twenty-two minutes. The films, made to be uploaded to the internet, appear on the UN Women website and on YouTube. Garnering almost three hundred thousand views between them, they provide a lens through which people are viewing Port Moresby. Along with World’s Toughest Cops and Extreme World, they are easy to locate and watch. Unlike in three of the four films discussed so far, women’s experiences of the city are central in both productions. The first film explores the problems women experience in the mar­ kets. This includes harassment, theft, rape, and other forms of violence (for an assessment of the “lessons for market renovators,” see Craig and Porter 2017). Like the British television episodes, this film por­ trays “tribal affiliations” as “one of the primary causes of violence in the

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markets.” But the film also demonstrates that crime and violence are in part a response by young men to the lack of employment opportunities in Port Moresby, thus echoing Cowboy’s story in Cowboy and Maria and allowing that socioeconomic disadvantage is a key driver of violence and crime in Port Moresby. The films portray women as hardworking and committed to mak­ ing money for the sake of their families. For instance, in the first film, one woman says, “The market helps sustain my livelihood and without the market, life would be more difficult. So I have to be strong while sell­ ing in the market.” Another notes, “I’m selling to pay school fees for the children and to buy food for the house.” On the other hand, men, particu­ larly young men, are construed as threatening and problematic, and the women who sell in the market as powerless against them. For example, one woman remarks, “We women only sell and men come and destroy our market. We are just women, how can we stop them?” Female power­ lessness is then seemingly confirmed by the head of UN Women, a New Zealand expatriate male, who notes that women are the “main recipients of violence,” and who further comments on the normalization of violence within PNG. The point of this discussion is not to argue that women do not experience violence in Port Moresby’s markets and other public spaces. Evidence is ample that they do (see, for example, Hukula 1999; Sharp 2013). Instead, I seek to highlight how constructions of women within the city’s public spaces simultaneously emphasize their virtue (relative to men, who are represented as lacking virtue), their economic capaci­ ties, and their vulnerability. Bringing virtue, value, and vulnerability together is problematic for a number of reasons, including that such a narrative does nothing to defend the right to public space of women who are neither virtuous nor productive. If, as is implied, women are entitled to public space primarily because they are trying to earn money for their families (thereby demonstrating their virtue), it suggests that rights in and to a space arise as a result of individual dispositions and productivity rather than of a more radical concept of the right to the city—one that seeks rights other than those “granted” by the nation state and capitalism (Purcell 2002). Although the first Safe Cities film positions itself in documentary style as a simple representation of the truth about urban markets, in real­ ity it has a clear agenda, namely, to promote the Safe Cities program as offering the solution to these problems. Given this agenda, it is unsur­ prising that the message emerges as the point of the second film. After reiterating the importance of markets for livelihoods and the problems

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women face in those markets, the second Safe Cities film describes the work being done within the program to “make public markets safe, clean, and inclusive, not only for the general public but in particular for women and girls.” The film then goes on to show some of the infrastructure that is being fixed as part of the project to make the markets safe. This includes fencing, toilets, access to water, rubbish disposal systems, and the tables from which vendors sell. These changes are a genuine response to some of the problems the vendors identified. Nevertheless, they constitute what Caroline Moser (2014) would call a practical rather than a strategic approach to resolv­ ing gender inequity in cities. Moser notes that such changes reflect constraints in planners’ ability to transform gendered roles, relation­ ships, and inequalities (see also Chant and McIlwaine 2016). When these changes are led and made by outsiders (including the contracted white men and local and international employed staff from UN Women and the National Capital District Commission shown in the film) who do not otherwise tend to spend time in or use the market spaces, they are likely to achieve only partial success at best. As Sylvia Chant and Cathy McIl­ waine (2016, 162) note, Although such initiatives might provide immediate solutions to some of the harassment and danger to which women are exposed . . . they are hardly likely to play a transformative role in gender relations. Conforming, as they do, to stereotypical images of women as vulner­ able and in need of protection, and men as aggressors, underlying gendered power dynamics and behaviour patterns may persist largely unchanged.

Since Henri Lefebvre, Eleonore Kofman, and Elizabeth Lebas (1996) articulated the right to the city as being something primarily centered in the use of space, as opposed to ownership or control of it, the need to attend primarily to the experience of those who spend time in a space has become ever more apparent. Unfortunately, the Safe Cities films show little evidence that the gendered norms and politics of market spaces are being rethought and transformed by those who spend time there. Instead, through its Safe Cities program, UN Women is portrayed as the savior of PNG’s virtuous and valuable women, and the various factors underpinning access to and comfort in market space—only one of which is gender—remain uncontested. If the Safe Cities films represent a bracketing off of the space of the city’s markets and seeking to reshape them through design solutions,

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the films I discuss in the last section offer counterpoints to this. Both Moresby Modern (Walsh 2009) and Save Meri, Skulim Meri (Eggins 2014) show multiple spaces in Port Moresby. In doing so, they represent the city as a place characterized by diversity and opportunity as well as by fear and restriction. Moresby Modern and Save Meri, Skulim Meri Three films have been made in less than a decade about members of PNG’s urban middle class. One of these is the feature film Lukim Yu, dis­ cussed briefly in the introduction. Here I consider Brendan Walsh and Emmanuel Narokobi’s second collaboration, Moresby Modern, which was made in 2009, and Save Meri, Skulim Meri, which was released in 2014. Save Meri, Skulim Meri is one of six films made as part of the Pawa Meri series, which I conceived and for which I gained AusAID funding in 2012. Both this and Moresby Modern are collaborative productions between Papua New Guineans and expatriates and both show people and sides of Port Moresby not previously represented in films about the city. That they do so suggests considerable scope for a range of versions of Port Moresby to emerge when Papua New Guineans become involved in mak­ ing films about their own places and lives. Moresby Modern examines the lives of seven Papua New Guineans (four men and three women) living in Moresby, all of whom are members of the city’s middle class. Walsh said he wanted to make the film because “there’s so much misunderstanding about Port Moresby and the way that people live. There’s another side of it and people just don’t know about it, and when I tell them about it they find it pretty hard to fathom” (inter­ view, May 2018). From the outset, the film sets itself apart from other depictions of the city, beginning with the following narration: For many people, the mention of Papua New Guinea will evoke images such as remote highlands cultures and tribal warriors, or perhaps tropical islands and palm fringed beaches, or it may bring to mind darker images of poverty, corruption, and criminal gangs, but, in PNG’s capital, things are starting to look a little different. If you look closely, you can see signs of a society in transition, with a new genera­ tion coming of age. (Moresby Modern 2009)

Like Toughest Cops and Extreme World, Moresby Modern addresses the international media’s portrayal of Port Moresby “as a city under the

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control of criminals, and a population living in fear behind razor wire” (Jones 2008). The difference is that in Moresby Modern the emphasis is firmly on examining the city from the perspective of its middle-class insiders. For instance, the narrator notes that although “the razor wire is certainly there . . . those living in Moresby don’t necessarily hold the same opinions about their city.” Emmanuel Narokobi who, as noted, had assisted Walsh to make Hands Up, was keen to collaborate with him again and to expand the ways in which PNG is represented in film. He said, These [the subjects] are all people I know, I hang out with, and so I [said] “why don’t we talk about ourselves?” instead of [just present­ ing] one type of a view or a view of Papua New Guinea. There can be more. Maybe it can be helpful to show that. (interview, June 2018)

For both Walsh and Narokobi, it was important that Moresby Modern reflected a different view of Port Moresby, one that showed diverse aspects of life in the city. They explicitly contrast their film with other films about Port Moresby. For instance, Walsh commented, Generally you just see houses on stilts, you might see razor wire, you don’t see art, you don’t see people having fun, the community. And you know it’s a challenging community and there are places where it’s not safe to walk around, but there are places that are, and you don’t see that side of it. I guess a broader cross-section of what it’s really like. I never see that. I never see any of the other sides of it in repre­ sentations of it. (interview, May 2018)

Narokobi too wanted the film to reflect his experience and the lives of those he knew, indicating that he did not “see [him]self” in other films about PNG. As a result of its focus on the urban middle class, Moresby Modern explores topics of central importance in the lives of this cohort. These include working life, housing and accommodation, the wantok system, security and safety, leisure, and giving back to the community. In pur­ suing these topics, the film portrays a range of spaces, including, for example, offices, homes, the market, the beach, and the rugby pitch. Consequently, Moresby is shown to have various, and not only troubled spaces—including corporate, sporting, and family spaces—which are cast in terms of sociality and belonging even as they are constructed in rela­ tion to economic and other concerns.

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The gendered experience of life in Moresby is explored through two of the subjects’ reflections on mobility in the city, but this too is shown to be an experience determined in large part by individual per­ ceptions about and experiences of danger. In contrast to the monolithic way danger is represented within the British television productions and Safe Cities, the women in Moresby Modern discuss their approach to per­ sonal security in Port Moresby. For example, Susil, one of the subjects in Moresby Modern, says, “I tend to come to work, and then go home, and that’s about it. I don’t really move around at night, and if I do it’s always with somebody, or to let people know where I’m going from point A to B. So it’s quite restrictive” (Moresby Modern, Walsh 2009). Neverthe­ less, she also remarks, “I think it’s a bit sensationalist about what others outside perceive it to be. I certainly don’t feel threatened living here.” Gazellah Bruder, another of the women featured in Moresby Modern, also indicates that while she thinks about safety she has a degree of mobility in the city: I think about where I’m going. I walk everywhere, I walk places. I get on a PMV [public motor vehicle, or bus]. Do I get scared? Yeah of course I get scared. I don’t walk around at eleven o’clock at night in Port Moresby city because I know it’s not a safe place. But when the time is right, you can walk around. It’s fine. (Moresby Modern)

Although indicating a degree of constraint, their responses also suggest that these middle-class women have a degree of mobility and agency within Port Moresby. Such nuance is not evident in the British television representations or in the Safe Cities films. Moresby Modern also invokes a further space, namely, “overseas,” creating a strong sense that members of the middle class are connected beyond PNG, through education and employment networks. The film states at the beginning that overseas experience shapes the subjects’ outlook and perspective, noting that the rising middle class “are often those that have had some time overseas studying or traveling, and have returned to PNG to take up jobs or start businesses of their own.” The transnational experience that characterizes the lives of the middle class becomes further evident through two of the stories. For instance, during the film, we learn that Rhoda Moses, one of the subjects who works for a development agency, has gained a scholarship to do further studies in New Zealand, and that another, Allen Kedea, comes and goes from Bris­ bane on a regular basis.

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In chapter 4 of this book, I explore the transnationalism that charac­ terizes the lives of many in Moresby’s middle class, noting that in varying degrees it shapes the experience of this group in Port Moresby. I fur­ ther suggest that, for many in this class, it is important to contribute to improving the lives of those around them. This commitment is at the heart of the story of Susil Nelson, the subject of Save Meri, Skulim Meri who coincidentally is also a subject in Moresby Modern. Narokobi brought Susil in to the film because he thought she “would be ideal for the proj­ ect.” I had not yet seen Moresby Modern when I approached Nelson to be a subject in the Pawa Meri films. But that she did emerge as a possible subject reflects the transnational connections often evident among this cohort, for I learned about her from an Australian who comes and goes to PNG and is a founding director of PNG Sustainable Development, where Susil worked at the time Save Meri was made. As mentioned, Save Meri, like Moresby Modern, is the outcome of cross-cultural collaboration. The film was made as part of the Pawa Meri project, which was funded by AusAID in 2012 and a collaboration between myself as a university researcher, the Centre for Social and Cre­ ative Media at the University of Goroka, and a wide range of Papua New Guineans and others who played a role in making the films. Through the project, we produced six films about Papua New Guinean women from diverse provinces and walks of life who were seen to be leaders in their areas. A Papua New Guinean woman directed each of the films (for a dis­ cussion of the project, see Spark 2015b). When it came the subjects, the team discussed whether Susil’s story was an appropriate choice, given how few Papua New Guinean women live in urban areas and work as professionals in the formal (as opposed to the informal) sector. I argued for her inclusion on the same basis that Naro­ kobi argued for the importance of making Moresby Modern—namely, that though her experience was not representative, Susil’s life reflects those of urban women who should not be seen as inauthentic simply because they are middle class (see Spark 2011, 2015b). Discussing this, Joys Eggins, who directed the film about Susil, remarked on the “growing number of people going to school overseas, being educated overseas, coming back wanting to reintegrate into PNG society.” She added, however, that whatever advances Susil has made in relation to class, she “understands her limits culturally” (interview, June 2018). In other words, despite her academic achieve­ ments, as a woman, Nelson cannot inherit her father’s land or status in Sepik culture. That this message could be subtly conveyed in Save Meri is, I would argue, precisely because Eggins understands this situation:

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She [Susil] won’t be able to inherit the land in the Sepik culture. And I know that also from the Highlands culture. All my degrees and all my professional career track record won’t be able to change a lot of the things that are culturally embedded in the society that I come from. And those are things you’ll need to accept and it’s not easy to do that when you have to work extra hard to get what you’ve got. (interview, June 2018)

Noting that in the collaboration, she felt “free to dig out the story” and tell it in her own way, Eggins’s empathy with Susil’s experiences enabled her to produce a nuanced view of a middle-class woman’s life in Moresby. Arguably, had the story been told by an outsider, it might have appeared that Nelson could transcend cultural limitations by virtue of her educa­ tion and professional status. Instead, Eggins (2014) directed a film in which a more complex version of the intersections between gender, class, and culture in Moresby was able to emerge. She was also able to produce a more interesting and multidimen­ sional perspective on Port Moresby than those which have tended to characterize films about the city. Discussing the different spaces in which Susil lives her life, Eggins (2014) said she wanted to show these: “Life happens in different corners of Moresby and it’s not all that bad.” The film depicts Susil’s corporate world, her interactions in community spaces through her work with the Business and Professional Women’s Club, and her home life in which warmth and connection with her extended family is amply evident. The wider setting of Port Moresby is also depicted with affection, reflecting Eggins’s appreciation of the city: I did want to bring up some of the iconic parts of Moresby . . . places that I’ve . . . found to be interesting spots, like the airport is just dif­ ferent from any other airport and . . . places like the Fuzzy Wuzzy [war memorial] and Ela beach, the overhead bridge in Boroko. These are things that you don’t often see elsewhere and which were in Moresby first. (interview, June 2018)

As a result, the city itself emerges as a more interesting and diverse place than it is typically represented to be. Both Eggins and Narokobi were pleased with the way their films turned out, Narokobi commenting that it was good to “be able to show another side of PNG, as opposed to . . . more negative stuff overseas or more exciting stuff like sorcery and things like that” (interview, May 2018). But their success in representing a different side of Port Moresby

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suggests an obvious question: why do Papua New Guinean filmmakers not simply go ahead and represent themselves and their city without the support of outside collaborators? Both Narokobi and Eggins indicated that the answer was primarily economic. Life in Moresby is so expensive that, in the absence of funding for projects, it is hard even for those who would welcome the opportunity to be professional filmmakers to find the time. Given that funding tends to come from external agencies—usually those with a development agenda to push—rather than the PNG govern­ ment, this will take time to change. In an essay on cultural production in Indigenous Australia, Stephen Muecke (1997) discusses the value of “fixing up representations” in com­ parison with more practical interventions such as fixing the plumbing. Fixing representations can at times seem immaterial in the face of, for example, gender violence, illness, or poverty. However, as this chapter shows, because bodies and spaces are discursively produced, efforts to improve material circumstances in Port Moresby ought to exist alongside efforts to change the ways in which Port Moresby and its inhabitants are represented. Because “work on and with texts is always work on and with bodies” (Threadgold 1997, 101), a consideration of the places bod­ ies occupy within the frame is crucial. By representing Moresby through a range of spaces and places, films can help unsettle the construction of Port Moresby as criminal, antisocial, and violent. The films made about Port Moresby in the last thirty years demonstrate that the city is a com­ plex place, one in which people have a range of experiences that to a large extent depend on the ways in which they are positioned within it. In the next chapter, I consider educated women’s reflections on accommodation and the idea of Moresby as “home.” Many stories of struggle could be told. But, as Fiona Hukula writes of residents in Port Moresby settlements, people “from many different backgrounds are able to make a home in [this] rapidly modernising city” (2017a, 45). Without discounting the challenges for women of making home in Port Moresby, I focus on case studies of women who have been able to do so despite living in uncertain circumstances.

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C H A PT ER 2

At Home in the City Educated Women, Housing, and

Belonging in Port Moresby

O

n October 17, 2016, the inaugural Klinim Mosbi (Clean up Moresby) campaign commenced in Port Moresby, the capital city of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The campaign is an initiative of the National Capital Dis­ trict Commission (NCDC) and runs for a month. Klinim Mosbi aims to encourage Port Moresby residents to “take responsibility for their rub­ bish” (Parkop in Moi 2016) as part of an attempt to create a greater sense of ownership of the city’s streets among Port Moresby’s diverse residents. Governor Powes Parkop of NCDC, who launched Klinim Mosbi, is something of a controversial figure in PNG. Variously criticized and praised for banning the sale and consumption of buai (betel nut) within the city’s center, Parkop is nonetheless acknowledged for establishing health and safety initiatives including Walk for Life and free yoga sessions for Port Moresby’s residents.1 As noted in the introduction, these reflect and embody “distinct middle-class values” (Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015, 12), including the need to discipline the body through participation in organized exercise. During his speech, Parkop reflected, “Many of us pretend and think that we are from other parts of PNG but the reality is that Port Moresby is our home” (Moi 2016). He further commented that in some parts of the city, women “had already taken the initiative to clean their community without NCDC paying them.” As true of the focus on health and exercise, Parkop’s emphasis on keeping the streets clean reflects the middle-class value of civic participation, a drive that is here constructed in opposition to the inaction of those presumably grassroots inhabitants who continue to associate home with the village. 42

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One answer to the question of why women rather than men are cleaning Port Moresby’s streets is that cleaning is perceived to be wom­ en’s work. But this becomes less clear when we consider that when they do this work, women occupy public rather than private space, thereby defying the usual gendered characterizations of urban belonging (see Patel 2010, 9). Given that in Port Moresby women in particular have been construed as “matter out of place” (Douglas 1966), it is necessary to look more deeply for answers and to ask what it means for them to be taking the lead in making Port Moresby home. Women explain their activities this way: “Port Moresby is our city and some of us have been living here for decades and call it home so we have to take ownership and look after it” (The National 2016). Their words indicate that the act represents an effort to make home not only in domestic space, but also of one’s neighborhood. That it is women and not men who appear to be leading this charge to make home is significant in light of the history of exclusion of Papua New Guinean women from the city. Although ideas about women’s roles are changing (see Spark 2017a, 2017b), the notion that women do not belong in Port Moresby is linked with the widely perpetuated belief that only those in gainful employment have a right to be in urban space. Dur­ ing the 1960s and 1970s, the Papua New Guinean women who lived in Port Moresby were generally present as the wives of men employed in the formal sector (Conway and Mantovani 1990; see also Johnson 1984; Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1998, 206), rather than because they were pursuing their careers. Consequently, it was difficult for them to claim ownership of the town either as workers, commuters, or homebuyers. In contrast to women “without roles,” who are portrayed as maladaptive in the urban context, women who are gainfully employed have been depicted as well suited to life in Moresby (see Oeser 1969; Whiteman 1973). As a volun­ teer activity, cleaning the streets can be interpreted as evidence of the commitment to inhabit urban space in “appropriate” and “productive” ways. It may thus reflect one manifestation of the “virtue” that Melissa Demian (2017) suggests is one way women are carving out a space for themselves in Port Moresby. In this chapter, I consider how five professional women are making home in Port Moresby. Taking a broad view of what it means to make home, I focus on case studies that detail woman’s housing situations. I do so for two reasons. First, although gender is usually thought of as a barrier to women’s belonging in Port Moresby, the stories told here detail the lives of Moresby women who have striven for and found a more optimistic and prosperous position for themselves, thus offering insight

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into the shifting boundaries of class and gendered space within Moresby. Along with Katherine McKinnon and her colleagues (2016, 1378–1380), I argue that many of the indicators of gender equality simplify or conceal the nuances of how change is experienced, or whether it is experienced at all. Although not formulating alternative indicators of gender equal­ ity, these case studies indicate their own possibilities of change. On the one hand, they make it clear that contemporary Moresby has afforded a degree of opportunity to educated Papua New Guinean women, a fact that has been overlooked in so many assessments of the city. But the chapter also indicates how such developments are embraced by women in Moresby as a way of fostering further change. For many, individual suc­ cess has given rise to a duty of care toward others whereby the dividends of their privilege are shared. In these ways, though they inhabit an expen­ sive and in ways, insecure environment, employed women seek to make home not only for themselves but also for others. Second, I seek to update a gap in the literature on women’s living situations in Port Moresby. As mentioned in the introduction, despite the proliferation of publications discussing urbanization in the Pacific, including some that recognize that “newly built apartment blocks and suburban developments cater to some of the housing needs of the middle class in Port Moresby” (Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015, 11), few studies shed light on how gender affects hous­ ing experiences in the city. One exception is Demian’s (2017) article about women who live in a Moresby boarding house. Demian shows how Port Moresby’s colonial­ ist and masculinist history has resulted in a city with limited options for accommodating women. She observes that women who do not want to live in settlements and whose employers do not provide accommo­ dation as part of an employment package have “another option: living in an independent boarding house.” Haus Ruth leases rooms to profes­ sional women (“tenants”), simultaneously accommodating women who seek shelter from family violence (“clients”). Analyzing the aspirations of the professional women, Demian argues that they look forward to a future of marriage, because this will enable them (among other things) to move out of the boarding house, and that inhabiting Haus Ruth safe­ guards their “virtue” in the meantime. I do not doubt that this was so among the women Demian met during her research, but I argue that in the decade since she conducted this research, more pathways in and out of Port Moresby’s boarding houses have emerged. In addition, it is clear that not all professional women are susceptible to the romantic dream that marriage offers the best way out of the challenges of life in Moresby (for further discussion, see Spark 2011). Also, the range of accommodation

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options for middle-class women who are seeking a degree of indepen­ dence in the city has expanded. Thus, although Demian (2017, 410) states that “one thing no woman can do, whether she has grown up in Port Moresby, or is an in-migrant from elsewhere in the country, is live on her own,” this is no longer the case. As becomes clear in the case stud­ ies that follow, employed women who can afford to do so are in some instances choosing just that. Some of those who write about emerging class in PNG or the Pacific (see, for example, Gewertz and Errington 1999) may interpret this as evidence that new social structures are displacing “traditional social arrangements” (Besnier 2009, 215). As I show in this chapter, I inter­ pret middle-class women’s new living arrangements as reflecting a hybrid blend of middle-class values such as privacy and the ability to control who comes and goes from one’s home, with a commitment to others that remains an important part of being middle class in Melanesia. As mentioned in the introduction, Fiona Hukula’s (2017b) study of the Morobe Blok and Michelle Rooney’s (2017b, 124–125) of the ATS settlement also offer insight into women’s experiences in Port Moresby. Neither author specifically prioritizes gender, but both are attentive to the range of relationships within settlements, noting that these are increasingly with proximate others who are not kin but who make up the networks and social support structures in the informal neighborhoods around Port Moresby. For instance, discussing Sarah and Cynthia, Hukula (2017b, 169) writes, “Though [Sarah] does have close family members living in Moresby, she has chosen to create her own family in the Blok by converting an employer/employee relationship into a familial one.” Also attuned to the importance of relationships in negotiating placement and displacement, Rooney (2017b, 72) notes that “women in particular face social and cultural pressures to be hospitable and generous, and make their homes available to family. Faced with overcrowding and its associ­ ated problems, women are often the family members who initiate moves.” This is certainly true in the case studies in this chapter. That women are engaged in and even leading the negotiation of a broader range of rela­ tionships and in determining housing arrangements is a shift from the past, when women’s husbands or kin tended to determine their accom­ modation. In most cases—and certainly those presented here—their capacity to do so has everything to do with their status as middle-class subjects with the education and employment profiles that allow a degree of security. Acknowledging the work of Demian, Hukula, and Rooney, my aim here is to address a gap in the literature by discussing case studies of

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women who have made home in locations outside the city’s boarding houses and settlements. Observing that professional women appear to have expanded the ways in which they navigate the challenges of accommodation in Moresby, I sought out opportunities to have focused conversations on the topics of housing and home with educated and pro­ fessional women in Moresby. Some of these took place through email exchanges, others through interviews, and still others through a com­ bination of these methods. I have not referred to all the conversations here but those that are represented took place in 2016 (with Beth and Grace) and 2018 (with Julie, Rose, and Karen). Although I did not specify that I wanted to speak with either married or unmarried women, only one of the five women whose case studies are represented here currently lives with her partner. As I observe in other publications (see Spark 2011, 2017a, 2017b), Papua New Guinean women who can afford to live in a secure situation without a partner often choose to do so. This finding is supported by Martha Macintyre (2011, 102–103). Women who took part in my research mentioned that they know other women who decide to live with a male partner with whom they have nothing in common for no other reason than that they perceive this will offer them a degree of security, particularly when they live in settlements. As one woman put it, though aware that partnering may bring new problems, “they want to be able to sleep at night” (focus group discussion, June 2018). I offer this background to contextualize the relative absence of men from these case studies and to show that women’s autonomy is intimately related to emerging class “not as a ‘structure’ or ‘category’ but something which happens in human relationships” (Gewertz and Errington 1999, 2). In focusing on these case studies, it is important that the “alterna­ tive” space of the settlement as a possible future location is not as Other as it may first appear. Approximately 40 percent of the land in Port Moresby continues to be held by customary owners (see, for example, Ezebilo, Hamago, and Yala 2016; Jones 2016, 2017). As Eugene Ezebilo, Lucy Hamago, and Charles Yala (2016, 5) note, state-owned land accounts for 60 percent of land in Port Moresby, but its availability is “almost exhausted.” Although private property developers prefer investing in state-owned land, when people move to Port Moresby from rural areas, unless they are provided with housing through their workplaces, they typically negotiate their own arrangements with landowners to secure a site for dwelling. This continues today. It is estimated that at present, nearly half the city’s population live in “informal settlements” (Jones 2011, 2017; Rooney 2015a, 2015b). Although they “offer a cheaper alter­ native for housing” (Rooney 2015a, 1) and a place “people from many

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different backgrounds are able to make a home” (Hukula 2017a, 45), settlements are “characterized by weaker police presence, a lack of ser­ vices and lack of secure tenure over land” (Rooney 2015a, 1). Utilities, delivered in haphazard ways, are often unreliable. Arrangements with customary owners are rarely if ever formalized in law. Nevertheless, as many women have told me, settlements are changing as a greater range of people come to live in them. Despite their affordability, women who have the option not to live in a settlement make the choice not to do so for a reason. Among the women I have spoken with, this decision is primarily about the perception that settlements are not as safe as other locations. In particular, professional women say they are likely to be assaulted and robbed in settlements because they are seen as easy targets, including perhaps that they are likely to be carrying valuables such as wallets and mobile phones. But though preferring to live outside settlements, women are aware that the insecurity of tenure that characterizes life for settlement dwellers in Port Moresby shapes and limits their own alternatives in this burgeoning city. This is evident in the first case study, of Julie, whose experience suggests that women in secure employment and accommodation, have come from and may return to live in a settlement, depending on the ways in which their circumstances change. Julie Julie comes from the East Sepik Province and is in her fifties. She first moved to Port Moresby from Wewak in 2007 after securing employment at the University of Papua New Guinea. Wewak, located on the north coast of PNG, is the capital of the East Sepik Province, has a population of eighteen thousand (World Population Review 2018a), and is much smaller and less ethnically diverse than Port Moresby. Julie’s husband accompanied her from Wewak but was unemployed and thus unable to secure accommodation. Usually, senior staff at the university are allo­ cated a house on campus. When Julie first arrived, however, this had not yet been arranged. Consequently, during her first two months in Moresby, Julie lived with a relative in the settlement of Morauta. She said that when she was in the house she felt safe but commuting between home and work was dangerous, and she did not feel comfortable when doing so. Julie explained that while the landlord had an investment in her security when she was in the house—“he will make sure you are safe because that’s where the money’s coming from . . . when you leave the

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place, that’s your problem” (interview, June 2018). During this period, Julie was held up by raskols (criminals) while walking through the settle­ ment, at which point she told the university, “just put me on the plane and send me back to Wewak!” In response, the university moved her into temporary accommodation at a hostel and then into a house on campus where she is “happy.” Julie said that she feels “safe to walk around at night” because there are security guards on campus: “for me, there is no problem with accommodation, because we are given a two or three bed­ room house and we pay only 45 kina [K] a fortnight for the rental.” The provision of safe and affordable accommodation means that Julie has been able to provide a secure base for her husband and four children, one of whom continues to live with her. This security of tenure was particu­ larly important when, two years ago, Julie discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman. At this point, Julie “packed his belongings and sent him off in a taxi to live with the woman he was hav­ ing an affair with.” If she had relied on her husband for accommodation, she likely would not have been able to act so decisively. Now, Julie has established a sense of home in Moresby and has no intention of leaving or returning to Wewak. Indeed, she is keen to secure alternative accommodation in Port Moresby to ensure that she has the option of being able to leave her current employment. Like other women who gain access to housing through their employers, Julie’s employment affects her career choices. This was evident when she was offered an inter­ esting and well-paid position at another organization but was unable to accept it because the offer did not include accommodation. Julie stayed awake at night wondering what she could do. She determined to build a home in the settlement so that next time an opportunity arises she will have the flexibility to move. To do so, Julie is drawing on her affiliations with a landowner who has agreed to sell her some land in an area about fifteen kilometers outside Moresby where many people from the East Sepik have settled. Julie says that “the land belongs to Goiari land own­ ers from Central Province” and that she deposited K2,000 for “20 X 20 meters” (email, August 2018). Once she has built the house she will pay another K8,000 to the landowners (for more detail on the relationships between landowners and would-be dwellers negotiating land access, see Rooney 2017b). Julie’s husband has no part on these negotiations, but because he has very little money she sometimes pays him K20 to assist with jobs such as clearing the land where she plans to build. Julie said that if she builds a house in this location, she will feel secure because her ethnic connections with other inhabitants of the settlement would pro­ vide a sense of security and belonging. In addition, building the house will

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allow Julie to stay in Port Moresby on her own terms rather than needing to remain employed by the university. This move from employer-provided accommodation to home own­ ership is an important one among Port Moresby’s working-class women. Being able to build one’s own home allows employment mobility, giving women a greater sense of choice about their living arrangements. It also reflects the class or cultural capital (Bourdieu 2000) that comes with edu­ cation and employment in the formal sector, for only those with salaried jobs can apply for and gain home loans. As Julien Barbara, John Cox, and Michael Leach (2015, 6) note, citing Timothy Sharp and his coau­ thors (2015), “being middle class requires an ability to maintain social status and lifestyle options that derive from one’s occupation. This, in turn, depends on successful management of risk and uncertainty, and continuity of income and employment.” Consequently, even women who make more money in the informal sector can be reluctant to leave their jobs in the formal sector, lest they disadvantage themselves in terms of borrowing money for a house. Julie’s story demonstrates that even when they are in relationships, employed women are not only involved in, but also leading decisionmaking about how and where to make home in Port Moresby. This decision-making power is also evident in Rose’s story. Indeed, as with Julie, it was difficult to discern what role, if any, Rose’s husband played in her decision-making about housing and belonging in the city. Rose Rose is thirty-seven years old and works in the aid and development sector. She is married and lives with her husband, sister, nieces and nephews, and her adopted, four-month-old son. Rose’s husband does not have full-time work but sometimes gets work as a laborer. As a child and young woman, Rose lived in her current house with her cousin-sister, who had purchased the house in the mid-1990s. Located in Gerehu, near the Rainbow settlement, her sister paid approximately K30,000 to purchase the home in what was then considered an insalubrious suburb of Port Moresby. Rose completed her schooling and gained a scholarship to study overseas. When she returned in 2006, her sister had purchased another home and had decided to sell the one in which they had lived. She offered to support Rose to purchase the house and sold it to her at a reduced price to enable her to get into the market. According to Rose, she said, “ ‘ok you just apply for the loan—I’ll give you the house at this rate—90,000, and

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the other 30,000 you can pay me back whenever you can honor that.’ She just wanted me to own the house” (interview, June 2018). Rose has benefited from her sister’s generosity, an outcome that demonstrates that being middle class is often consolidated over genera­ tions, including through the transfer and ownership of property. It might be possible to see such an arrangement as reflecting the “commoditiza­ tion of social relations” that Niko Besnier (2009, 247) describes as a key characteristic of being middle class in Tonga. Rose, however, describes this as customary, saying that it is because she is the little sister and it is the job of the older ones to look after the younger relatives. In particu­ lar, ownership has given Rose an autonomy she is unlikely to have had otherwise. Noting that “the house is in [her] name” and that she owned it before she met her husband, and laughing that he probably “feels lucky” to have married her, she also said that she stresses to him that it is a shared asset and notes that they make decisions together (interview, June 2018). Nevertheless, she added, “It’s a hard line getting a man in PNG to think in terms of their contributions because the norm has been they are the owners of assets including land” (email, August 2018). Dis­ cussing the fact that women face extra challenges because of their gender, Rose commented that these only make “some women more aggressive about doing things themselves—[they think] ‘I have to save enough, and I have to find a piece of land no matter what’ ” (interview, June 2018). For many women, this is not only about being mobile in terms of employ­ ment opportunities but also about being able to maintain autonomy such that they need not rely on families or partners for survival. Like many homeowners in Moresby, Rose has adapted her house to accommodate tenants. Her house is on stilts on a large block, she built two self-contained flats underneath the house, and has she used the rent money these generated to pay off her loan after only three years. These renovations are attractive to women renters who are looking for the secu­ rity that comes from being near others and the protection provided by a landlord. Rose described her house as secure for two reasons. First, she has a big fence and, second, she knows people in her community. She described the fence as being necessary because of the “consciousness around secu­ rity, your property, your tenants, and your items and your possessions need to be protected.” She also mentioned that ethnic tensions can flare in and around the neighborhood and that as a coastal person who “lives among highlanders,” she likes to have “that extra security.” But Rose also said that the main reason she feels safe is that for the most part she had very friendly relationships with the people around her: “engaging with

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Figure 4. A house in Port Moresby renovated to host tenants on both the top and bottom floors. Photo by anonymous, October 2018.

the community, that’s a security measure . . . so we know each other, we’re more than just neighbors, like ‘oh sister, oh brother,’ because we’ve lived and we’ve known each other for a long time” (interview, June 2018). Her words echo the significance of wan (one) that Hukula (2017b, 162) discusses in relation to the Blok, that in contemporary Port Moresby the concept of wan—“rooted in the Tok Pisin word wantok”—is not only about blood and wantok (traditional kinship system) ties but “the lived experience of place-based connections, such as wanlotu (one church), wanskul (school mate) and wanstrit (neighbours).” Rose noted that she can come and go from her house at night and she feels comfortable to do so because people know her and she knows them. Rose drives herself to and from work and has a degree of power and mobility as a result of her education, employment, marital situation, and family support, but also because of the safety she experiences in her community. Interestingly, it is precisely this community version of safety that Governor Parkop emphasized in 2015 when he had City Hall workers remove razor wire from properties in Port Moresby (Jkisselpar 2015). Remarking that it was “new methods” such as “building community spirit” and helping people secure jobs that were improving security in Port Moresby, he enjoined property owners to “recognize this and help

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us build and improve security in a different way” (Jkisselpar 2015). Such a call is pitched at the middle class in that it recognizes that though these groups own property they are also perhaps more susceptible than their grassroots counterparts to innovations that suggest progressive political and social change. Rose’s story illustrates that when women have a secure home in Port Moresby, they accommodate others, assisting with not only housing, but also food and the costs of sending children to school. Rose adopted her brother’s daughter at the age of five when her brother was killed in a violent incident and also supports one of her sisters and her sister’s chil­ dren. In addition, on Sundays, Rose mobilizes her family and community members to clean the streets in their area. She said they have been doing this for about two years and commented, “When we get up to clean it’s a massive task, so we are about fifteen to twenty people from the street, including my children (nieces and nephews)” (interview, June, 2018). That this is more than “paying it forward” or a strategic investment in her future (but see Daalsgard 2013) is suggested by the fact that Rose is also helping develop a sense of community and ownership beyond her household and in the neighborhood. Although the former support of her kin reflects Rose’s ongoing investment in the wantok system and the obli­ gation to care for others that is a central part of it, the obligation appears to represent the emergence of a new civic-mindedness that I suggest is also about staking a claim in and to the city. Beth, whom I discuss in the following section, initially relied on her family for accommodation, but now invests in her friendships and beyond the family to create a sense of home. Beth Beth is a thirty-year-old university graduate who works as a clerical offi­ cer in downtown Port Moresby. The youngest of ten children, she grew up in a village “just outside Wewak” (interview, August 2016) in the East Sepik Province. She moved to Moresby in 2006 to complete her degree at the University of Papua New Guinea. Her father died recently but Beth’s mother continues to live in the village. When Beth first moved to Port Moresby she stayed with her “big brother and his family” in the suburb of Hohola. Because the house was too small to accommodate her long term, Beth soon moved in with her older sister, Catherine, who lives in a house provided by her employer. Beth lived there until 2012 when Catherine

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went overseas for studies. At this point, Beth moved in with her cousin until she could secure a more permanent option. Next, Beth went to live in a boarding house in Hohola that housed twelve women. Each had her own room with a toilet and shower, and they all shared a kitchen. Beth’s rent was K987 (approximately $294) per month. “The restrictions” imposed by the owners included a no-visitors rule, even friends and family. This, Beth explained, made living there “lonely and boring” (interview, August 2016). Although Demian (2017, 404) argues that such boarding houses make available a new relational mode for Papua New Guinean women that exists “instead of, or along­ side, their place-based or kin-based relationships,” Beth’s experience is a reminder that within the moral spaces of the city’s same-sex boarding houses, these relationships continue to be managed by others. In addi­ tion to its being “lonely and boring,” Beth also remarked in her interview, the boarding house was “too far from the main bus stop” and that she “felt unsafe” during the thirty-minute walk to get there.

Figure 5. A board on the street in the Port Moresby suburb of Rainbow. Photo by author, October 2018.

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Having moved out of the boarding house in late 2015, Beth now shares a one-bedroom flat with her friend Flora, whom she met at her previous workplace in 2014. The flat is in a relatively poor suburb and Beth and Flora share a kitchen and food. Beth said that although they have no privacy and can hear the neighbors’ “private business” through the thin walls (interview, August 2016), she prefers her current situation to living in the boarding house. Beth and Flora share the rental costs of K1800 (approximately $537) a month, a figure that represents around 30 percent of Beth’s salary. Beth said that she and Flora “love to cook” and, because their flat is regularly filled with friends, “life is more fun” than it was at the boarding house, where she had “no freedom.” Being able to host friends is also important to Beth because she is afraid to go out by herself. Earlier this year, she was “attacked” on her way to church (interview, August 2016). Having caught one bus to Gor­ dons Market, Beth was waiting for the next one when someone tried to snatch her bag. No one tried to help her, Beth explained, and she has since felt too vulnerable to leave the house alone. On weekdays, Beth’s employer collects her and drops her off at her house. Beth gets up at six in the morning to ensure that she is on time and does not get home until almost six in the evening. Nevertheless, she prefers this managed mode of transport to commuting via the public motor vehicles (PMVs), run by private operators, which are the main mode of transport for Moresby residents without cars. Like her fear of walking through her old neighbor­ hood, Beth’s preference to ride in the vehicle provided by her employer highlights the nexus between access to waged employment, housing, transport, and security (see Wilding and Pearson 2013). Beth’s invest­ ment in creating a fun household with Flora reflects her discomfort in public space and indicates some of the ways this affects the decisions women make about housing. Beth and Flora hope to be moving again soon, this time to a threebedroom house currently being built by Flora’s father in a nearby suburb. The house is located next to Flora’s family home, so the young women consider that they will be safe there. Flora’s family moved to Port Moresby in 2005 when Flora’s father found work in the city. Beth said that the family “kind of look after me here” and that she is “very comfortable with them” (interview, August 2016). The relationship Beth has with Flora and her family is a deviation from relationships in village and rural con­ texts, in which “traditional” forms of sociality and “concern for marriage alliances, dowries, exchanges and bridewealth” (Marksbury 1993, 20) matter more than peer support. In the city, when women are away from family and earning money, families are less likely to be able to influence

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decision-making, thus opening up a space for friends, co-workers, and peers to offer their (counter) perspectives (see Spark 2017a, 2017b; also, on the importance of extralocal connections, see Besnier 2009). Beth said that this new house is “almost finished.” When it is, she and Flora will move in and pay the same rent they currently pay. Beth sees this as “very generous” on the part of Flora’s father but also remarked that it reflects the family’s desire that “only girls” live in the house (inter­ view, August 2016). The family’s preference to have women as tenants indicates an exception to the rule that women are disadvantaged when it comes to accessing housing in urban areas (Chant and McIlwaine 2016). When they are earning wages, young, unmarried Papua New Guinean women’s willingness to make a “feminized” home in the city means that they are perceived as desirable residents of increasingly expensive rental properties. Arguably, this is a continuation of the ways in which working women have been viewed in previous research—that is, as adapting to the urban environment as a result of their formal employment and pro­ fessional roles (see Oeser 1969; Whiteman 1973). Despite her fears of going out by herself, having found her place and friendships in Port Moresby, Beth has no desire to live elsewhere in PNG, let alone to return to the village where she grew up. Declaring, “I don’t think I’d like to go anywhere else, I’d rather stay here,” Beth mentioned the opportunities for employment and entertainment afforded by Port Moresby that are not available elsewhere in PNG as reasons (interview, August 2016). In this, she echoes Cowboy’s narrative and those of genera­ tions of male urban migrants who had no intention of returning home (Chao 1985; Morauta and Ryan 1982). Whereas Demian (2017, 19–20) argues that “there is little evidence that women might seek to become ‘lost’ in Moresby in the same way that, say, male gang members can do,” I suggest that, for young women such as Beth, the opportunity for some degree of separation from the constraints associated with family is in fact one of the attractions of life in the city. Although not seeking to become “lost” as such, Beth is certainly investing in links beyond her immediate family as she cements her place in Port Moresby, rather than investing in returning to the East Sepik Province. Karen Karen is another young woman who has created her own domestic space in Port Moresby. Like Beth, Karen is keen to assert her independence from her extended family in Port Moresby and not to rely on either

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them or her boyfriend for security. At the same time, she draws on her resources to contribute to the lives of others. In the context of Tonga, Besnier (2009, 246) discusses such “helping” as a middle-class economic activity. I agree that this is relevant in PNG but also consider Karen’s gen­ erosity to embody long-established Melanesian values. Whereas Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington (1999, 8) describe being middle class in Wewak in the 1980s as a process of becoming “less and less connected to the poor and their problems,” I did not see this among the women I met. Now age thirty, Karen was born and educated in the Eastern High­ lands Province. She first came to Moresby to attend university and remained in the city after completing her degree, working first with a local nongovernment organization and now with a donor-funded devel­ opment agency. Until 2017, Karen rented a five-bedroom house with friends, but in late 2017 moved back in with relatives. This decision was partly financial, given that she was between jobs, but it was also for security reasons, at least according to Karen’s family. One of Karen’s close relatives had contested the PNG national elections some months earlier. When he was not reelected, violence broke out in the family’s Highlands community. This included the burning of houses, cars, and other belongings as well as people being threatened with violence. Even though she was in Port Moresby, Karen’s uncle and family considered that she was “not safe on her own” (interview, June 2018). She had to move in with them, they said, especially in light of threats against family members in Port Moresby. In response to their concerns, Karen went to live with her uncle, where she shared a small house in his yard with approximately twenty extended family members. The household included seven children between the ages of three and twelve; because Karen wasn’t working full time, she became the unofficial babysitter. When I interviewed Karen, she had just left this situation and was living by herself again. Another catalyst for moving was that Karen was again employed and needed a quieter space to do her work, some of which she does from home. When looking for a place to rent, Karen decided to live by herself rather than in a boarding house. She said that though “there are a lot of hostels, it takes time to build that trust and everything” (interview, June 2018). Instead, she rented a place in a small complex, similar to the one that Rose has created on her property: In Port Moresby now, someone will do up his or her house so you’ll have like two- or one-bedroom units or one-bedroom units, so upstairs a whole family living in one place. So I’ve got one upstairs, just one

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bedroom and my own kitchen. It’s ok, it’s good, but I’m a very social person so I find the solitude quite boring. So some nights I go back to my uncle’s house. They say “aren’t you meant to be at your house?” But I’m like, “oh but it’s boring.” My boyfriend comes and hangs out sometimes, but then he’s got work.

Although Karen described her relationship as “serious” she, like the other women discussed, makes her decisions about accommodation autono­ mously, rather than in consultation with her boyfriend. Karen’s preference for spending time with others makes her choice to live alone unexpected. But Karen is an independent person who thinks carefully about how to navigate the city so she does not need to be driven around by her male relatives or boyfriend, as happens with many working women who do not have a car. When she moved recently, for example, Karen chose the flat for its location: “because it’s like five minutes from the shops, the banks, the bus stop; it’s central to everywhere” (interview, June 2018). Living in her own flat also means that Karen can spend time with her boyfriend at home rather than having to meet him outside as she would if she lived in a single sex boarding house, such as the boarding houses that Demian (2017) and Beth describe. Living alone, made possible by her employment in the formal sec­ tor, is also more conducive to Karen’s desk-based work. When living with her relatives, Karen found it hard to extract herself from the “feminine duty” of unpaid child care. Having her own space makes it easier for her to get work done. Karen’s employment on a reasonable wage makes these choices possible, allowing her to engage and interact with her family members and boyfriend as much as and in the ways she chooses, rather than because she relies on them for livelihood or security. Indeed, Karen described her choice to return to her uncle’s house on a regular basis as reflecting her personality, as “a sociable person” (interview, June 2018) rather than as being due to what might be thought of as “Melanesian cultural characteristics.” Karen’s employment status also means that she can contribute to social causes she believes in, including a youth empowerment agency in Port Moresby and a hospital in the Highlands. In regard to the agency, Karen contributes by giving her time and effort as well as money, indicat­ ing that this is an ideological commitment rather than an extension of kin relationships (see Cox and Macintyre 2014; Schram 2015). As with Rose’s street cleaning, her choice to contribute to these causes beyond the family appears to indicate the civic-mindedness that is emerging as an aspect of the identity of urban professionals in PNG.

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Karen’s experiences show that young women with secure employ­ ment not only carve out a place for themselves in the city, but also that any “virtue” they demonstrate may have less to do with investing in wan­ toks or protecting their reputation (but see Demian 2017), than with the desire to contribute to the lives of others that emerges from their status as members of a global urban community. I next explore Grace’s construc­ tion of home, consolidating my argument that transnational connections and experiences at least as much as “local” traditions, are influencing women’s constructions of home-as-place (see Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). Grace Grace is a thirty-year-old woman with a prestigious and well-paid position in the development sector. After completing a postgraduate degree over­ seas, she returned to Port Moresby in 2015, moving back to her family’s home. Grace’s experiences indicate that when they have lived overseas, women in Moresby move both “physically and metaphorically between different worlds and different spaces” (Chapman 1991, cited in Connell and Conway 2000, 56). Her life since this time reveals the increasing sig­ nificance of the “extralocal” (Besnier 2009) connections she made and consolidated during her time in Australia that continue to inform her decision-making on employment, travel, and making a home in Port Moresby. Since 1984, Grace’s parents and six siblings have rented their home from the PNG Government’s National Housing Commission for K50 per week. The house is shared with visiting extended family members, some of whom stay for up to three years while they are completing education or training in Port Moresby. Grace’s father worked as a public servant but is no longer employed; Grace’s mother continues to make food for sale in the local community. According to Grace, her mother “always worked hard” making ice blocks, scones, and bread to “make extra money for the family” when they were growing up (email, November 2016). This bring­ ing together of income from formal and informal sources is a feature of many and diverse households in urban PNG (Barber 2010; Rooney 2015a, 2015b), including in the middle class, and reflects an important reality of survival in the city not often visible in dominant accounts of the econ­ omy, which focus on growth in the formal sector (see Sharp et al. 2015). While she was studying in Australia, Grace regularly sent money to her family to help pay for rent, food, and other necessities. This is the norm among waged Papua New Guineans and other Pacific Islanders

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whose contributions to their “home economies” reflect the fact that migration is rarely an individual decision but one that reflects “due con­ sideration of family or household goals” (Connell and Conway 2000, 58). As one of the only tertiary educated and salaried people in her fam­ ily, Grace would not consider doing otherwise. This demonstrates that the “kin-based communal, sharing, and egalitarian values and practices [which] lie at the heart of [Pacific] social organization . . . continue to be adapted and molded to the circumstances of urban life” (Jones 2016, 61). In Grace’s case, this adaptation incorporates aspects of home as con­ structed in Australia while completing her degree. While sharing with two other students in Melbourne, Grace enjoyed independence from her family, realizing in particular that the distance between herself and fam­ ily members meant she could make considered decisions about sharing resources, rather than feeling obliged to respond to every request. Thus, although giving by migrants is typically determined by the “needs of those who remain at home” (Connell and Conway 2000, 58), remitters are also influenced by their living circumstances, weighing a complex range of factors that reveal their imbrication in different worlds and spaces. On returning to her family home in Port Moresby, Grace found the constant requests for financial assistance more difficult to manage than she had while overseas. She also experienced the flow of visitors to the house as draining because she was unable to claim any personal space. Moreover, because of cultural expectations about sharing resources, she said that visitors (whether local neighbors or family members from the village) take whatever they like to eat without considering the implica­ tions for other household members (see Schram 2015). In addition to these challenges, Grace experienced a conflict between her values and those of her aging parents in regard to her younger siblings. For example, although Grace is committed to addressing violence through her support for the empowerment of women and children, as practiced in her profes­ sional role, she says that her parents have “old-fashioned” ideas about disciplining the young people in the household, which include physical discipline (email, November 2016). All of these elements reflect impor­ tant differences between Grace’s ideas about what constitutes a peaceful and livable home and her family’s values and practices of home making. Perceiving that adolescence is presenting new challenges for her younger siblings and trying to help them complete their education, Grace recently moved out of the family home, taking her younger brother, sis­ ter, and niece with her. In doing so, she is investing in “non-economic returns” that include “the health, happiness and skills of children [as well as] peace and cooperation” (Folbre 1992, xxiv). Grace’s determined

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creation of a new home for herself and her younger family members indi­ cates that, for the educated middle class in PNG, sharing with others is not only about money but also about transferring “ideas, beliefs and val­ ues” (Lilomaiava-Doktor 2009, 3). Where Gewertz and Errington’s (1999) account of the urban middle class in Wewak appears to suggest those in this cohort are seeking to transfer values in quite oppressive ways (see, for example, chap. 2), Grace’s emphasis is on enabling these young peo­ ple, rather than on berating them for what they have “failed” to achieve. Grace says she and her charges now have a quieter life and she is able to dedicate herself to ensuring they eat well, get to school on time, and complete their homework. The house costs Grace K800 ($238.51) a week, reflecting the exorbitant cost of formal housing in Port Moresby. Moving out has given Grace more personal space, but she does not see her current living situation as long term. She has two further aspira­ tions, the first of which is to buy a home and the second of which is to live outside PNG. Grace said that buying a house is important because though her family has been renting the same house for many years, the increas­ ing value of housing in Port Moresby could mean that they are evicted or that the rent is increased beyond their means. To safeguard against this situation, Grace wants to provide her parents and siblings with a secure home of their own. To realize this goal, she will apply to access the First Home Owner’s Scheme established in 2014 by the PNG government. If she is successful in obtaining a loan, she will buy a house within one of the city’s new housing estates during the next twelve months. She hopes this will protect her family from having to negotiate a less certain existence in one of the city’s settlements. Yet, even as she invests in creating a version of home for herself and her siblings, Grace plans and dreams of making home elsewhere. Once she has bought her family a house, Grace hopes to secure employ­ ment outside PNG, possibly elsewhere in the Pacific. She perceives this as affording her the best opportunity to contribute to her family without becoming subsumed by their requests and demands. This confirms Con­ nell and Conway’s (2000, 58) finding that for Pacific peoples, “migration is directed at improving both the living standards of those who remain at home and the lifestyle and income of the migrants.” As a transnation­ ally oriented and educated professional, Grace has the capacity to make her home outside PNG while continuing to invest in the idea of home in Moresby on behalf of her family. Discussing the PNG island of Manus, Steffen Dalsgaard (2013, 278) argues that “remittances of wealth and knowledge are central in securing [migrants’] return to the village and

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possibly a position of status and leadership.” In the case of Grace and her supporting her family in the context of Port Moresby, I suggest that if she again moves away and sends remittances, she will not be motivated by a desire to secure a comfortable return or a quest for prestige. Rather, as a modern, educated Papua New Guinean woman, she will be contributing to the support of family who require this assistance to survive in a place where it can be hard to do so. Before concluding, I discuss an experience that highlights the differences between the case studies presented here and the situation as it is for many less advantaged women in Port Moresby. I do so to demonstrate that the autonomy women seek is not only hard won but also available only to those who are able to earn enough to support themselves, an ability or situation largely determined by their status as middle-class subjects. In 2016, I met Leslie, a woman in her early thirties. She and her husband, Andrew, came to talk with me at the Grand Papua Hotel, a venue that costs considerably more than the hotel where I usually stay. The Grand Papua is located “downtown” near the building in which the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is located, and as I was work­ ing with the IFC on this occasion they had arranged for me to stay here. The hotel has a colonial air; indeed, the hotel website describes the front bar as follows: “With marble finishings, high ceilings, timber floors and wooden shutters opening to sea breezes from Ela Beach, guests can relax indoors or on the terrace in contemporary-colonial ambience” (Grand Papua Hotel 2011). Photos from the colonial era adorn the walls of the foyers and hallways. For these reasons alone, I was embarrassed to meet Leslie and Andrew at the Grand Papua. This feeling was exacerbated when I learned that though one of their close relatives was employed at the hotel, they had never dared to venture in. It is confronting to have access, by virtue of my employment, skin color, and level of education, to a place that the majority of Papua New Guineans do not. Also, unlike the other women whose homes I discuss here, Leslie lives in a settlement, Nine Mile, named for its distance from Port Moresby (and incidentally the site of Ross Kemp’s settlement visit, as discussed in chapter 1). At Nine Mile, Leslie and Andrew share a six-bedroom house with six­ teen other people including Andrew’s first wife and their children (Leslie is Andrew’s second wife). Up to four people live in some bedrooms; three are in Leslie and Andrew’s, they and their young daughter. The house is located in an area often characterized by “disturbance” because “young unemployed youths drink beer and ‘jungle juice’ [local brewed alcohol

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made of fermented fruit], take drugs, smoke marijuana and get into fights” (interview, August 2016). Because of this, Leslie and Andrew said that they do not really venture beyond their house, especially at night. Although Leslie earns some money selling food and other items in the settlement, the family relies to a great extent on the money Andrew earns from his job in the government sector. They are always “on the lookout for other options” (interview, August 2016) in terms of places to live because they have no title to the block where the house is located. Like Maria in Cowboy and Maria, Leslie wishes she could return to Goroka, among other reasons because in the fertile Highlands she would be able to grow enough to eat. In Moresby, they have no access to land and the climatic conditions are less conducive to growing fruit and vegetables. Leslie and Andrew are unlikely to be able to return to Goroka, how­ ever. Andrew relocated to Moresby to offer his physical protection to two daughters, both of whom came to Port Moresby to attend university. The daughters are from his first marriage. If Leslie were to challenge this situation, she would risk becoming more vulnerable to homelessness and other associated situations. Leslie’s greater vulnerability and reliance on Andrew were also evident when they departed the hotel. They needed to leave in time to get the last PMV on which they felt comfortable. If they did not do so, they would be traveling in the dark; Andrew explained that there was no guarantee the driver would take them to the usual stop near their house. The experience of meeting Leslie, and the fact that she largely com­ municated through Andrew, are an important reminder how much more dependent on others many Port Moresby women are than the ones I have described here. As Keith Barber (2010, 95) notes, “it is not as individuals that people survive in PNG.” Affirming Barbara, Cox, and Leach’s (2015) emphasis on taking reduced “vulnerability” as a dimension of being mid­ dle class, the case studies I focus on here demonstrate that it is precisely because they “have been able to benefit from more secure employment relationships” that women such as Grace have the level of autonomy that they do. In PNG, the absence of government support for single mothers or those without enough resources to survive render the majority of women without means entirely dependent on others for survival. Thus, although women in more economically developed countries can and do face eco­ nomic entrapment, this possibility is exacerbated in Port Moresby, where there are even fewer options for meeting daily needs. The difficulties of making home in Port Moresby are myriad and have been well documented in writing on urbanization in the Pacific (see, for

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example, Connell 2011; Koczberski, Curry, and Connell 2001; Mecartney and Connell 2017; Repič 2011; Walta 2017). Despite these challenges, however, acceptance of women as agents and legitimate urban denizens is emerging and strengthening. With the exception of Demian, Hukula, and Rooney, however, these more felicitous—though not entirely untroubled—experiences of women’s belonging remain something of an untold story. Elucidating the experiences of a small subgroup among the city’s diverse residential population, I have shown that women who are edu­ cated and employed but also supported by others, whether family members, friends, or work colleagues, can make home in Port Moresby city despite the security and economic challenges it presents. The experi­ ences of those in this group confirm that for many residents in Moresby, ties to “the village” are attenuated (Macintyre 2011) or in some cases so insignificant a part of daily life as to have little bearing on constructions of identity in the present. Indeed, as the Grace case study demonstrates, the pull of international ties, formed as a result of overseas education and work, is often greater than ancestral village affiliations among this category of women. As a result, far from imagining an alternative “home” in the village, women in this cohort reference overseas locations in their constructions of home in Moresby, aspiring to recreate aspects of the independence they experienced while living outside Port Moresby. This echoes Besnier’s (2009) finding about the significance of “extralocal” con­ nections and resources among the middle class in Tonga, and Barbara, Cox, and Leach’s (2015) observations about the cosmopolitan orientation of the middle class in PNG. At the local level, the recognition of women’s place in the city is occurring among politicians, landlords, family members, and the young women who are themselves aware that they—seemingly more than their male counterparts—are construed as desirable tenants and neighbors. Indeed, in PNG, anecdotal evidence suggesting that women employed in salaried positions are perceived as making better tenants than men is considerable. The deep-rooted sociocultural connection between women and domestic space (Rolnik 2012) may thus in some instances provide women with an advantage over both their male counterparts and fami­ lies. Although single men are perceived as unlikely to take care of the house, it is thought that men with dependent families will allow too many wantoks (family and friends) to stay, thereby risking damage to the prop­ erty over time and disturbance to neighbors (for a discussion of how the term wantok is evolving in urban contexts, see Schram 2015). This idea suggests a partial change from colonial times, when “urban settlers were

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[imagined to be] temporary male sojourners whose families and ‘true’ homes were in the village” (Koczberski, Curry, and Connell 2001, 2020). But, more than this, and as becomes clear in this chapter, women are always involved with, investing in, and negotiating with a range of others to construct home in the city. Their homemaking can be read as an act of self-assertion, evidence of female agency and autonomy in a place long deemed hostile to their sex, but it also reflects how social relationships are being recast to support women’s belonging and to include others. Once seen as improper inhabitants of urban spaces, women in Moresby are there to stay. So that we can further understand the range of ways they are making themselves at home, the following chapter con­ siders how women are making themselves comfortable outside the home, including in commercial and leisure venues as well as public space.

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C H A PT ER 3

Getting Comfortable in the

“New” Port Moresby

I

n chapter 1, I discussed films about Port Moresby, demonstrating that although violence and poverty are prominent subjects, recent collabora­ tions involving Papua New Guineans portray the city as a more expansive and diverse place than it is typically represented to be. One of the ways the films achieve this is by representing a diversity of places in Port Moresby and the ways in which people inhabit them. Changes in the city and to peoples’ relationships with it have also been evident in my conversations with educated and employed women. In 2007, I interviewed young women in Port Moresby. The majority had been educated overseas, whether during their secondary school years or while at university (Spark 2010, 2011). One of those I spoke with was Jo. Having lived in Brisbane during her secondary school years, Jo described her sense of being an outsider in her own society. Missing the freedom of life in Australia, she found solidarity among her other overseas-educated friends (Spark 2011). This sociality could be pursued in only a few locations: for instance, women would meet at the Holiday Inn or the Gateway Hotel for pizza on a Friday night. In 2015, during a visit to Port Moresby, I again spoke with Jo and three of the other overseas-educated women who had participated in my original research. We talked about life in Port Moresby, including the women’s experiences of the city’s emerging spaces and places. Jo 65

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reflected, “I think there is a lot more of us out there because there are more places where you can meet up and be more comfortable” (focus group discussion, August 2015). As the discussion unfolded, my observa­ tion of more venues and locations throughout the city was confirmed. Some were more accessible to those with money, but others were per­ ceived as offering affordable or free options in which to pursue leisure and social activities. Discussing the concept of “feeling comfortable,” Martha Radice (1999) observes two aspects of a city which promote comfort, includ­ ing “feel good” features and diversity. Unpacking these, she notes the idea of diversity brings in choice in terms of what is on offer, including but not limited to consumables. She also points out, however, that “only those who are already sure of their claim to the city can perceive diversity as ‘interesting’” (104). In Port Moresby, this is amply evident: although ethnic and class distinctions can cause discomfort, so too can women’s experiences of insecurity in public spaces (Hukula 1999). Nevertheless, in contrast to the containment and restriction that many women associate with home, urban women’s economic freedom brings them out into the city to meet with friends, see movies, or visit shops. As Linda McDowell (1999, 156) argues, city spaces outside the home are therefore associ­ ated with the possibility of “transgressing hegemonic versions of [gender and] sexuality” and offer women the chance to experience a degree of liberation. My conversations with working-class women reveal a changing land­ scape, one in which the urban experiences of this cohort are evolving as a result of changes to urban space, many of which have been facilitated by global capitalism. In this chapter, I explore some of their interactions with the city to offer a more hopeful perspective on the relationship between women and urban life in the Global South. Viewing these places through a feminist lens reveals not only the extent of women’s subordina­ tion in the city but also the emerging possibilities for middle-class women to experience a degree of autonomy. For women who have and continue to negotiate their lives and choices in relation to concerns about safety, their moral reputation, demands from husbands, and other family mem­ bers, these places are paradoxical if not liberating spaces. In the city’s new cafes, hotels, and sites of leisure, gender identities and degrees of comfort are being remapped in ways that unsettle, even if they do not displace, more constraining social meanings and significance of place, gender and belonging in Port Moresby. To elucidate how middle-class women access and move between Moresby’s new spaces and places, I draw on various sources of data that

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concretize the relationship between the spatial and social worlds. These include three focus group discussions, email conversations, and pho­ tos and commentary sent to me by my friend Karuka. The first of the focus groups took place in 2013 and involved asking Papua New Guin­ ean women about the local magazine Stella (see chapter 4). During this time, the women talked about their experiences of new places in Port Moresby while discussing emerging versions of femininity. Interested to learn more about their perspectives on the changing city, I arranged two focus groups on this topic. These took place in 2015, four women in each group, all but one of whom I had interviewed on previous occasions. The women were between twenty-five and thirty-five years old and all were employed in professional occupations. The focus groups took place in two locations, the first in a luxu­ riously appointed meeting room at the top of the Grand Papua Hotel. Although it usually attracted a significant booking fee, reception staff at the hotel kindly allowed me to use the private room at no cost. Sur­ rounded by floor to ceiling book shelves and sitting in comfortable leather bucket chairs, we discussed which places in Moresby the women felt com­ fortable to go. The only other people going up and down the lifts to the floor on which we were located were guests, almost none of whom were Papua New Guinean. The other focus group discussion took place at the Holiday Inn in Waigani, at a table near the pool next to the restaurant. Most of the other people coming and going from the hotel and at the sur­ rounding tables were Papua New Guinean. In terms of short-term expatriates, the Holiday Inn and its newer counterpart, the Holiday Inn Express, tend to be frequented by visiting academics and development consultants and the Grand Papua typically hosts more business-oriented guests. Over the decade or so I have been going to the Holiday Inn, I have noticed that the Papua New Guinean percentage of guests and diners is increasing. This is particularly so on weekends, when families bring their children to swim in the pool. On the other hand, the pools at the more luxuriously appointed hotels, such as the Grand Papua and The Stanley, seem almost decorative and tend to be used only by occasional guests. The subtle and not-so-subtle differences evident in regard to who goes where suggest that a range of ameni­ ties produce a sense of feeling comfortable and that places can become increasingly welcoming over time. Despite its being perhaps cynical to say so, it seems likely that the increasing competition from other hotels in Port Moresby may have influenced the Holiday Inn’s more relaxed policy. Some years ago, for example, I witnessed Papua New Guinean friends being asked to leave because they were “not guests” (see Spark 2018).

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Finally, in regard to the data presented here, I also draw on What­ sApp messages and photos sent to me by my friend Karuka. Karuka grew up in Port Moresby but was living in New Zealand. She returned to Port Moresby for the first time in three years in November 2015 and dur­ ing her visit sent me her impressions of the ways in which the city had changed (see Spark 2018). Allowing unique insight into educated women’s perspectives on Moresby’s new spaces and places, the points of view captured through these diverse methods reveal the double-sided nature of some of these emerging places. On one hand, the high cost of the city’s new cafes and hotels suggests that the contemporary urban experience gives (only) those with money “the aura of freedom of choice” (Harvey 2008, 31). On the other, the young women’s reflections serve as a reminder of Gillian Rose’s (1993, 155) observation that spaces are “extraordinarily complicated.” Offering a range of meanings, the city’s new places are simultaneously indicative of capital’s power to “remake the Port Moresby landscape” (Oxford Business Group 2014, 183) and of the less predict­ able transformations of identity that changes in place can produce in the embodied experience of urban women. Thus, although I agree with Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington (1999) that consumerism is an important aspect of being middle class in Papua New Guinea (PNG), I suggest that considering how gender affects the experience of consump­ tion in urban PNG is integral to elucidating the meanings it may have in this context. Going Raun Raun (Around): Young Women’s

Perspectives on “the New Moresby”

During her time in Moresby, Karuka visited many of the places that other professional women discuss as representative of Moresby’s trans­ formation. These include Vision City Mega Mall, the shopping complex constructed by the Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau, and a smaller center at Harbour City. Although shopping malls and cinema complexes represent the global spread of cosmopolitan consumerism for Moresby’s middle-class women (see Barbara, Cox, and Leach 2015), they can also underpin and enable modes of being that subvert conventional constructions of women and their roles. The pessimistic view of contem­ porary network capitalism is that it colonizes our life worlds, introducing “the objectifying logic of the economy into everyday life” (Vendenberghe 2013, 13). But, as John Manzo (2005) argues, although “the sociological

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view of malls is for the most part univocal and negative” (85), in malls, as in any setting, people find ways to make the setting “their own” (88–89). This has occurred at the Vision City Mall, which has become part of the fabric of people’s lives in the city, offering a convenient site for a range of people to browse, shop, see movies, or meet one another for coffee. Furthermore, I argue that Vision City gives local people an opportunity to define themselves outside the constraints of their everyday social worlds. On entering Vision City, for instance, women become something other than daughters, mothers, or wives; as consumers and potential consum­ ers, they are placed within transnational networks (Castells 1996). This has its attractions for Moresby’s women, including because it enables them to escape, albeit momentarily, some of the demands they may associate with home. For example, in her contribution to My Walk to Equality, Alurigo Ravuriso-Kali (2017, 199) writes of meeting friends at a “lovely eatery at Vision City which is the place to shop and eat in bustling Port Moresby.”

Figure 6. Poropena Freeway in Port Moresby. Photo by Karuka, November 2015.

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As Karuka’s comments make clear, such places also provide options in a city where people previously had few. Discussing her photos of the Harbour City shopping complex, she wrote, Not really a shopping complex. It’s just 1 level, with a supermarket, a hair salon and also has chemist/pharmacy etc. Like a mini plaza with the necessary shops, including Post office and a furniture shop. The furniture shop was a surprise for me, since Courts had a monopoly for years. Seeing this made me happy even though the prices were still high. It meant though that, in the coming years competition may result in people probably getting affordable furniture. Something that is lacking a lot back home. This place was a little more quieter [than Vision City] but definitely is considered a ‘mall’ by some. Because in the past, we used to ‘hang out’ at department stores like SVS etc. on the weekends if we wanted to go raun raun [looking around] so this is a step up. (WhatsApp message, November 2015)

Acknowledging constraints, Karuka welcomes the presence of additional stores because they provide local people with choices, a benefit that Martha Radice (1999) notes underpins the experience of “feeling com­ fortable.” This includes having somewhere safe to go and “hang out,” a point I discuss later in more detail. Melissa, age thirty-four, also appreciates being able to choose between the different restaurants now available, commenting that this is a change from the past: If we have conversations with other people, like “Holiday Inn has the best buffet” and I’m like “no, try Grand Papua it has a better selec­ tion,” all this stuff where you can actually enjoy the fine things in life in Moresby without having to travel, [I] get my children exposed to this kind of lifestyle as well. . . . We started last year where every Saturday evening we’d pick a different restaurant so we’d go either to a hotel for dinner or a Chinese restaurant cause the kids love Chinese now and these are things that my parents couldn’t take us to because there were no restaurants at that time and if there was, it was at one hotel and it would be so expensive. So we can give our children that exposure. (focus group discussion, August 2015)

As Melissa’s response shows, among those who can afford to go there, there is a buzz about the latest new places. On a visit to Port Moresby

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just weeks before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, I had several conversations with women about the opening of the new Star Mountain hotel, including discussing the mumu (coal-filled pit) oven the hotel had built into one of its restaurants (see Star Mountain Plaza 2018). Having options constructs residents as “citizen consumers” (Crocker 2009) while connecting Papua New Guineans to a world beyond Moresby, a connection particularly valued by women who have spent time over­ seas (Spark 2010, 2011). As Robert Foster (2008, 170–171) notes, consumer-citizens “need not be restricted to their own countries of political citizenship.” Rather, their concerns “open up a new space for the creation of transnational alliances and deterritorialized communities in which some of the inequities of neoliberal economic globalization can be redressed if not eradicated.” At Vision City, women feel comfortable in the same way they might in a shopping mall anywhere. This is especially important given the intense scrutiny, harassment, and threat they expe­ rience when they are in less-protected locations (see, for example, Hukula 1999; Spark 2014a). Being able to “hang out” in plazas and malls can also equalize inhab­ itants, because all citizens are “potential consumers,” including people who may or may not “look the part.” Indeed in this regard, women— widely perceived to be less threatening than men in public and semi-public spaces—may have the advantage in accessing the more man­ aged consumer spaces. In turn, these become “spaces of pleasure” that women experience without the need to be escorted by men (McDowell 1999, 160). This also applies to “organized” markets, as Kamalia’s words highlight: I do [go] but of course with other friends or with my relatives for the open markets like Boroko. I think women would go but in numbers, not by themselves. I would however go by myself or with friends to the organised ones like at Ela Beach International School or Holiday Inn or Laguna which tend to be more secure. (email, June 2016)

Kamalia’s response indicates the freedom and independence that man­ aged, organized spaces afford middle-class women who do not feel safe in open markets without the protection of others (for a discussion, see Sharp n.d.). Although Vision City was described by a range of women as being a place accessible to everyone, dressing up is one of the key pleasures women have in going to this location. Women in public open spaces who

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are wearing “skinny jeans” or “spaghetti tops” are less likely to feel com­ fortable because they get harassed particularly by men (see Spark 2015a). But, as Grace noted, Vision City has just become a safe place for a lot of people. Like the big shopping malls there, and so people are hanging around there more, and we are seeing a lot of this fashion displayed there. Like women, they feel safe, you know, they can come in their vehicles, or wherever, and then come to that place, Vision City, and then walk around and spend hours there, because it’s like . . . they feel like they want to do it. (focus group discussion, 2013)

Grace’s description of women feeling comfortable to dress up and spend hours at Vision City points toward the significance of such places as sites where the boundaries of “proper attire” are more expansive than usual. In these contexts, conservative masculine discourses about what women should wear have decreasing and limited potency (for more, see Cum­ mings 2008; Spark 2015a). In other places, however, dress codes are arbitrarily invoked to keep people out. Discussing Airways Hotel, for example, Jo said, “Airways, OMG, it’s really hard to get there even at the main gate; you get asked twenty questions by the security guards, they ask you are you a guest, who are you here to see?” (focus group discussion, August 2015). Prior to the construction of the Stanley and Star Mountain hotels, Airways was easily the most exclusive hotel in town and may yet be. Hosting a shop with handmade chocolates and a deli with gourmet cheeses (Air­ ways Hotel Limited 2018), it is frankly forbidding in its opulence. The main patrons I have noticed there are fly-in, fly-out resource-sector work­ ers coming and going from their six-week stints in remote parts of PNG. Nigel Oram (1976, 157) notes of Port Moresby that in this context, “skin colour is taken as an infallible guide to human status, rights and potenti­ alities.” Although legal repeals in 1963 contributed to the diminishment of discrimination in public places (158), in reality it continues today, including in Moresby’s new places from which women are sometimes excluded on the basis of what they are wearing. This seems to be par­ ticularly pronounced when places first open. For example, Jo and Cindy talked about being excluded from Paradise Cinema in the months after it opened because they didn’t have “proper footwear.” Focus group participants were also critical of the Port Moresby Yacht Club, Val describing it as having an “old colonial style and feel” that makes

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them “feel uncomfortable” (August 2015). Discussing the Yacht Club’s fee increases, Cindy speculated that it was a way to keep people out: I don’t know if it’s deliberate but the Yacht Club over the years they’ve increased their fees, it used to be one grand for annual membership and then it went up to two grand and now it’s like up to three so like every year they were raising their membership, I don’t know whether it’s deliberate but only certain type of people go there.

That colonialism and racism persists in such venues was clear when I met a long-term member at the Yacht Club for breakfast. During my visit, the only customers were white (mostly Australian) expatriates, many of whom were older men friendly with the man I had come to meet, also an expatriate Australian and long-term resident. The only Papua New Guin­ eans present were in service roles. To my horror and embarrassment, the man I was with hissed at the young Papua New Guinean woman who was serving to get her attention. Discussing venues such as the Yacht Club and Golf Club that entail a membership fee, Rashmii Bell (2015) describes them as “irrelevant.” In a blog about expatriates who condescend to Papua New Guineans, she writes, I say to those individuals labouring in their efforts to perfect segre­ gation, feel free to ship yourself off to some land mass far, far away. There your wardrobe matching, superficial conversation and over­ priced lifestyle can be undertaken in absolute exclusivity. . . . the practice of modern day apartheid in my homeland is unwelcome.

Her impatience with colonialist and racist attitudes is echoed by other commentators on social media in PNG indicating the extent to which informal but real racial boundaries persist in shaping experience in con­ temporary Port Moresby. The intersections of colonialism and class exclusion are also illus­ trated in Karuka’s photos of and comments about the pool at the Murray Barracks Leisure Centre. On the one hand, she wrote, “Affordable. Any­ one can enjoy. Can be accessed by public transport.” On the other, Karuka also noted that children were kept out because they “needed to be accom­ panied by an adult” but that other children who were “well dressed” were allowed in. Reflecting the ongoing significance of discrimination in con­ temporary Port Moresby, this situation suggests that alongside dress,

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ways of demonstrating being middle class vary—and one of them is being accompanied by parents. Another is owning a car. “It’s a Status Thing to Have Your Own Car” Boundary-keeping moments arise most commonly when women approach hotels and other gated locations on foot (see Spark 2018, 2014a). This highlights that the car is itself a place that confers prestige and power, protecting women from the scrutinizing gaze of (male) security guards who continue to determine access according to appearance and who are sometimes motivated to exclude women because of jealousy about their increasing power and prestige. Whether one owns a car is the subject of class-sensitive and sometimes arch conversations. For example, Kamalia said that the security guards where she works are baffled that she spends money on the petrol needed to drive herself to work, and encourage her to use the shuttle bus provided by their mutual employer to save money. Conversely, some middle-class women who would not consider walking or catching one of the buses or public motor vehicles (PMV) that make up the city’s public transport system, question those who continue to do so. Describing this, Cindy said, One of the questions that we increasingly get asked a lot because we still don’t [have a car] is “Oh you’re still walking” [laughed] yes we walk and yes we still catch public transport it’s not a big deal but it’s a status thing to have your own car. (focus group discussion, August 2015)

Alongside status, car ownership for women also provides a sense of safety. This is true as well of women who are driven by employees as part of their position within the private sector and, increasingly, the develop­ ment and government sectors. Melissa, who was recently job-hunting and who has not “gotten on a PMV bus or taxi” for many years, said that she and other professional women consider whether the company provides “secure transport” when applying for a job because “a lot of incidents have happened over the years.” After completing a master’s degree overseas, Grace described her reasons for buying a car when she returned to Moresby. The reason I personally got or bought a car is because when I got back [from studies] I just felt first of all it was my safety, I didn’t feel safe

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walking around or catching the bus to work or when I do other activi­ ties. And, second, . . . I’m just relying on other people and I have to plan my travel according to their schedules. I want to do things on my own I want to feel free, so the car has given me the ability to get to places and I feel secure inside. That’s why I decided to get a car. (focus group discussion, August 2015)

Safety and independence are key because women who do not own a car typically rely on family members, “especially the boys” to drive them places. This limits their freedom of movement and the times they can be out. For instance, where Kamalia said that she would drive “whenever, even late” in her “big car,” Meg said that she always arranged to be col­ lected by her brothers by “around nine” at night. Those without a car or company driver also use other strategies, including having regular taxi drivers and getting off PMV buses when no other women are on them (see also Hukula 1999; Spark 2014a). As part of its Safe Cities project, UN Women introduced four buses exclusively for women and children. Called Meri Seif buses, UN Women runs these in collaboration with Ginigoada, a local organization that provides education and training for the city’s unemployed and marginal­ ized people. As noted in the introduction, although the buses provide an interim solution to the problems women experience on the PMVs, they reinforce the idea that women are vulnerable and in need of protec­ tion from the city’s Others. Nevertheless, they are appreciated by local women, most of whom described them as a “great incentive” (Dora KuirAyus, interview, October 2016) and said that they feel safer and more comfortable on them than on the city’s PMVs. In Moresby, the car is a “place” that can only be afforded by a few. Consequently, for some middle-class women, PMVs are a necessary option. Responding to my question about how she travels around the city, Marie highlighted the possibility that perceptions of the bus as being an “unsafe” place may be exaggerated: I used to refuse to catch the bus thinking that it was too dangerous, and I would only catch taxis if I had to when working late till 6pm. However, recently . . . I have had to start catching the bus, and I find that there is nothing wrong with catching the bus and that there are many people who catch the bus. . . . I think it was all in my head, this fear of not catching public transport in Moresby and I let one incident of being held up at Gordons Market prevent me from catching the bus. (email, August 2015)

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Marie’s reflections indicate the immense significance of the ways in which people imagine the cities in which they live. As Niko Besnier (2009, 234) writes in relation to middle-class Tongans, where once people walked to school and work this is not considered acceptable among the Tongan middle class who now “look condescendingly on anyone who does not keep up with [the] competitive conspicuous consumption” demonstrated by owning a large car. Unless and until middle-class Papua New Guineans make the same rare choice Marie has in remaining on the city’s PMVs, the city will only become less “commutable.”

“Feeling Safe and Free” I think for me if I’m deciding a place to go or a place to meet up with my friends the first thought that comes to my mind is ok where is the safest place to be? A place that is secure that I know that when I am sitting there that I am not conscious about someone pulling my bag or that’s the sort of question that comes into my mind and usually that would be places like Vision City, Nature Park, or Adventure Park. (Meg, focus group discussion, August 2015)

Meg’s words demonstrate that some of the new places in Moresby—in this case Vision City, Nature Park, and Adventure Park—feature promi­ nently in women’s experiences because they are perceived as secure. Similarly, in her reflections about Moresby, Karuka took a photo of the Edge café at Harbour City and wrote, I met a friend who works at ANZ, for lunch. She mentioned she only went there every two weeks etc., because it was still too costly although she loved how it was nice and relaxing and you wouldn’t even think about watching your wallet or phone if you got up to view menu etc. Felt safe and free. (WhatsApp message, November 2015)

Encapsulating the double-sided nature of some of the more expensive new places in Moresby, Karuka’s comments confirm Doreen Massey’s (1994, 3) argument that “the social relations of space are experienced dif­ ferently, and variously interpreted, by those holding different positions as part of it.” Although for some, Moresby’s new places may exacerbate a sense of exclusion from the wealth generated by the country’s resources boom, for others, these new locations afford the welcome experience of feeling “safe and free.”

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Not all the places women go are considered exclusive, however. The women were unanimous that Vision City was a place that diverse people feel comfortable. As Jo said, “most people feel comfortable there; other places, people won’t feel comfortable going [but there] everyone would feel comfortable” (focus group discussion, August 2015). As noted, Karuka mentioned the advantage of having malls to go to just to “hang out,” and Marie said, “having Vision City and Duffy [café] is a relief as there are places to go to and enjoy things that you might not enjoy before” (email, October 2015). Nature Park and Adventure Park are also perceived as inclusive and relatively affordable. For instance, Meg described the Nature Park entrance fee of K7 for adults and K4 for children as “really cheap” and said that Adventure Park was “free on weekends.” The perceived affordability was confirmed by Karuka, who wrote alongside the photos she took at this location, “Anyone can enjoy. Not exclusive to people with money/ high status etc. despite its pleasant atmosphere i.e. café etc.” (WhatsApp message, November 2015). The emergence of Nature Park reflects another deliberate attempt by Powes Parkop (as mentioned earlier) to recreate the city. The focus on providing an accessible and affordable green space for urban Papua New Guineans reflects Parkop’s desire to create a “new Moresby,” one in which people come out to enjoy a range of activities, thereby changing the image of the city (Papua New Guinea Today 2015). From the 1990s until 2010, the expansive green area next to the University of Papua New Guinea, then known as the National Botanical Gardens, was largely off limits to Moresby residents. Associated with danger and alcohol consumption, particularly by university students and others who lived in neighboring settlements, the gardens were unsafe space and to be avoided. The large trees and lush areas housing local flora and fauna, some of which are now endangered, were perceived as offering a hiding place for would-be rob­ bers and rapists and thus as threatening rather than beautiful. Michelle McGeorge is the Australian who has supervised the transi­ tion of the gardens into Nature Park. McGeorge said that in 2010 she walked around with Parkop, who asked, “can you fix this?” She explained further: The brief we got from government was that they wanted it to be something that the public could go and use, that they felt that the site was underutilised, and that they also felt that they just wanted some­ thing where families could go to, it was safe, the people could learn, and they could appreciate nature, because the feeling was that Port Moresby’s losing a lot of natural spaces. (interview, October 2017)

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To make the space more accessible for the public, McGeorge employed and trained new staff and recreated the area such that it is “virtually unrecog­ nisable.” The gardens and animals are now well cared for and visitation has grown and changed. The records that predate her arrival are almost nonexistent, but McGeorge says visitor numbers are now at 130,000 per annum and that 93 percent of these are Papua New Guineans. Nature Park is featured multiple times in the film Lukim Yu (2016), as the loca­ tion for John and Melissa’s blossoming romance and for the wedding of one of the couples in the movie. The women in the focus group discussions also talked about some of the other ways in which Moresby is changing. For instance, consider­ ing the small playgrounds and parks created under Parkop’s leadership, Val said, In the different suburbs we have here, he [Governor Parkop] has built places where people can go and play basketball, mini parks, and the kids go back home they rush there to play, the swings and slides. It’s really nice I like it, when we were going to Gerehu, people came out to play and it’s safe. Before there was no one around, if I go outside someone would snatch my bag, but [with these parks] people started coming out and people started looking for each other. (focus group discussion, August 2015)

Her comments echo Rose’s idea that it is the community—and not only fences—that provide a sense of safety. Grace mentioned Parkop’s “small initiatives to get the low income population to be entertained” includ­ ing a “public stage at Five Mile where popular entertainers come and sing and people just go there to watch for free” (focus group discussion, August 2015). Alongside Walk for Life and free yoga, these initiatives and changes are transforming the city, helping create new places and habits of place making that offer diverse residents opportunities to participate in the public life of the city. Letters in the Post-Courier reveal residents’ perspectives about these changes with some perceiving them as transfor­ mative and congratulating Parkop (2015a, 11) and others, indicating that they merely represent a “band aid solution” (2015b, 11). Cosmopolitan City The most compelling evidence that Moresby is changing may be that where once women avoided being in town alone, now they come to Port

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Moresby to enjoy “a weekend away” because they perceive the city to be more allowing and cosmopolitan than the rest of PNG. Capturing this, Karuka described going to Wellness Lodge to meet her friend who had come from Goroka, a town in the Eastern Highlands Province, for the weekend. Noting the lodge’s emphasis on health, including offering yoga classes for its customers, she remarked, “it seems girls are feeling more comfortable to do these things” (WhatsApp message, November 2015). This view is supported by Melissa, who argued that as a result of Moresby having “changed so much, . . . it almost feels no different if you live in Sydney or Port Moresby” (focus group discussion, August 2015). Marie echoed this, saying that she believes “you can travel the world and still call Moresby home” and that she “feel[s] comfortable in Moresby wherever [she] is” (email, August 2015). Echoing Jo’s reflection that she finds solidarity among her overseas-educated friends, Marie said that being able to travel and connecting with other women who have “been outside PNG” is part of what contributes to her sense of belonging in Moresby: In 2007, I did see myself as an outsider because I had been educated in Australia and felt that I could not fit in easily into the culture and lifestyle in PNG. However, since that time I found that other Papua

Figure 7. Wellness Lodge. Photo by Karuka, November 2015.

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New Guineans have lived and studied abroad so I don’t feel lonely anymore. (email, August 2015)

Demonstrating that sociality among PNG’s educated class is shaped by their experiences of living and studying overseas, Marie’s reflection indi­ cates the significance of places outside Port Moresby to the construction of relationships within the city, a finding also evident in relation to the discussion of “making home” in chapter 2. “Only Money People Go” As Martha Radice (1999, 88) notes, however, “doubts do lurk.” Although Melissa and Marie are able to afford diverse entertainment options in (and beyond) Moresby, the capacity to purchase expensive furniture and eat in the city’s restaurants eludes the majority of Moresby’s citizens. This includes women employed in the formal sector but with less financially rewarding jobs, who report finding it difficult to do more than survive in the city, as a result of the high cost of housing and food. Gladys, for example, who has worked in the development sector for ten years, said that by the time she provides rent money to her husband’s parents, with whom she lives, there is little is left over for leisure activities. Thus one thing women do not feel comfortable about is the gap between their experience of the city and that of their more and less welloff counterparts. Radice (1999, 134) writes, Feeling comfortable is a remarkably specific, yet flexible phrase. It evokes a definite sense of wellbeing, but it can apply to many situa­ tions. These range from small events in bars to the ambience of the whole metropolis, from library furniture to entire lives, from speak­ ing a language to walking the streets. . . . Crucially, it is conditional: one does not feel comfortable permanently; rather, it is a desirable state, requiring negotiation (with other “constituents of the dwelt-in­ world”) in order to be maintained.

The feeling of comfort cuts both ways. On one hand, women in this cohort observe and analyze their positions and status in relation to the privileges and power expatriates experience in Port Moresby—a subject I explore in more detail in chapter 5. On the other, they are uncomfortable about inequity and its increasingly obvious manifestation in their home

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city. Meg, for example, talked about being angry with herself for walking past people with food in her hand: In town you want to get food from probably Steamships or Big Rooster or somewhere [but] . . . now I can’t buy food and carry it and walk all the way up to the office. It’s really hard because you are carrying that and you see somebody on the street looking at your food and how can I have food on me and there is somebody who doesn’t have food to eat. . . . Over the last three years, I’ve realized that so I’ve just stopped. (focus group discussion, August 2015)

Similarly, Marie wrote, I met a women once who was selling fish and sago outside my office building at my old job, I wanted to be a good Christian so I took her to my building to help her sell her food. Once we got on the elevator she confessed that she had never being on an elevator before. . . . I just felt for this woman as I wondered how someone would not have gotten on a lift even when she looked like she was in her late 30s. I was actually shocked and had to hold her hand and told her that everything would be fine and that it was an easier way to go up the building instead of taking the stairs. (email, August 2015)

This discomfort was also evident in Karuka’s ambivalence about Duffy, a café established in 2012 that is now a popular location among Moresby residents who can afford to go there. The following extract from the photo she sent me testifies to this ambivalence: Duffy’s cafe—[at] 5 mile, had ace food—chocolate croissant—ama­ zeballs. Location is ok as well, although it’s in the Gordons industrial area so I had initially been a little hesitant to go. But security was awesome. Duffy however can only be accessed by well to do people. Eg. My sisters mentioned ‘only money people go there’ and that they hadn’t been. (WhatsApp message, November 2015)

In addition to reporting that her sisters saw Duffy as a place for “money people,” Karuka also told me (in person) that she would not take them there because it would be like “opening a world to them that they could never have again” after she was not in the country to pay for the experi­ ence. This discomfort is a far cry from the elitist and judgmental attitude

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among the middle class in 1990s Wewak that Deborah Gewertz and Fred­ erick Errington document (1999). This suggests either that PNG’s urban class has become more attuned to the structural conditions that deter­ mine wealth and power, or that Gewertz and Errington may have had an overly pessimistic view of the ways in which class relations were emerging in PNG. In advanced capitalist societies, where individualism goes hand in hand with modernity, access by virtue of capacity to pay is widely accepted as part of life. But in PNG, places such as Duffy give rise to pain­ ful tensions for those who can afford to go there. On the one hand, such venues offer a valued opportunity to take part in the global cosmopoli­ tan culture represented by purchasing quality cakes and coffee in their “home” town. On the other hand, they provide a stark reminder that “quality” can only be afforded by a few, thus representing the problems associated with urbanization and reliance on a cash economy (Cummings 2013, 383). Of course, affordability also determines access in advanced capital­ ist societies, but in PNG, employed and educated women are related to and otherwise intimately connected with the many who feel uncomfort­ able about or cannot afford to go inside. Having grown up in a context in which reciprocity and resource sharing continue to form the basis of life and survival for many, the educated women with whom I have spo­ ken maintain a high degree of commitment to this mode of life. Almost all help to support their family members, including by paying for hous­ ing, food, or assisting to educate younger siblings, nephews, and nieces. At the same time, like other members of PNG’s middle class, they also seek to establish a degree of autonomy from family and tend to ques­ tion the financial demands made on them by members of their extended families, often preferring to limit their sharing to immediate family mem­ bers (see the film Moresby Modern [2009] for an excellent exploration of how the emerging middle class view the wantok system; see also Cox and Macintyre 2014; Macintyre 2011). Although the middle class in PNG are often maligned for turning their backs on their grass roots counterparts (see, for example, Gewertz and Errington 1999), my interviews suggest that middle-class women negotiate their experience of comfort in relation to those around them, many of whom do not share the same access to the new places emerging in this rapidly changing city. In the next chapter, I delve further into the ways in which those who are “more comfortable,” contribute to shaping a city on behalf of others who have not had the same opportunities.

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The Difference Independence Makes Reflecting on why educated and employed women do and do not feel comfortable in a city, I close this chapter by discussing the differences between the views of Papua New Guinean women in Moresby and those of a similarly positioned cohort in Noumea, the capital of the French ter­ ritory of New Caledonia. At the time of writing, New Caledonia had just returned a no vote in a long-anticipated referendum on the question of independence from France (Dziedzic and Srinivasan 2018). What might this mean for the Kanak women who live in Noumea and what insights can we glean from examining their views in comparison to their counter­ parts in PNG? I conducted research in 2016 that offers a few answers to these questions (see Spark 2017a). In contrast to their Papua New Guinean counterparts in Port Moresby, Indigenous women living in Noumea demonstrated no attach­ ment to their capital city. As Christianne put it, “Noumea is nothing. It is French. There is one home—it is Lifou” (interview, 2016). Christi­ anne’s perspective was echoed by every one of the sixteen Kanak women I interviewed in Noumea. Agreeing that Noumea was different from the other Pacific cities because it was “European,” Gladys did say that the experience of being Kanak in the city had improved slightly with the signing of the Noumea Accord in 1998 (for a discussion, see MacLellan 1999). Before that the Kanak people were, it’s not that they were not allowed . . . A long time ago, yeah, it’s true. They were absolutely not allowed into the city except for work. In those times, the feeling was still there. They were allowed to come and shop and everything. But the feeling was still there. You couldn’t stay with Kanak people in a group in the middle of the city. You had to move. Because it was for white people. No one used to go, none of the Kanak people used to go to the beaches. Baie de Citron, Anse Vata Bay, not one Kanak person on the beach and at that time. Impossible. It was not forbidden by any law. It was just the way it was. So, after the Noumea Accords, it changed. It changed. (interview, 2016)

This informal exclusion continues to characterize women’s experiences in some venues in Port Moresby, but many women would concur with Marie’s statement about “feeling comfortable” wherever they are. In terms of a comparison, perhaps the most interesting reflection was

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offered by Veronica, a Papua New Guinean woman who has worked in Noumea for ten years but who returns to Moresby on a regular basis: It’s not so bad now in Moresby. A few years ago you wouldn’t feel safe to take a walk in the evening or go to go out and drive, but it feels much safer. It feels better. It’s really positive how things have changed there. I think there’s lots more things that you can do at night and that gives people more freedom to move. There’s still places you wouldn’t want to go at night and so on. But I feel much better being there than a few years ago when we moved out. Being able to move at night and so on. (interview, 2016)

Veronica said that though Noumea may be safer and have better schools to which she can send her children, Moresby is more comfortable because it “feels Melanesian.” For her, living in Noumea is “like you’re living in Australia or somewhere . . . it’s not Melanesian.” This supports the view of Kanak women that independence shapes the experience of comfort and belonging in urban areas. The unique histories of these two Melanesian places continue to shape women’s relationships with both urban and village places in the present. Whereas middle-class women in Moresby feel at home in most places (with the exception of venues dominated by expatriates) despite concerns about personal safety, Kanak women locate identity in tribou (tribe). Moreover, Kanak women’s connections with their customary, familial places of origin have a political dimension that is less relevant for women in Moresby. Overall, urban women in PNG are more inclined to frame their urban challenges in relation to inequalities of class and gen­ der, whereas Kanak women affirm their bonds with Kanak culture and appear more cautious about discussing gender and class. As Rose from New Caledonia said when asked to comment on the differences between Noumea and Suva and Port Vila, the latter two “are in independent coun­ tries.” Although various factors influence Papua New Guinean women’s experience of comfort and discomfort in Port Moresby, the legacies of colonialism are informal rather than enshrined. Thus, though colonial­ ism and racism continue to shape the city, it is and feels like a Melanesian place, even as its leaders seek to ensure it is also seen as a “major met­ ropolitan city of the world” (The National 2018). This blend of local and global orientations is the subject of chapter 4.

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C H A PT ER 4

From Mosbi to “POM City” Gender, Transnationalism, and

Development in Port Moresby

Pom Pom City city,

repin 4 ma city city,

POM, crime city getting’ down

and dirty dirty,

GET GET what u want, in da city city

caus dats ma city city,

dats ma CLICK, (X2)

T

he quoted lyrics are taken from the hip-hop/rap song “POM City” (Naka Blood 2010).1 The catchy tune by local Moresby musicians Naka Blood is part of the soundtrack for Save Meri, Skulim Meri, the film about Susil Nelson discussed in chapter 1. Although all the Pawa Meri films celebrate women leaders in Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Save Meri film has a different character than the others in the series, includ­ ing musically. The song, which includes the repeated claim “that’s my city, city,” contributes to this film’s energetic urban feel. The hip-hop tune accompanies shots of Port Moresby harbor, urban street roundabouts, walkovers, and roadside stallholders selling buai (betel nut). It was not until after the film was released that I listened to the rest of the lyrics and heard the song’s misogynist view of women. Since then, despite its catchiness, the masculinized claims to urban ownership and belonging that “POM City” celebrates have jarred somewhat, not least because Save Meri was made to honor Nelson, who is known, among other things, for her leadership of the local chapter of BPW (Business and Pro­ fessional Women). In this chapter, I discuss the role Nelson and other transnational Moresby women are playing in transforming Port Moresby from being 85

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a town in which men confidently claim masculinized ownership to one in which women have increasing influence. In doing so—and despite its sexism—I take Naka Blood’s use of POM—the three letter airport code for Port Moresby—as a stimulating starting point for thinking about the ways in which Moresby has changed. Arguably, the use of this abbreviation, rather than the local Tok Pisin “Mosbi” conjures an implicit internationalism. Although it is not an uncommon way to refer to Port Moresby, its newness relative to Mosbi (see Goddard 2010, 1–2) suggests a shift I view as significant. As I argue here, the transition from the colo­ nial Port Moresby to the Melanesian and local Mosbi to POM traces a story in which internationally connected women are shaping the lives of others with whom they share urban space. Those with the privilege of coming and going from the city, whether for education, work, or to visit family, bring new points of view to bear on the creation of their home town. Some have argued that Moresby is an intensely socially divided city in which urban elites benefit at the expense of the majority (see Con­ nell 2003). Here I present a counterargument that some among the city’s educated are playing a significant role in seeking to transform the city so that a greater diversity of residents might experience a better quality of life. To do so, I focus on three case studies. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was overwhelmingly Papua New Guinean men who were recognized and celebrated in Moresby—Bernard Narokobi, Michael Somare, and Charles Lepani, for example (see Crocombe 1976). As Dianne Johnson (1984) notes, when tertiary educated women rose to prominent positions, it tended to be construed as evidence that gender equity was improving despite the fact that, in Johnson’s view, these “gov­ ernment women” were tokens in a male-dominated society. Now more evidence suggests that many of the “movers and shakers” (Stella n.d.) in Port Moresby are women. Moreover, as I demonstrate in this chapter, women in this cohort draw on international education and networks, as well as local connections and credibility to get “what they want” (Demian 2017) from POM City. In doing so, they simultaneously create avenues for others, including women with fewer resources and connections, to get what they need. To explore these trajectories, this chapter focuses on three mover and shaker women—Susil Nelson, Amanda Donigi, founder and editor of Stella magazine, and Equal Playing Field CEO Jacqueline Joseph. I do not view these women as exceptions but instead take them as representative of a small but growing cohort of Papua New Guinean women who live in Port Moresby. Detailing their experiences and views, I show that their efforts to transform ideas about gender from within Port Moresby are

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explicitly shaped by their status as actors within transnational networks (Biersack and Macintyre 2016, 9; Merry 2006). At the same time, these women live, belong to, and socialize in local streets, churches, and fami­ lies (see Hukula 2017b). In these POM locations, the myriad challenges of advancing the human rights agenda or achieving gender equity are inseparable from the experiences of socioeconomic disadvantage. Thus, while building on research showing the significance of overseas education and connectedness within Pacific and global networks for developmen­ tal leadership (Corbett 2013; Laws 2013; Spark 2016), I also explore a less recognized aspect of these individual women’s motivations, namely, their insider status within Papua New Guinean families and networks. Sally Engle Merry (2006, 165) argues that “elites in postcolonial societies often feel that they belong to the modern transnational world more than the local village one.” Suggesting that this is perhaps too oppositional, I instead explore how local and global threads interweave into the motiva­ tion for these urban women to contribute to the lives of others. All three women grew up in Moresby or overseas and are the chil­ dren of earlier generations of educated and formally employed Papua New Guineans. As such, they are usually viewed as relatively privileged in comparison with most other Papua New Guineans. Involved in diverse efforts to promote gender and other forms of equity in their home town, they espouse identities and politics that reflect transnational links and consumerism, diasporic experience, and their engagement with a wide world, including via the internet (Linnekin 2004; Lee 2009; Nakhid 2009; see also Macintyre 2000). But, demonstrating a commitment to advanc­ ing the ways in which Papua New Guinean women are perceived and enabled, I argue that they do this not only because they are transnational but also because they are connected to families and communities in which others have not had the same opportunities they have. As noted in chap­ ter 2, many if not most employed women in PNG society contribute to supporting their extended family members, including by assisting with accommodation, food, and education costs (see Macintyre 2011; Spark 2017a, 2017b). Thus, although the commitment the women demonstrate to facilitating pathways for others may in part reflect the global feminist goal of empowering women, it also reflects the ways in which as Papua New Guinean women they are embedded in local contexts structured by the idea of development as this manifests in an uneven urban envi­ ronment. Merely by living in Moresby, these women inhabit a world in which it is more difficult to insulate oneself from poverty than is typically the case in a large Australian city, for example. The three case studies demonstrate these threads, highlighting the interweaving of local and

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transnational experience and knowledge among this small but significant cohort of women in this rapidly changing city. To present the following account of their stories, I draw on interviews I have conducted with them as part of research specifically for this book but also as part of other proj­ ects, including my research for the Pawa Meri films (Spark 2014, see also 2013, 2015b), research on the Business and Professional Women’s Club (Spark 2016), research on Stella (Spark 2014b, 2015a), and research on Equal Playing Field (Spark and Siegmann 2017). Susil Nelson and BPW In the first case study, I focus on Susil Nelson’s role in the local Port Moresby chapter of the international federation BPW. Exploring the ways in which Susil’s work with BPW reflects her “Melano-Western hybrid reality” (Martyn Namarong, February 2, 2017, comment in Fitzpatrick 2017), I argue that she draws on her dual status as a transnational and local subject to help create change for diverse women in Port Moresby, many of whom have fewer connections and less opportunity to earn a living. As is evident in Save Meri, Skulim Meri, and Moresby Modern (dis­ cussed in chapter 1) Nelson is a capable, connected professional who has made a successful life for herself in Port Moresby. Now in her early for­ ties, Nelson was the “overall winner” of the Westpac Outstanding Woman (WOW) award in 2012. Beginning in 2006, the WOW awards continue to play a role in recognizing women who are making a significant contribu­ tion to the status of women in PNG, either through their leadership or contribution to development. In 2016, Nelson was invited to make the presentation speech at the 2016 WOW awards. She said, “Ten years ago there was no annual gathering of this kind” (Loop PNG 2016). Nelson’s observation speaks to the shift that has taken place in Port Moresby in relation to local women being portrayed and promoted as role models for other girls and women. Nelson’s place within this sphere is further confirmed by her positions on the boards of the Business Coalition for Women and the Coalition for Change, both of which advocate for gender equity and the rights of women in PNG. But it is Nelson’s role in BPW that arguably constitutes her most important contribution. Through the organization, she directly contributes to positive change in the lives of girls and women in the city. In its set-up and operations, BPW exists at the interface between the international and the local (see Spark 2016). The Port Moresby chapter

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of BPW is a local branch of the international organization. BPW Interna­ tional, which was founded by lawyer Lena Madesin Phillips in 1930 (BPW International 2015), is a network of business and professional women with affiliates in eighty countries in five continents. In PNG, BPW was established in 1982 by Carol Kidu (now Dame Carol Kidu), the Austra­ lian-born PNG politician who served three terms in the PNG National Parliament and was the only female member of Parliament for two of those five year terms (for a fuller discussion, see Spark, Cox, and Corbett 2018). When BPW began in 1982, most members were expatriates. Their aim was radical in the context of PNG—the empowerment of women through education. Gathering like-minded people to fundraise for the scholarships program, BPW also created a space for women to socialize and network at monthly meetings. A number of the most committed and influential expatriate women involved with BPW over the years have been married to Papua New Guinean men, as was Kidu. Having made PNG home and as the mothers of Papua New Guinean children, this group of women implicitly challenge simplistic divisions between insiders and outsiders. This background is important when we consider the crucial role that Nelson has played in transforming the club from one dominated by expa­ triates to one now led and made up predominantly of Papua New Guinean women. Nelson says that, from the beginning, one of BPW’s aims was to increase the number of Papua New Guinean women involved and that the club had achieved this, including at the executive level. Nelson was president between 2010 and 2016, during which time BPW’s vice presi­ dent and treasurer were also Papua New Guinean. The current executive is also made up of employed Papua New Guinean women, many of whom, like Nelson, gained their tertiary education qualifications in Australia and New Zealand. According to Judith Bona, a BPW member since the early 1980s, Nelson has been instrumental in transforming the club’s internal diver­ sity and external reach: She brought a fantastic ability to see things laterally. She’s got a very, very sound method of networking. If she needs somebody, she’s immediately thinking oh this person for this, this person fits here. That’s just the way her mind works. And I think that’s been really good for the club. And I think that’s why . . . the people that we’ve got involved now are from slightly wider roots and I think that’s the key to success. (interview, August 2015)

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These wider roots are also reflected in BPW’s methods of fundraising, which have changed considerably since the club’s early days. Two fundraising events in particular are important and reflect the international links that inform and shape the lives of women in BPW—the Interna­ tional Women’s Day Breakfast (March) and a lunch the club hosts on Melbourne Cup Day (November). The costs of hosting are covered by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and BPW sells tickets for the events and uses the money raised to support the general scholarship program. Nelson said that these events are now on people’s social calendar and that each year there is a “waiting list” (inter­ view, October 2014). Others among the Papua New Guinean women at BPW’s helm are also respected leaders in Moresby’s corporate sector and have strong net­ works in companies, including, for example, Exxon Mobil, Steamships, and Price Waterhouse Coopers. Valentina Kaman, the current BPW vice president, plays a key role in raising funds to support the scholarship program. Like Nelson, she works for Exxon Mobil and said that the pro­ fessional women employed by these high profile companies provide “the bridge” “translating and communicating the goals and dreams of BPW and what it’s doing out there [to] get the corporate buy in to support the programs” (interview, October 2014). In this way, overseas-educated professional women provide the connection between local development needs and global companies. This connection is clearly effective: between 2011 and 2014 and run solely by volunteers, BPW funded education for six hundred girls and women to the value of K500,000 ($150,787). But though international connections and ideas have been and con­ tinue to shape BPW in Port Moresby, the club also owes its success to members’ local connections and savvy, which comes from the women being part of PNG families and communities. As Nelson made clear, it is this insider knowledge that enables the relatively privileged women at the helm of BPW to facilitate support in ways that reflect local needs. For instance, when asked whether the club has a formal mentoring program, Nelson said that although an expatriate American had tried to introduce one some years earlier, it had not worked because many of the scholarship recipients had difficulties getting to meetings with would-be mentors: I think the bigger problem with the girls having the mentor was the logistics, like trying to get them to places to meet outside, they were some of the challenges . . . because sometimes the girls, where they live is quite difficult for them to get to meet at certain places. . . . [There were also] security issues for the girls to get to places, . . .

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especially the ones that lived, you know, in the settlement. That was a real issue. And then the times would have to be eight and five and no later than five, those types of things, and on weekends as well it is a bit difficult. (interview, November 2014)

As noted in chapter 3, educated and employed women are increasingly driven around by guards provided by their employers, or drive their own cars (see Spark 2014a, 2017a, 2017b). Nevertheless, they are well aware of the challenges of transport and personal safety issues in Port Moresby and work to tailor the provision of support to recipients in ways that will be effective in this context. In regard to mentoring, this entails providing scholarship recipients with the opportunity to learn from and connect with other members at monthly meetings, rather than establishing a formal mentoring program. Also, as Nelson pointed out, through the members’ networks, BPW have helped facilitate much-needed training and employment opportunities for recipients, including work experience with rice company, Trukai, internships at PNG Ports, and attendance at the careers fair hosted by Air Energi, an employment company. Another valuable aspect of BPW’s local knowledge is that it allows flexibility. For instance, from an outside perspective, it would be difficult to understand that provision of safe accommodation is key to allowing girls to attend school. But, as Nelson said, We found that some of our students that . . . live quite far from the school, it’s an issue of security for them to get to school. So we’ve gone that extra length to fund for their boarding school fees so that they’re guaranteed a safe space to stay and go to school and complete their education. (interview, December 2014)

This exemplifies the ways in which BPW’s “local-ness” makes it possi­ ble for them to find the right solution to comply with the International Federation’s aim of “creating a nurturing environment . . . for women’s development.” BPW takes a lateral approach in other ways too, including organizing buses to transport girls and women to meetings; providing soap, toiletries, and sanitary items; and running breakfast programs in schools. Indirectly, each of these responses contributes to the likelihood that girls and young women will remain at school. The integral role Nelson plays within BPW is an important part of the club’s ongoing success. She draws on professional expertise and forms of social and cultural capital gained through her international education to work with sponsoring partners, raise funds, and manage

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BPW’s successful program. Her contribution and that of the club is also grounded in her lived understanding of what is needed in this context. As the oldest of ten siblings, Nelson has helped fund the education of her sisters, nieces, and nephews since she became employed. This contradicts concern about the “collapse of urban safety nets” (Connell 2017, 6) in urban Melanesia and qualifies the claim that “urban elites often focus on their own home areas, business interests and the politics of patronage” (11). The work of Nelson and others within BPW also demonstrates that educated and employed women not only assist those within their family (Macintyre 2011), but also play a crucial role in strengthening civil soci­ ety, a hitherto underdeveloped aspect of life in PNG. To quote well-known Moresby social media blogger Martyn Nama­ rong, “I don’t need your money; I need an education and a job” (cited in Fitzpatrick 2017). More intimately than development agents from out­ side PNG, Nelson understands this desire for dignified, lasting change and the need to pay attention to the “social, political and economic factors that militate against women [and men] securing their rights” (Biersack and Macintyre 2016, 6). Furthermore, as a consequence of her educa­ tion and employment, she has the local connections and knowledge to do something about it. In the following section, I discuss Amanda Donigi, the founder and editor of Stella, a quarterly lifestyle magazine that “brings together indigenous voices from across the globe” (Stella n.d.). Arguably, Donigi’s contribution to reframing constructions of femininity in PNG and the Pacific has been at least as effective at transforming ideas about gender as any donor funded programs in the region. Like Susil Nelson, Donigi is astute about promoting “community development but in a different way from the aid organisations” (interview, November 2017). Amanda Donigi, Stella, and Runway Donigi is very much a transnational Pacific Islander. The second of five girls born to an Australian mother and Papua New Guinean father, Peter Donigi, a lawyer and former ambassador to New York and Germany, she spent her primary school years in Port Moresby, attended a British high school in Germany, and completed a degree at the University of Queensland in Australia. Subsequently, Donigi worked in South Korea and Taiwan before returning to Queensland to earn a diploma in writing, editing, and publishing. Returning to live in Port Moresby in 2009, Donigi

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has since traveled on a regular basis, both in her role as the editor of Stella magazine and to visit family and friends. Following her father’s death in 2014, Donigi based herself in Cairns because she could no longer afford the high cost of living in Port Moresby. Having accepted full-time employ­ ment in Port Moresby in late 2017, she recently returned to live there, the place that through all her travels, she “always think[s] of as home.” In addition to being Peter Donigi’s daughter, Amanda is perhaps best known in PNG as the founder and editor of Stella, the magazine she created in 2012. As I argue elsewhere (Spark 2014b, 2015a), Stella is an important site for the reflection and creation of new Pacific femininities (for discussion, see Spark 2014b, 2015a). Like Donigi herself, Stella has its roots in PNG, but reaches well beyond its shores to connect an emerg­ ing group of women living in various Pacific Island countries, Australia, and more recently Canada and the United States. Reflecting this transnational reach in her discussion about the magazine on her blog, Pauline Vetuna, a Melbourne-based writer of Tolai origins (from East New Britain in PNG), writes this: I’m not given to hyperbole (lie) but this is the Magazine I have been longing for. Based in Port Moresby, it is a Magazine that speaks to an Indigenous Pacific Islander demographic across Oceania who are politically engaged, ethically aware, aesthetically conscious and creatively/artistically ACTIVE [emphasis in original]. Independent, pioneering people in both the home countries and in the Pacific dias­ pora that I know and love. (2012)

Vetuna’s words are echoed by many who write in to Stella. Letter writers emphasize their status as Pacific Islanders, echoing the magazine’s con­ struction of a community of “thinking women” with ethnic origins in the region rather than in a specific or subnational location. More recently, Rashmii Bell, the editor of My Walk to Equality (2017a), an anthology of Papua New Guinean women’s writing, has added her voice to this discus­ sion, suggesting that transnational and diasporic Papua New Guineans are “very important in terms of bringing perspective to the national con­ versation” (Newton Cain and Bell 2017). Stella’s celebration of professional, working women is also signifi­ cant because it explicitly confronts accepted norms of femininity in the Pacific. Stella honors professional women in PNG by acknowledging the many ways not only to be a woman, but also to combine work and family, to be a leader in workplaces, including by managing men, and to dress in

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ways that reflect personal preference rather than constraining ideas of what is “proper” for Papua New Guinean women. Rather than apologiz­ ing for their “modern” attributes and tendencies, Stella readers can not only embrace these in themselves, but also know of the broader commu­ nity of women with whom they share them. This community is becoming increasingly evident in Moresby, reflecting a worldwide tendency in which urban locations are more likely to be associated with a willingness to push the boundaries of fashion than those in rural or remote areas. Since the launch of Stella in 2012, Donigi has also established Run­ way, a fashion show that displays the creations of Papua New Guinean designers and is held on an annual basis at the Gateway Hotel in Port Moresby.2 Exploring and promoting boldness in fashion has been a key feature of Stella since the beginning (see Spark 2015a). Donigi’s estab­ lishment of Runway is an obvious extension of her role as Stella editor. Just as the magazine has promoted the work of local and Pacific design­ ers while encouraging women in PNG to be more adventurous in their sartorial choices, so Runway reflects and creates space for modern PNG women. It does so in two ways. For Port Moresby’s urban, educated, and employed women with the financial capacity to attend the event, Runway provides an opportunity to enjoy a more frivolous and fun outing than is typically on offer in this context. Indeed, it is described as “the social calendar event of the year” (Pacific Women in Business n.d.). Donigi said that she started Runway because she “really felt that Port Moresby needed an event that didn’t revolve around objectification of women or fundraising for domestic violence—these were the only sort of options” (interview, November 2017). She also “wanted to make sure that designers were getting a chance to show their work, reach their mar­ ket, and be seen by potential buyers.” In both regards, Runway has been a success. After the 2016 show, she said, two of the designers “signed with Jack’s, a Fijian based company” that has recently opened two shops in Port Moresby. Runway differs from fashion shows in more economically devel­ oped contexts. Although fashion shows are more likely to be associated with—even to celebrate—consumerist excess than a social cause— such as promoting Indigenous designers or providing employment and training for models—in PNG, development goals are central, not only for Donigi but also for consumers and observers. Discussing the social development aspects of both Stella and Runway, Donigi said that these matter partly because her ventures are located “in a developing country” but also because she has inherited a sense of obligation “to advance life for others”:

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I feel like it’s my duty as someone who has been fortunate enough to get an education . . . but also having global experience, and having understanding of my place in the world as well, I feel that I would want for as many people as possible to benefit from that. (interview, November 2017)

Arguably, if the magazine and fashion show were not attuned to the need to celebrate local success stories, and offer a voice or jobs to the marginal­ ized, they would be anomalous in this context. This is best demonstrated by sharing a Papua New Guinean friend’s response to a YouTube link I sent her, which showed images from the catwalk at Runway 2016 (JA Video Production 2016): I can understand . . . that it targets a certain group/class of people but I can attest to it changing my own cousin’s view of his contribution to society as he is actually a male model (Zoolander et al ha ha ha) and it’s given him something to look forward to. He also is from [name of Moresby suburb] in fact lives in our family home. So is it provid­ ing employment? Somewhat. Is it good? For me it if fits criteria of engaging small and local businesses while at the same time providing opportunities for people like my cousin . . . and helping to reshape the minds of young people—especially young boys from urban slums if they are given this opportunity . . . and perhaps encourages a new wave of PNGeans—and boys in particular to a different lifestyle/ life outlook is great. Because for most just due to circumstance and geography are predisposed to crime (again stereotype but personal observations) so if this changes the psychology it’s . (email, December 2017)

For those unfamiliar with the significance of the discourse of develop­ ment in Port Moresby (see Spark and Corbett 2018), the links between hosting a fashion show and engaging in “development” may not be immediately apparent. But, as this email extract reveals, for Papua New Guineans, the question of whether such an event affords opportunities to other Port Moresby residents is central. Providing a young man from an “urban slum” a chance to see himself differently through modeling may not constitute gender development in the eyes of most aid organizations, but it does matter in a city where young men without economic prospects are viewed in terms of—and indeed at times turn to—crime. In a blog that offers support for this perspective, Martyn Namarong writes,

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Many males make wrong choices and become a nuisance/threat to society. They don’t care if the police or their rivals kill them nor do they have second thoughts about prison. After all once you feel like you’ve lost everything, what more is there to lose? It is suicidal behav­ iour. (Fitzpatrick 2017)

Discussing the challenges of life as a young man in Port Moresby, Nama­ rong’s reflection highlights the socioeconomic and political forces shaping masculinity in PNG and the need to include these in accounts and expla­ nations of violence (see also Biersack and Macintyre 2017; Lusby 2017; Zimmer-Tamakoshi 2012). Donigi includes opportunities for men by training and employing male models for Runway. She said that when she is choosing models, she considers “people who are actually going to get something out of it, and wouldn’t have another opportunity to do something like this” (interview, November 2017). Blending insights from her “overseas exposure” with knowledge of local systems and priorities, she has created a fit between local development goals, the global Indigenous movement, and inter­ national standards in the design and display of fashion. Donigi also addresses PNG men by taking them seriously as an audience for Stella. Noting that “25 to 30 percent of our buyers and readers are male,” she said that many readers send in pictures of men reading Stella, and that she often sees men buying the magazine when she stocks supplies at local retailers. Male interest in and readership of the magazine was one factor that informed Donigi’s decision to recast the magazine as one for Indigenous people rather than for women. She was also motivated by the belief that men and women need to work together to solve problems. Too often when we see men in the media, it’s the domestic violence story and I think there’s more to their relationship with us and their acceptance and their wanting for us to achieve and become equal and to sit at the table with them. And I think Stella is an opportunity to show women on a level playing field with them and it’s a great way for them to be accepting us. (interview, November 2017)

Donigi’s commitment to balance and equity between the genders evokes an approach long articulated within Indigenous communities worldwide, including those in the region such as West Papua, New Caledonia, and Australia (see, for example, Horowitz 2017; Jolly and Macintyre 1989; Munro 2017). Whereas development efforts to promote gender equity

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in PNG are still criticized for being focused on and involving women, without taking into account the changes required among men and to masculinity (see Macintyre 2012; Eves 2006), in these other neighbor­ ing contexts, shared Indigeneity and unity rather than gender are often foregrounded in attempts to seek justice. Donigi’s views on these matters are shaped by her transnational, Indigenous identity and experience. As someone who flies in and out of POM City, she reflects the city’s transformation from a town to which people come from provincial and rural areas to one that is frequented by Papua New Guineans and others arriving from overseas destinations. At the same time, by producing Stella and staging Runway, she is connect­ ing diverse members of the city to a Pacific, even global community of “indigenous” people who are part of “a movement for unity, equality, and prosperity for all indigenous people” (Stella n.d.). Donigi confirmed that international experiences have been crucial in shaping her view of PNG’s place in the world. If you don’t have the experience then how are you going to know something, if you haven’t seen it for yourself then it’s really hard to imagine that possibility of it. [Starting] Stella was not only to get our stories out to the world but to bring other stories in for us to all ben­ efit from a way of telling stories or seeing ourselves more as members of a global community, rather than just Papua New Guineans. (inter­ view, November 2017)

Combining a cosmopolitan view with a commitment to improving the lives of others in PNG, Donigi is influencing what one Stella reader called a “revolution” (cited in Spark 2015a). Planting seeds for the once maledominated Mosbi to emerge as POM City, she is part of a cohort seeking to create a place in which “the active independent woman might come into her own” (McDowell 1999, 155). By including and celebrating PNG men, she reflects and offers alternative visions of masculinity from those that tend to dominate the international media’s portrayal of men in Port Moresby. Donigi’s story, like that of both Nelson and Joseph, illustrates that the exposure of elites to life in other societies plays a role in shaping what they do when they return to Port Moresby. As Lesieli Taviri, the CEO of Origin Energy and another Port Moresby mover and shaker, put it, going overseas teaches people “what good looks like.” But, as she also said, those in this cohort need to know how to mix this with what fits in PNG (interview, October 2017):

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I think a lot of the successful Papua New Guineans are people in that bracket who’ve had that kind of overseas exposure and then they come back and then they say, “Hang on,” . . . they know what good looks like, and then they can mix—. . . okay what does good look like elsewhere globally and how does that fit in PNG and how can you make it fit?

Through her international connections, savvy, and broad world view, Donigi has helped normalize more expansive versions of femininity and masculinity in Port Moresby than existed a decade ago. I next consider how Jacqui Joseph also draws on her transnational and local knowledge and identity to promote gender equity in Port Moresby. Whereas Nelson and Donigi partner with the corporate sector to achieve their goals, Joseph’s work is located within the aid and devel­ opment sector. Jacqueline Joseph and Equal Playing Field Jacqueline Joseph is twenty-nine years old. The third of six children, she was born in the Buin region of Bougainville during the civil war that took place there between 1988 and 1998 (for a discussion, see Regan 2010). Between the ages of three and six, Joseph lived with her family in the Greentown care center, which was established to protect local people from attacks by members of the PNG Defence Force and the secessionist forces of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. Joseph has memories of people shooting and the need to run and hide. As she recalled, “one of things that really gripped me about the crisis was fear, that vulnerable feeling you have when you feel your life is at stake or that the lives of your loved ones are at risk” (interview, October 2017). At the age of six, Joseph’s father, who was studying in Port Moresby, was able to get the family out of Bougainville and to Port Moresby. Her mother, a teacher, gained work shortly afterward, as did her father. Joseph recalls the benefits of her parents’ being educated and employed as well as the many new things about life in Port Moresby. Although her parents were employed, she said that growing up in Moresby involved “100 percent uncertainty” (interview, October 2017). Like most young people in PNG, she had no guarantees about whether she would com­ plete school, get a place at university, or gain employment even if she did complete tertiary education. Her experience demonstrates that the pre­ carity of life in the city affects everyone, not only those without access to

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education, though it is typically exacerbated among these residents (see McPhee and McLachlan 2017). This description of uncertainty is help­ ful in terms of understanding why working women who do not identify and indeed are not elite describe themselves as working class rather than middle class. In 2011, Joseph was invited to attend a Global Changemakers Event in India. At the summit, participants were asked to identify projects about which they were passionate. Joseph wanted to work in the area of gender-based violence. To do so, she partnered with Adam Everill, a rugby league enthusiast from Australia. Using a small grant from the Global Changemakers Network supported by the British Council, Joseph and Everill started Rugby League Against Violence, a program to target behavior change and encourage men to become strong advocates against violence in Papua New Guinea. Together, they assembled a team of vol­ unteers to run their program in Port Moresby’s settlements. In 2015, Joseph and Everill decided that the best way to achieve sustainability was to focus on delivering the program in schools. At this point, the program was renamed Equal Playing Field (EPF). EPF draws on respectful relationships training to contribute to the pre­ vention of violence against women and children. The organization’s key activity is the Equal Playing Field for Schools (EPF4S) program, an eightweek course, which is delivered to year seven students in Port Moresby schools. Because of its activities and rationale, EPF is unambiguously a development project, unlike Stella or Runway, which are also commercial operations. Joseph’s personal experience of violence informs her work with Equal Playing Field. As she noted, although “everybody is unique in the experience of violence, the results are similar in the sense that it makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure” (interview, October 2017). She considers herself privileged to have the opportunities she does, noting that she has “close relatives” whose lives are lastingly affected as a result of their growing up during the civil war: “people who are like me, a child who grew up in a crisis are not all sitting on a chair like this right now” (interview, October 2017). Many of Joseph’s cousins, for example, are still in Bougainville and, having had interrupted or very limited educa­ tion, have only minimal prospects of employment. Discussing her female relatives, Joseph observed that the quality of their lives depends largely on whether they “married good husbands.” For these reasons, the obligation Joseph feels to protect others from vio­ lence is close to home. She and her sister share their house with and take care of their fourteen-year-old cousin whose mother was abandoned by

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Figure 8. Members of Equal Playing Field huddle with students before a rugby game as part of the EPF4S program. Photo by author, September 2016.

her husband. They do so not only because their parents taught them to accommodate and care for others, including extended family members, but also because Joseph’s own parents are “getting old” and some of their parenting methods are “outdated.” Joseph said that her exposure to “rights, gender equality, and child protection issues” means that she feels an accountability to challenge social norms with which she grew up, including in relation to how children are disciplined. This echoes Grace’s view and response as discussed in chapter 2. Since her first trip to India in 2011, Joseph has had many opportuni­ ties to travel, representing the organization and attending workshops in Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, New Caledonia, Costa Rica, Uganda, and the Solomon Islands. Doing so has enabled Joseph to connect with other agencies and individuals working to resolve gender-based violence. She has established Facebook groups with various friends and fellow lead­ ers she met during her travels and said that she uses these international connections to share knowledge and advice (for further discussion about the role of social media in the Pacific, see Brimacombe 2017). Joseph cited a three-month Global Change Leaders’ fellowship in Canada as par­ ticularly memorable, saying that during this time, she had the revelation that “systems could work”:

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For the first time, I got exposure to conversations in a developed country. This is how people want things to be. . . . I’d never known that things could be this good. processing and systems. . . . Because I’ve always used to just hearing, it’s not going to work. . . . Then you come across these conversations and it shocks you. . . . where people are talking about systems that actually people use that are good. . . . If you’re just exposed to this environment where nothing ever works, like, you’re never going to have faith in anything. But if you get enough exposure into something that actually works it makes it feel okay, I’m here, but if these people can get there, so can we. (interview, October 2017)

Substantiating Lesieli Taviri’s claim that international exposure shows Papua New Guineans “what good looks like” (interview, October 2017), Joseph’s comments confirm the importance of international experiences and networks among Moresby’s population of emerging women leaders. Joseph also said that during her time in Canada she rethought the word “feminism,” which she had previously considered as being “about crazy women,” because of the way the word was used in the local media. Now she thinks of a feminist as “somebody who is concerned about the rights of others and somebody who is willing to do something to address the problem that’s there” (interview, December 2013). Noting that her international experiences “make the world feel small,” Joseph said that they have given her a strong sense of working alongside a global community to address gender violence. At the same time, like the women discussed in chapters 2 and 3, she remains sen­ sitive to the disparities between her life and those of others in Port Moresby. Joseph’s capacity to contribute to improving the lives of others in Port Moresby depends on bringing insights gained from global expo­ sure, education, and training together with an experiential awareness of the challenges that life in the city represents, not least for those who may never leave Moresby, let alone travel overseas. “You need to have a good balance,” she said, “between that [international experience], and also understanding your background. Like, where you come from. I think privilege is a good thing if you use it well” (interview, October, 2017). In chapter 3, I discussed the discomfort that working-class women experience in relation to their less well-off counterparts, noting that their empathetic responses are notably different from the elitist neoliberal attitudes that Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington (1999) identify. I wondered what might explain this—that is, whether since the 1990s

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PNG’s urban middle class has stopped blaming the poor for their pov­ erty or whether Gewertz and Errington may have been overly pessimistic about emerging class in PNG. My conversations with women, particularly those conducted as part of the research presented in this chapter, sug­ gest that the answer may lie more in the former explanation. In chapter 2 of Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea, Gewertz and Errington describe how middle-class women in Wewak, who set out “to assist impoverished women living . . . in Wewak’s squatter settlements to market their handi­ crafts” (143), instead came to blame those who failed to raise money for a trade trip to Indonesia for their lack of initiative and effort. Describing this process, Gewertz and Errington write, the entire logic of SWIT [Sepik Women in Trade] and the recurrent theme of its rhetoric was to effect a sleight of hand whereby poor women who continued to sit by the side of the road or the market would become transformed from the less fortunate into those responsible for their own failures. (57)

My conversations with the women whose activities are presented in this chapter reveal no such construction of their less well-off counterparts. Rather, each is committed to promoting equity in PNG, whether by turning scholarship recipients into members of the same club as sala­ ried, professional women or by seeking to promote gender equity beyond women in the middle class. Perhaps these less judgmental efforts to assist others reveal the emergence of a more sophisticated middle class, a cate­ gory of people informed both by international education and experience, and local awareness that overcoming the challenges that confront PNG’s urban poor will take more than these same people demonstrating their personal initiative. Thus, despite broadly agreeing with Niko Besnier (2009, 251) that it is problematic to seek “the emergence of a middle class in political movements,” I am more optimistic than Gewertz and Errington (1999, 141) that PNG’s middle class will, and are, doing more than “claiming new privileges and affirming new exclusions.” Various threads—of international education, transnational networks, employment in global companies, but also being embedded in local or Pacific networks—make up the backgrounds of the women discussed in this chapter. The finding that both global and local influences are at play in this hybrid environment is important because the impact of global forces is often thought of as exclusively destructive in local contexts. As Maggie Cummings (2013, 383) suggests, it is helpful to understand the

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social change associated with globalization not as “something that hap­ pens to the people whose lives we study, but rather, something that they themselves do, participate in, drive, and shape through their own choices, actions, feelings, and theories.” Viewed through a focus on women’s agency, we can see that when educated and professional women engage in the projects such as those described in this chapter they are participating in and contributing to a “better future” (Cummings 2013, 381) for Port Moresby’s inhabitants. Arguing that their connection to disadvantage shapes their desire to transform ideas about gender in this context, I sug­ gest that Nelson, Donigi, and Joseph combine quietly held international feminist principles with a broadly Melanesian sense of social obligation to enable and include fellow POM City residents who have not had the same exposure and opportunities. In doing so, they embody hybrid iden­ tities of the kind most likely to make development real in POM City and beyond. In the next chapter, I turn to interviews with another group of similarly hybrid women—educated Papua New Guinean women work­ ing in the development sector in Port Moresby. My examination of their perspectives reveals a less optimistic account of the ways in which they experience living in two worlds.

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C H A PT ER 5

“The Heat of the PNG Sun” Women in Development I can say boldly in front of you that there is no difference between the types of problems and frustrations that we the black people experienced under our former white masters and the types of problems and frustrations that you the women folk experience under your men folk. . . . If it has been possible for the black people of the world to win their liberty, dignity and equality from their white masters, then I am sure it is possible for our women to gain their share of equality and opportunities in their own country. (Michael Somare cited in Boden 1975, 55) White supremacy is no longer constitutionally and juridically enshrined, but is rather a matter of social, political, cultural, and economic privilege, based on a legacy of colonial conquest. (Puwar 2004, 22)

I

n October 2017, I was in Port Moresby for research when I heard that Dr. Fiona Hukula from the National Research Institute was presenting the lunchtime seminar at the PNG Governance Facility (now called PNGAustralia Partnerships). On arriving, I was delighted to see in attendance several highly educated and capable Papua New Guinean women who had assisted me with research projects over the years. Hukula is one such woman. In her seminar, she discussed the dual worlds inhabited by women who work in Papua New Guinea (PNG)’s development sector. Describing the contradictions experienced by women who work in organizations in which the language of rights and gender equity is common parlance, but who go home to streets and fami­ lies where violence is normalized, she offered insight on the challenges for PNG women working in development. Many of the women listening 104

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thanked her, acknowledging that her talk resonated with their own expe­ riences of moving between local and global worlds. Hukula’s seminar and the reflections of the women in the room shed light on the complexities of vernacularization for those who inhabit “the middle.” Several scholars describe the work that “intermediaries” play in “translating ideas from the global arena down and from local arenas up” (Merry 2006, 38; see also Wardlow 2006). As knowledge brokers who understand both the world of transnational human rights and of local cultural practices, women who work in development organizations in Port Moresby perform the important work of “looking both ways” (Merry 2006, 38). Perhaps never entirely trusted by either side, but integral to the work of “translation,” they inhabit dual worlds. In this chapter, I delve into these dual worlds—the personal and embodied geographies of Port Moresby as experienced by Papua New Guinean women working in the development sector. But in doing so, I do not carve off the worlds of home and work they describe from the larger geographies that frame the development sector in PNG. Instead, I seek to show how development discourse structures the fabric of working rela­ tionships 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 Guin­ ean women are seen as lacking the moral and technical capacities to run development projects within their own country. Given that many among this cohort have tertiary degrees from the same cities as their expatriate counterparts, this devaluation of local knowledge needs to be understood in relation to geographies of power through which racialized bodies and women in the Global South and Global North are mutually constituted. In Rethinking Feminist Interventions into the Urban, Linda Peake and Martina Rieker (2013, 2) argue that “women are an important node in the constellations of power . . . in the production of centres and mar­ gins, in imaginaries of the urban.” Exploring these constellations as they are seen by Port Moresby women working in development, I read their constructions and deconstructions of experts, knowledge, and power as challenging several taken for granted urban geographies of Port Moresby. I explore two in particular. The first is that those coming from “else­ where” know more than educated local women do about development within PNG. The second is that expatriates and locals in Moresby access and experience the same city. For anyone familiar with the idea of the expat bubble in Port Moresby, the ways in which expatriate workers are accommodated in

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the city will be no surprise. Because the dual pay system was established after Independence (see Kulwaum 2008), the employment situation in PNG has been one of “economic apartheid” (Marai et al. 2010, 55). Expa­ triates recruited to work in the country, including in the development sector, are therefore not only paid higher wages than their Papua New Guinean counterparts, but also have access to accommodation, transport, and medical and insurance benefits for which locals are ineligible. Despite the abundance of research on gender, however, I know of none on how Papua New Guinean women experience these differences or the corrosive effects the vast gap between their lives and the lives of their expatri­ ate colleagues can have on collegiality and mutual understanding in the workplaces they share with these colleagues. The goal of this chapter is to offer insight from Papua New Guinean women. Although a number of those who took part said that they have these discussions among themselves and on social media, they considered it important to document their experiences in the more formal context of academic research. In the prologue to this book, I explain that one of my aims is to reflect on the ways in which educated and employed women relate to others with whom they share the city and the factors that produce their sense of feeling comfortable or otherwise. For the most part, commen­ tators in both the media and academia discuss women’s discomfort in Port Moresby in relation to male violence and the threat it represents to women in the city. In this chapter, I explore a different aspect of wom­ en’s discomfort, namely, the racialized dimensions of being second-class citizens in their own city. This is an important but little discussed topic, not least because the expatriate development workers and academics (including myself) who come and go have a vested interest in hiding the privileges endowed by virtue of our white or international status, even as we benefit from highlighting the disadvantages for local women of gen­ dered violence and insecurity. In a context in which the latest catchphrase is “do no harm” (Eves 2016, 2017), it is time to consider how colonial patterns and geographies, which benefit some and disadvantage others, may be doing harm to local women who already experience enough glass ceilings without also being limited by those imposed on them within the racialized structures of development. As the largest recipient of Austra­ lian aid funding (Commonwealth of Australia 2018), Papua New Guinea continues to be shaped by colonial patterns rooted in geographical and historical inequities. Following the threads of “here” and “elsewhere” that I identified in the interviews, I argue that contemporary Port Moresby unsettles the

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idea that cities in the Global South are associated with “underdeveloped­ southern-develop mentalism” and that those in the Global North with “overdeveloped-northern-modernity” (Peake and Rieker 2013, 5). The presence of this group of women within POM City further confounds this binary, for, as was evident in chapter 4, far from representing the urban Global South as a discrete and bounded entity, they embody some of the ways in which women’s life-worlds are already restructured by global flows, including those associated with education and development. Given that development is usually considered to be one of the main ways in which Port Moresby might be “remade,” it is important to consider how the structures and relationships within the sector are in fact reproductive of inequities despite the idea that development projects are designed to combat these. Introducing the “Renegades” In Space Invaders, Nirmal Puwar (2004, 155) suggests that those who dis­ cuss the “taboo subject” of racism in the workplace “risk being seen as entangled in renegade acts.” She further notes that doing so can “entail confronting colleagues and seniors, many of whom you need in order to exist and function in the . . . relations that form collectivities in organisa­ tions” (155). Port Moresby has undergone many changes in recent years, but it is still a small place, and the development sector within it is even smaller. Consequently, in what follows, I use pseudonyms and provide few details about the lives and none about the current employment situ­ ation of the ten women who took part in this research. When necessary to ensure anonymity, I have further obscured details of the situations they described. Regarding details of their lives, it is enough to say that the women who took part in interviews were between thirty and forty-two years old. Three had biological children, though some had adopted children, and all assisted relatives with the costs of raising children. Six were not married and all but one lived with others, including in most cases, extended fam­ ily members, of whom, many were their financial dependents. For most women, whether single or married, households were busy places. For example, one woman lived with her partner, three children, two siblings, a niece, and three nephews, another with her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, and cousins. Five owned a car but two of those who did either shared it with others or did not drive themselves. All were tertiary educated; all had worked in multiple organizations; and most had more

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than five years of experience, some having worked in the sector for more than ten years. The women who took part analyzed both the structures of aid and their individual experiences of racism, sexism, and discrimination in the development sector in Port Moresby. Several mentioned they had experienced a range of relationships with expatriates, both male and female, and that some of these had been mutually respectful, supportive, and valued. But even those who emphasized their positive experiences considered that the PNG development sector operates in ways that disad­ vantage and disrespect the capacities and expertise of local women. Thus, acknowledging that not all the women’s experiences have been negative, in the next section, I identify some of the processes by which (white) expatriates dominate development organizations in the capital city of Papua New Guinea. “The Expats Will Always Be the Experts”: Race and the Reproduction of Hierarchies in Development In her excoriating critique of the way in which aid operates in Melanesia, Martha Macintyre (2012, 260) observes that the “doctrines of account­ ability [are] . . . displays of bureaucratic mistrust in the competence and reliability of the people working on the project.” These doctrines both emerge from and reproduce mental maps of Port Moresby as a problem­ atic place inhabited by people who are incapable of solving their own problems. To address this, (white) people who are more readily imagined to be capable of managing the challenges of development are (ironically) flown in from elsewhere, thus perpetuating a cycle in which donor money returns to the places and people from which it has come. To understand how this happens, it is helpful to consider how the idea of accountability is itself racialized. As Puwar (2004, 58) notes, “[colored bodies] in the world of organizations are “both insiders and outsiders.” They are “of the world they work in and at the same time not totally of it. They have a social position in occupational space that is tenuous, a contradictory location marked by dynamics of in/visibil­ ity” (58). Arguing that issues of invisibility manifest in a series of social dynamics, Puwar identifies them as being “a burden of doubt, infantili­ sation, super-surveillance and a burden of representation” (58). These social dynamics are evident in the following accounts of women working in development, suggesting that notions of competence and performance are underpinned by racialized assumptions about which bodies belong in

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which spaces. Invisible but omnipresent, these assumptions mean that even in their own country and despite their often superior expertise and experience, Papua New Guinean women remain subordinate to expatriate managers. The idea that it is always expatriates who are seen as the experts was a consistent theme in my conversations with women working in the development sector. Although as locals, they may furnish expatriates with information, help organize their travel, conduct data collection, and offer crucial insight into local ways of seeing and doing things, the women remarked that expatriates would always manage, oversee, and take credit for the work. Discussing such a situation, Patricia said, We had a manual that we wanted to develop, and an advertisement [for someone to fill the position] was put out, and one of the things that came up, was people were complaining, why has the ad gone out externally? I don’t know if it was written into the ToR [Terms of Refer­ ence] but the vacancy was one [where] they were looking for someone specifically out of the country to apply for [it]. (interview, June 2018)

In this situation, as in so many others, the consultant who had never been to PNG was flown in from a country in which English is not the first language; and staff had to spend a lot of time translating things from his “heavily accented English” into Tok Pisin. Despite having “spent a lot of money on the consultant,” Patricia said that the manual he pro­ duced was largely irrelevant and that local staff had to rewrite it. In an excellent essay published by PNG Attitude, Rashmii Bell (2015) writes of “the bewilderment at seeing photographs in our dailies and on social media of fresh-off-the-tarmac, lei-adorned, paper-pushing advisers cut­ ting ribbons at development program launches.” Noting that “we’ve all experienced it,” she observes that, meanwhile, “the fieldwork-hardened, issue-savvy, post-graduate nationals remain a speck in the background.” In the case Patricia refers to, the outside consultant was a European white male, a situation that may have exacerbated the local, female staff’s frus­ trations and experience of picking up after him, labor that women of color in the United States have called “office housework” (see, for example, Tulshyan 2018). That Papua New Guinean women also experience such frustrations working “under” or with white women only highlights the importance of analyzing racialized and gendered hierarchies in concert. Papua New Guinean women not only “have to undertake the labour of ‘undoing gender perceptions’. . . . [but also] . . . the labour of undoing perceptions about race” (Puwar 2004, 91). As Meli observed,

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I think for most PNG women and women of color in developing coun­ tries, our glass ceiling is not just one layered, ours is a multiple layered very thick glass ceilings. The layers are made up of patriarchy, culture, etc. . . . It seems that for one glass ceiling we chip, there are a few more higher up. (interview, June 2018)

Brigitte echoed this: Working-class women in PNG face various layers of discrimination— at home, in the community and at work. The workplace is meant to be a place of empowerment for these women but instead they face discrimination and disempowerment. (interview, May 2018)

That women are disempowered within the physical and social space of the workplace is troubling enough. That they experience this discrimina­ tion and suppression within the workplaces of the development sector is particularly galling given that promoting gender empowerment is seen as core business in this sector. The situation suggests that the women who deliver development programs are construed as separate from the “dis­ empowered” women who are seen as the recipients. This is a misguided geography, however, for as Hukula pointed out in her seminar that day, when they leave their workplaces, development women enter the same streets, houses, and schools as the women likely to be construed as the targets of the development programs. Having to pick up after the experts and not being valued for their contributions inevitably gives rise to frustrations among the women, most of whom described at least one such encounter with short-term consultants. Acknowledging that some advisors give “good advice,” Meli said that in some projects We had advisors come in and give the same advice every two years. Somebody new would come and give the same advice to local coun­ terparts. And it looked like the local counterparts would teach these advisors the same cultural experiences over and over again. And to me it felt like the local counterparts would do better in the positions than the advisors. (interview, June 2018)

Her words indicate that although learning is always assumed to flow from the outside in, practically, knowledge is at least as likely to flow from local to global representatives.

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Describing this as “the information extraction process,” Alice said that expatriates ask “a lot of questions” and then come back and “call themselves an expert.” Karen’s story makes it clear who benefits from this extraction process: When I first joined [name of organization], they were doing the scoping and . . . having a series of consultations, so many people requested to come have a chat. This lady . . . they were designing, they were trying to ask my thoughts. We were invited to this meet­ ing, about ten consultants, very senior people. We were really happy to contribute, and then I attended this thing where she was present­ ing it, and a lot of the words we had used, she was like [repeating them] with no acknowledgement. . . . They were just having meetings and getting ideas from people without acknowledging it. (interview, June 2018)

Her experience exemplifies the “invisibility” of the Papua New Guinean women who have contributed significantly to shaping ideas but who are not “seen” or recognized for their expertise. Observing that this extractive relationship perpetuates a “parallel system,” Alice asked, “Why wouldn’t Papua New Guineans be [experts], because is it their living reality?” (interview, June 2018). Frequently, those brought in have technical knowledge and skills but lack awareness about the local context. Bell (2015) writes of displays of expatriate “stupidity that not even unfamiliarity with and discomfort in the tropics excuses.” One of the people Gladys was working with was a monitoring and evaluation specialist from Australia who visited Port Moresby only occasionally. Concerned that this consultant’s lack of local knowledge was resulting in skewed data, Gladys said she would not “con­ tinue to do data collection and send it to [names the person] in Australia. Noting that “he wouldn’t understand the responses,” she said, “we under­ stand the interviews, we understand how a Papua New Guinean thinks.” Such references to the greater expertise these women have as a result of their local knowledge were common. Nemia, for example, said that “a lot of times [Papua New Guineans] would say something different to the expat manager, but we feel like they speak the truth with us.” This was also encapsulated by Josefa, who said, We have a lot of experience and we know our country, we know how our people think, and we know what’s best and how the program’s

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going to work and benefit—we work based on our experience, we’ve got qualifications as well. But maybe because we’re black—I don’t know if it’s because of our skin color, they look down on us, and they don’t give us good conditions in our contracts. (interview, June, 2018)

A further dimension to the racialized and institutionalized devaluation of local knowledge is that Papua New Guinean women are not trusted to do work at the highest levels. Instead, in moments where visibility matters most to career development, they become invisible and leadership and the display of expertise are seen as the domain of expatriates. This was exemplified by Gladys, who said that despite her experience, her work “was not being recognized”: Some of us have been here for ten years now. They say we will train you to move into a manager role but we are still working under an expatriate. . . . We are not even allowed to lead. We are working under young Australians, or young expatriates, who just came out of college with a master’s, because they have a master’s we are working under them. But we have the experience. (interview, May, 2018)

Similarly, Rita has fifteen years of experience in the development sector but said that the expatriate women she works with are always seen as the ones “coordinating and managing projects” and that [she] “is not even mentioned.” When she leads the development of high-level documents, her contribution is not “acknowledged” either informally or within the published documents. Discussing the “burden of doubt” that nonwhites and women experi­ ence in their working lives, Puwar (2004, 59) writes, There is a significant level of doubt about their capabilities to measure up to the job. Although they endure all the trials and tribulations in becoming a professional, they are still not automatically assumed to have the required competencies. There is a niggling suspicion that they are not quite proper and can’t quite cut it.

Women’s invisibility persists even when they seek to be noticed through hard work, one of the ways in which racialized minorities seek to counter their invisibility within institutions (see Puwar 2004, 59). Brigitte said that when she started in the position, her boss told her she was readying her to take over, but this did not eventuate:

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I worked so hard. . . . But then I just started seeing that nothing was really [working], I wasn’t seeing any push in that direction. . . . it wasn’t getting anywhere. . . . I started seeing that she wasn’t really putting into making it real for me, the steps toward me actually taking over her role. (interview, May 2018)

That the strategy of performing did not prove successful in Brigitte’s case reflects how difficult it is for nonwhites and women to be read as having the competence to assume positions of leadership and authority, characteristics that are seen as belonging to white bodies (Puwar 2004, 25). Because of the challenges involved in displacing expatriate manag­ ers, Alice argued that the only solution to ending the situation of “parallel individuals doing the same things” is that expatriates give themselves “an expiry date for [their] own role.” Although, as she said, this would “make development more meaningful,” it is unlikely to happen because putting local people in charge is construed as problematic within an aid system in which expatriate (mostly white) bodies are seen to be the “natural” occu­ pants of senior positions. This situation is reinforced by the geography of aid that establishes black bodies as coming from places in need of help and white bodies as emerging from civil spaces associated with spirit and mind (see Puwar 2004, 21). This racially dichotomous hierarchy produces an almost impenetra­ ble glass ceiling for qualified local women. As Nemia, who has a master’s degree from overseas, said of herself and her senior colleagues, “we started realizing that this is it for us, there’s no other pathway to the top.” Consequently, despite the ubiquitous rhetoric about partnerships, development in PNG is structured primarily within frameworks that rep­ licate and reinforce colonial and racial inequities. Even when Papua New Guinean women hold degrees from the same universities as their expatriate co-workers, they encounter multiple glass ceilings. As Bernadette said, There [are] a lot of things I see that Papua New Guineans could do, but we just can’t break through. After I came back from doing my master’s, I had this sense of being underutilized. . . . Others who have the same education as us, who went to the same university, all expa­ triates. It’s an underestimation. We tend to be overlooked. When you think of manager or senior roles, you’re always thinking outside PNG. (interview, June 2018)

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Because leadership is associated with white bodies from elsewhere, within development, it is immaterial how hard women work to replace their expatriate counterparts—they are rarely able to do so because they are perceived as being from the wrong place and thus “lacking capac­ ity” or as not able to be trusted to do the job. But, as Bernadette asked, “at what point do you continue to build someone’s capacity?” That this racial glass ceiling also affects men only confirms the outdated and rac­ ist aspects of working life in PNG. The impacts on Papua New Guinean men aside, however, PNG women experience multiple glass ceilings as a result of their position within the social hierarchies. Yet, although I have heard expatriates in the sector discuss the need for research on sexism in PNG’s workplaces, I have not heard any about conducting research on white privilege. This imperialist geography has further invidious twists, including when local women are perceived as being able to transgress their “race” because they are seen as having benefited from an overseas education. As Puwar (2004, 128) observes, “those women and racialised minorities who carry weight through the bearing of their carriage, in class or educational terms, as internalised history, via the habitus, are clearly at an advantage compared with those who don’t.” This advantage is evident in Alice’s account. Alice described a situa­ tion in which her co-workers were poorly treated by an expatriate manager but she was not. When she learned of the verbal abuse they experienced, Alice asked her colleagues why they thought she had not. They believed, she explained, that the manager saw her as an “equal” because she “was educated abroad and everyone else was educated in PNG.” My colleague said, “so she looked beyond the color of your skin, but for us, it was like she saw us for the color of our skin, and she would pick on us because of that. It had nothing to do with us, like we would do things right and she would still pick on us, because she wanted to remind us that we were inferior to her.” (interview, June 2018)

One of the main ways colonizers vet postcolonial bodies is by assessments of their ability to speak the “  ‘mother country’s’ legitimate language” (Puwar 2004, 112). This is evident in a patronizing exchange that took place after Karen had presented at a donor organization, when an expatri­ ate woman manager said to her, “You speak such good English” and asked whether she had been educated overseas. When Karen replied that she had been through the public system in PNG, the woman persisted with the idea, asking whether she had done postgraduate studies in Australia.

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Puwar (2004, 112) notes that “as an instrument of the governance of ‘civility’, the acquisition of the imperial/legitimate language is able to take racialised bodies through a passage of rites to becoming honourable human beings.” In PNG, this passage is represented as being overseas education, thus explaining why the expatriate woman persisted with her point about where Karen had learned to speak “such good English.” That English is the language of learning in PNG schools appears to have been overlooked by Karen’s inquisitor, again reflecting an ingrained imperialist construction of space in which the civilized space of learning exists else­ where and not in PNG. Yet, as Patricia’s experience of translating for the European consultant shows, the ability to speak Tok Pisin or other local languages and more broadly to be able to translate ideas and concepts for local people is invaluable. As noted in relation to the colonial places mentioned in chapter 3, these everyday racisms are commonplace, reinforcing a devaluation of everything local and elevating the superiority of people and institutions overseas. Moreover, the devaluation and suppression of Papua New Guin­ ean women’s perspectives, skills, and knowledge goes hand in hand with an appropriation of this knowledge. As Nemia observed, “they really need our PNG input.” If this situation seems paradoxical, it becomes less so when we con­ sider that both devaluation and appropriation are underpinned by the assumption that everything local is inferior and available for the exploi­ tation and use of the parties on the other side of the racial and colonial divide. These extractive relationships and the glass ceiling of how high Papua New Guinean women can go within the development sector reflect that these places and relationships are structured within an imagined geography that constructs Papua New Guinea and its inhabitants as lack­ ing knowledge and power, as a premodern other world that needs shaping and managing by people from “elsewhere.” Peake and Rieker (2013, 5) argue that “the categorical ordering of the world is about relationships of places to each other.” The ways in which the Papua New Guinean women describe their experiences of working in development suggests that Port Moresby is a place that continues to be associated with a lack of expertise and capacity. Meanwhile, other places outside PNG are construed as sites from which experts can be recruited. This extractive situation is justified on the basis that it is necessary to “protect the interests of the country that is giving the money” (Bernadette, interview, June 2018), despite the fact that this runs counter to all the principles of “good development.” Thus far, I have discussed how Papua New Guinean women are construed as “space invaders” in the upper echelons of development

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organizations, where, despite the ironies, white bodies dominate, if not in numbers then certainly in terms of management positions. In the sec­ tion that follows, I discuss how the women spoke about what I interpret to be a reverse “space invasion.” Demonstrating that the privileged pres­ ence of expatriates in Port Moresby confronts local women with their own relatively less advantaged relationship to the city, I argue that this inequitable situation undermines women’s belief in development rhetoric that purports to be invested in the advancement of gender equity. “Two Different Worlds”: How “Development” Shapes the Lives of Local Women in Port Moresby Discussing the “expat bubble” in Port Moresby, research participants noted that expatriate employees have access to secure housing within compounds, their own car, and—if requested—a driver. Some also com­ mented that expatriate children attend international schools in secure locations and that they receive more benefits, including better medical insurance and care and leave entitlements. At times the experience of liv­ ing in a divided city can be particularly stark, as Rita discovered when she was sick. Rita occupies a senior position in a development organization. When she needed medical treatment, she sought help at the Pacific Inter­ national Hospital, thinking that her conditions entitled her to do so. This hospital is the place expatriates usually go to receive care and treatment. Rita soon learned that despite being at the same level as her counter­ parts, she did not have the same entitlements and was thus required to attend Port Moresby General Hospital instead. Doreen Massey (1994, 150) observes with regard to the experience of places, that “the control of some groups can actively weaken other people.” This was apparent in my conversations with local women, which revealed that sharing one’s city with others who experience entitlements merely because they come from elsewhere undermines their sense of access and agency in their home town. In the previous section, I suggested that the failure or refusal of expatriate managers to understand local people’s lives is exacerbated by their embodied experience of life in Port Moresby which is different in every regard to that of their local colleagues. Accommodated in large, comfortable houses and moving securely between these, work, and their children’s schools, expatriates inhabit what is effectively “enclavic space” (Edensor 1998) marked by its demarcation from the heterogeneity of the local.

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For most of the women, accommodation differences between themselves and their expatriate colleagues were the most galling of dis­ crepancies. On the assumption that local staff can negotiate their own accommodation, organizations in the development sector do not provide them housing. As noted throughout this book, employed Papua New Guinean women typically contribute to the livelihoods of others, includ­ ing paying to accommodate extended family. They face the challenge of finding adequate housing in an aggressively expensive city, which is only exacerbated by the presence of expatriates whose employers pay a high price for secure and comfortable lodgings. Discussing the challenges that local women face, Alice observed, For a female, to find accommodation that is affordable and safe and easily accessible by public transportation. . . . those would be the three things that you’re looking for . . . Rentals would be like 2,000 [kina] a fortnight all the way up, and Papua New Guineans can’t afford that. (interview, June 2018)

Sharing a bedroom with three or four others, including children, and gain­ ing access to the bathroom to prepare for work, are concrete examples of the ways in which the accommodation situations of local women affect their spatial and temporal mobility relative to their expatriate counter­ parts. Many members of the working class, including women, now have no choice but to live in settlements because of the high costs of accommo­ dation (Rooney 2015a, 2015b, 2017a; Hukula 2017a, 2017b). Although the increasingly mixed population inhabiting settlements is changing the nature of these settlements, as noted in chapter 2, safety remains more of a concern in these locations than in formal, gated communities of the kind in which expatriates routinely live. Amenities are also unreliable, making everyday sanitation and domestic tasks more difficult. In an effort to gain access to housing as part of their employ­ ment, some of the women who took part in the research indicated that they have raised the matter with their employers. Alice, who perceives accommodation to be “the most obvious inequality,” said that she has consistently raised this on behalf of herself and other women, but noted that the response is always “you [local staff] can do salary sacrifice for your accommodation,” and that it has never been included as part of their payment package. The outcome, she said, is that “we end up liv­ ing in settlements, or sharing our housing with all our other siblings” Similarly, Meli, who lives in a household with twenty family members, said, “I recently asked for housing assistance and I didn’t really get good

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Chapter 5

feedback.” In comparison, she notes that when it comes to expatriates, the organization will “spend as much as the limit can allow.” Although organizations appear unconcerned about racial equity, there may be an economic argument here given that, as evident with Karen in chapter 2, the number of people in the household, combined with conventional expectations about gender roles, affects women’s working lives. In a pene­ trating essay, Bell (2015) describes the expatriate housewives of Moresby who “bark child-control directives” to their “army of haus meris” with no regard for these local women “who, at the end of each day, return home to manage, cook and clean a house full of biological, adopted and random street kids.” Another set of relationships involve gender, ethnicity, accommoda­ tion, and transport. Expatriates tend to live in more salubrious locations closer to their workplaces, whereas local staff face multiple challenges get­ ting to and from work. Alice gets up at 5 a.m. so that she can be at work at 8 a.m. “because the traffic is so bad” and says some single mothers she knows get up at 4 a.m. Rita’s work commute involves getting on a PMV (public motor vehicle) and catching a cab at her own expense, despite the fact that when she joined her current workplace, Rita and her equally senior Papua New Guinean male colleagues negotiated to have vehicle access included in their contracts. When she tried to access this a year later, Rita found that her male colleagues still had this benefit but that “somewhere along the line it was dropped off [her] contract.” That men experience greater advantages than women is consistent with Dianne Johnson’s (1984) finding that policies and efforts to employ Papua New Guineans were designed to promote male leadership and advancement in the workplace. It also confirms that Papua New Guinean women in the development sector experience additional barriers to those men do, all of which is antithetical to the development goal of promoting gender equity. These are not the only transport discrepancies. Although some of the women were glad to have access to a transport bus through their employer, others said that this solution had been suggested to them when what they actually wanted was a safe place to park their car. Discuss­ ing this issue, one observed that when access to the secure car park was limited, she and the other Papua New Guinean employees had to park outside in the street when the expatriate staff continued to have access to the remaining secure car parks. During this time, their cars were van­ dalized, and the local employees felt unsafe going to and from their cars when they left work, especially after hours. Given the number of devel­ opment programs focused on women’s safety and security, the ironies of this situation are noteworthy. It would seem, however, that women who

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work in development are not construed as the beneficiaries of the pro­ grams they are employed to help manage and deliver, despite inhabiting the same spaces as those who are. Alice observed that fear and concern about transport and accom­ modation are “realities that expats don’t necessarily understand or . . . experience.” But these discrepancies have real consequences, including that they can undermine the women’s working relationships with expatri­ ates, as the following response from Brigitte illustrates: [Expatriates might want to consider] why are [Papua New Guineans] not cooperating with you? Maybe it’s because they had to catch three or four buses to get to work, and you just drive a few minutes and you are at the office. Think about these considerations. It’s unfair. We live in two different worlds, so be sensitive about these issues. (interview, May 2018)

Meli also captured the idea that expatriates and locals inhabit two differ­ ent worlds: Sometimes I look at expatriates and I go, “Straight from their aircon houses to their air-con cars to their air-con offices, they don’t know how hot the PNG sun is.” And I guess it kind of makes me look prejudiced, but that’s the perception that a lot of people have with expatriates. (interview, June 2018)

Meli’s observation makes it clear that spaces are lived and experienced differently by those positioned differently within them. That outsiders are insulated from the “real” Port Moresby—here represented by the heat of the sun—is not only unjust. Such insulation also acts as a barrier to developing the solidarity necessary to change the city in ways more likely to benefit everyone. In addition to being subject to the many inequities that arise as a result of the differences between Papua New Guinean women’s living situations and those of their expatriate colleagues, local women also face prejudicial and insensitive treatment precisely because expatriate man­ agers are unsympathetic about the challenges PNG women face. A lack of understanding about the conditions and challenges of local women’s lives interweaves with racist constructions of Papua New Guineans as lazy and malingering, necessarily subject to “super-surveillance” (Puwar 2004) to prevent them from getting away with these behaviors. At times, this surveillance amounts to workplace bullying. The women described

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situations in which expatriates had been judgmental, suspicious, and unsympathetic to women experiencing violence or those supporting fam­ ily members experiencing family violence. Patricia, for instance, described a time in her life when she had to care for her sister whose partner had left her and her children destitute: I found myself having to excuse myself from work and go and sit with her at the courthouse. . . . My direct supervisor, who was a national, she understood it. But the [other person], she was an expatriate and she sort of came down a bit hard on me. And I felt she didn’t understand what I was working with. . . . It seemed like she was on a short-term [contract], in the country and then she’d go back. She was Australian. (interview, June 2018)

That the local supervisor showed understanding rather than judgment in this situation suggests that she was aware that Patricia was responding to the situation her sister was in and understood that when this was over she would return to work. In contrast, the expatriate manager appears to have been governed by an irrational perception that Patricia was acting this way because she was trying to avoid work and needed to be called to account. Josefa described similar prejudicial treatment: I’ve got an ongoing court case which I’m currently undertaking with the children’s father. I tell my manager, I’ve got this court case so I’ll be expected to be at the courthouse . . . and it’s only going to be like half an hour or an hour on the day the court is scheduled—not like every day—and she wouldn’t accept that, even though that policy is there. . . . The policy says [name of contracting employer] must allow time for the employee to sort out—assist with whether they’re going to court, if they need transport to be dropped off, or if they need to take leave or something, the manager must approve. But in my case, I didn’t get those supports. . . . She just chose to ignore it. (interview, June 2018)

Her boss’s failure to uphold the organization’s policies adds weight to the idea that working-class women are expected to have risen above the gendered challenges that other women in this context face. The same expatriate manager also refused to allow Josefa any flex­ ibility in her work hours, a situation that made it very stressful for her to get her children to and from school and that appears to have constituted

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harassment. The manager also insisted that Josefa meet with her and the program manager at five minutes past eight in the morning “every single day from Monday to Friday.” No other staff were required to attend the meetings, but Josefa was required to detail her work plans for the day. The social dynamics of infantilization and super surveillance evident in these interactions reflect racist assumptions about Papua New Guineans being lazy and inept. That managers within the organization did not uphold internal policies that state the need to allow employees the time to attend court cases indicates the potency of racist beliefs. Yet, as Josefa makes clear, just because they are employed, local women do not escape the challenges of life in Port Moresby. In terms of understanding challenges that people in this society face, it’s not like every one of us has a steady home and we go to work every morning. Each of us has different challenges, different situa­ tions. Some women may not have a husband at home, it’s just them and their kids. . . . I have five children [and am a single mother] . . . It’s been an ongoing challenge. (interview, June 2018)

Brigitte has also observed expatriate women being deeply insensitive to local women experiencing family challenges. This included harassing a colleague who was missing work as a result of family violence. Assessing this, she observed, The development corporation and agencies are set up by foreigners. And the challenges that we as locals face . . . we’re trying to make and develop and change situations in the country but our own structures, like the structures that employ us, [are] not addressing the real issues. (interview, June 2018)

Discussing gender equity, Martha Macintyre (2012, 262) writes, “For women to gain equality in Papua New Guinea, men are going to have to relinquish privileges that are currently maintained by the threat of violence.” In light of the uneven geographies evident in the development sector in Port Moresby, it is perhaps worth asking whether equality might also require expatriates to relinquish privileges currently maintained by the underlying economic rationale of foreign aid. At present, working in development within Port Moresby involves being part of an “alienating hierarchy in which the donor agency is the unseen overseer, the ‘advisors’ are their agents and the Papua New Guinean ‘counterparts’ their depen­ dent and untrustworthy recipients of aid that is designed and executed

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Chapter 5

by foreigners” (Macintyre 2012, 260). As Brigitte rightly asked, “how is that fair?” The Somare statement cited at the beginning of this chapter conveys an implicit sense that Papua New Guineans are on their way out from under their “white masters” and that women will follow this pattern in rela­ tion to local men. More than forty years later, however, neither male nor racial oppression can be construed to be in the past. Instead, both forms of oppression continue to shape the experiences of Papua New Guinean women. In Port Moresby, white dominance intersects with colonial white dominance. Despite this, the development-led focus on addressing gen­ der inequities can at times occlude the importance of addressing the ways in which advantage and disadvantage are also racialized. But this does not mean that contemporary Port Moresby and those who live there are simply contained by repressive imperialist stereotypes. Instead, as the women’s voices examined here make clear, the people and places of the city are “postcolonial,” if not in the sense of being “beyond imperialism,” then at least in the sense that they reflect “unsettled spa­ tialities of power and identity in the present” (Jacobs 1996, 161). One manifestation of this idea is that Papua New Guinean women working in development have “anticolonial political imperatives” (1996, 163), que­ rying the injustices that underpin their experience of the city relative to those of their expatriate colleagues. Discussing their personal strug­ gles for place, belonging, and security, they foreground the disparities between their lives and the lives of expatriates who enjoy a “preponder­ ance of entitlements” (Duff 2017, 516) for no other reason than that they come from elsewhere. The interviews examined here further highlight that though Papua New Guinean women working in development do the crucial work of “translation,” their lives are not necessarily transformed in the ways envisaged within development projects focused on gender equity. The first step toward changing this situation is acknowledging it. The sec­ ond is recognizing, as Hukula made clear in her seminar, that women who work in development also inhabit the spaces that the projects and programs purport to be seeking to change for the better. Thus they too are entitled to experience improved safety and security, dignified and enabling living conditions, and the workplace flexibility that reflects the many roles they play in their families and societies. If this means that the aid dollar needs to be directed away from insulating expatriates from the “real Port Moresby,” then so be it.

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Conclusion The world has gained enough from hearing about the trauma that Papua New Guinean women go through. . . . that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to tell you that we’re making a difference. We’re contributing to the development of our nation. It’s not just foreign aid coming in to our country and helping us to be empowered (Ogil 2018).

In the prologue to this book, I discuss the death of Rosalyn Evara. Recently, I then had the opportunity to meet with Alexander Rheeney, the former editor of the Post-Courier newspaper who, in response to Evara’s death, highlighted the need for workplaces to take responsibility for their employees including those experiencing family violence. Rheeney told me more about Rosalyn and mentioned that she and her husband had lived in a house in the Post-Courier compound. Although she was surrounded by other employees, he said only one or two people knew that Evara was experiencing violence at home. Apparently, on a couple of occasions she fled to a neighboring household to escape. Rheeney’s overriding emotion appeared to be frustration with Rosalyn and those who knew about the violence for not telling him, but perhaps also with himself for not notic­ ing. Rheeney said that had he known he could have assisted her as he did other employees when he worked at the Post-Courier, by supporting her in obtaining a protection order, for example. If she were being assaulted by her husband, would this have helped? Perhaps. But although stopping violence may start with one person, lasting change typically takes a range of interventions and supports. As Aletta Biersack and Martha Macintyre (2016, 26) argue, to understand violence, its causes, and how to address it, it is necessary to investigate the “social, political and economic conditions of men’s and women’s lives.” In this book, I have tried to do just that. Drawing 123

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Conclusion

extensively on empirical data, I have explored and analyzed the complex interactions between gender, place, and culture to demonstrate how understanding these might illuminate the conditions of such an event. My exploration indicates some reasons professional women might remain silent even as they appear to embody “progress” toward gender equity. As the bearers of a professional identity, likely to have been conferred as a result of educational attainments, they embody success within both the development narrative and local relationships in which being able to care and provide for others is highly valued. Precisely because of their success, they carry a heavy burden. To some extent, celebrating such women and their roles makes sense given the inequities in this challenging urban context. But, just as in the Victorian era, women gained forms of power in the domes­ tic realm as a result of their association with purity (Stansell 1987), in modern Moresby, the danger is that educated and employed women will increasingly bear the brunt of pressure to remake the city on behalf of all its citizens. This pressure comes as much from aid agencies promoting women’s roles in economic empowerment and formal politics as from internally potent Christian discourses in which women are construed as valuable when they live their lives in service to others. For women, being valuable because of one’s virtues or achievements is both dangerous and insufficient. Unless and until the outcry about the nonprofessional, “invisible” women who die at the hands of their husbands is as great as about Evara’s death, Port Moresby cannot be said to have become a more gender equitable place. At the same time, it is necessary to query the cul­ ture of silence and shame (see also Johnson 1984, 200), which means the women who are seen as having “made it” are too embarrassed to reveal that they too suffer violence and abuse. Thankfully, despite the challenges of life in Port Moresby, middleclass women in the city are not merely scared and silent. Instead, many are actively participating in remaking the city on behalf of themselves and others. Although Port Moresby was never designed for them, my conver­ sations over ten years reveal that women in this cohort are increasingly comfortable in this space. Despite experiencing significant challenges in their personal and professional lives, they negotiate accommodation, transport, friendships, activism, family demands, and husbands (or being single) in ways that demonstrate their increasing sense of having a “right to the city,” to enjoy it, and to contribute to the life there. In some ways, Port Moresby is changing quickly, but this feminist remaking is slower and more subtle. Those leading it are transnationally educated, oriented, and connected, but no less authentic for being so. Representing

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new versions of femininity in the city, they expand the possibilities of gender in a place that has hitherto represented “good womanhood” in highly restrictive ways. Assisting others, they embody hybridity, earning money and displaying autonomy, but also displaying a certain Melanesian identity through their demonstrable commitment to supporting their families. In my view, Papua New Guinean women are not as Other as they are sometimes imagined to be within anthropological and develop­ ment discourses. Exploring the perspectives and experiences of those in this cohort is important because doing so helps us see that Port Moresby is a more diverse place than it is typically represented to be. Cities change in con­ cert with the embodied, changing lives of their inhabitants. Writing about leadership in her contribution to My Walk for Equality (2017), Betty Lovai, executive dean of gender studies at the University of Papua New Guinea, describes getting a text from a friend at 4 a.m. with a request to meet her at “Crown [sic] Plaza at 7 a.m.” (Lovai 2017, 141). Lovai’s friend wanted to “share with [her] the abuse she had to put up with every time she returned from a business trip” (141). Thirty years ago, there were fewer places like Crowne Plaza and those that did exist were unlikely to have been frequented by Papua New Guinean women, or certainly those who were unaccompanied by men (see Johnson 1984). Did such conversations occur thirty years ago? Johnson’s research would suggest not. Indeed, she writes that the government women among whom she conducted her research, while acknowledging the prevalence of violence, never spoke about violence as something that happened to them (1984, 200). Perhaps some conversations require the existence of commercial, semipublic, but also more anonymous contexts in which to practice them. As Moresby’s middle-class women work, go out, exercise, and meet for collective action, they remake a space that was never designed for them, and which is typi­ cally represented as unwelcoming to their sex. Presenting the perspectives of this cohort has also challenged the ways in which women are represented in development discourses and in literature about gendered urban experience in the Global South. Echoing the quotation from the new podcast #Who Asked Her?, these women are not waiting to be helped or fixed, but rather are reshaping their own lives. In some cases, they do so in “virtuous” ways, by cleaning the street, run­ ning a nongovernment organization, or providing the financial assistance to allow a niece to continue her education. But this is not all they do. As I have shown in this book, women in this group also start sassy magazines, post criticisms about colonialist attitudes on social media, and go out for coffee with friends as part of an effort to support one another in their

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Conclusion

ventures. In doing so, they are not only participating in global cosmopoli­ tanism and consumerism, but also opening up a space for conversations of the kind Lovai (2017) describes and from which Evara may have gained support. Such support is suggested in Alurigo Ravuriso-Kali’s (2017, 199) essay celebrating the “female champions” with whom she meets regularly at Vision City. Although many of the women engaged in these big and small inter­ ventions are informed by transnational connections, they are also locally connected and oriented, a point I argue to which it is important to be attuned. Arguably, those who pitch their activism and agendas at the local level have the most power to transform the city in ways likely to include a greater range of people. Ideally, development funds would be directed to support such women, rather than being spent on expatriates and consultants or weighing local staff down with excessive reporting requirements. Such changes would help ensure not only that women who participate in delivering development benefit from its purported focus on promoting gender equity, but also that the city becomes a more racially equitable place. One of the areas of inquiry that suggests the need for further research is how and why Papua New Guinea (PNG) has come to be spo­ ken about almost exclusively in terms of gendered violence but other intersecting oppressions remain largely unexamined. I have, for example, contributed to research on sexist discrimination in PNG workplaces but never have I heard a conversation in development circles about the need to conduct research on the impact on women of racism and colonialism in the workplace. This seems to represent a shift because, in her work on government women, Dianne Johnson (1984, 218) remarks that “women resented the view of themselves [as oppressed victims] which they believe Westerners held of them.” One woman asserted, “we’re not dominated and oppressed by men! . . . It’s us and our men against white domination. That’s really the issue” (quoted in Johnson 1984, 218). The situation is complex, suggesting the importance of adopting an intersectional femi­ nist approach in this context. Yet Port Moresby continues to be discussed in relation to Papua New Guinean men’s oppression of women, often occluding the ways in which other forms of imperialism and domination are also implicated and at work. A second related area suggesting itself for future research is the ways in which Papua New Guinean men are responding to these more empowered Papua New Guinean women. Various contributions by women published in My Walk to Equality offer excellent insight into a range of responses, some women writing of men with whom they live

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127

as equals (Are 2017; Evari 2017), others documenting male jealousy and violence (Wanmi 2017; Gordon 2017). As part of such a project, it would be interesting to investigate the ways in which urban life is imagined to impact on constructions of gender and relationships between the gen­ ders. A fascinating example is offered by Leila Purina (2017). Her short story “A Paradigm Shift” (190) details the lives and inner worlds of “The Working Class Woman” (190) and “The Stay at Home Husband” (191). Although somewhat worried about his wife’s working life and reputation, the husband comes to the realization that it is best for the family if they move to the city: “He would talk to Alice as soon as she got home. He would tell her it was time she accepted the company accommodation in the city. They would move into the city. That way they could raise their family away from the stigma faced in the village” (192). Although mov­ ing to Port Moresby may or may not resolve the friction that is evident in the fictional marriage depicted here, this “solution” nevertheless reflects the ways in which perspectives on women’s place in the city are chang­ ing. Examining men’s perspectives, the meaning they make of women’s lives in the city, which women they value, and why, would enable further insight into gender, power, and belonging in Port Moresby. In presenting findings from my research in Port Moresby, I have confined my comments to this city and not others in PNG, Melanesia, or the Pacific (with the exception of a brief discussion of Kanak women’s views about Noumea in chapter 3). This is partly because some of the differences between these places are significant, differences that in my view only become more apparent the more closely one looks. Some are obvious, such as size—where Moresby is home to at least four hundred thousand people, and Noumea to 280,000, the next biggest Melanesian cities of Honiara and Suva have populations around eighty thousand (World Population Review 2018b). But, in regard to gender at least, more significant differences are more difficult to measure, including the impacts and legacies of colonialism and whether there can be said to be a feminist movement as such (for an analysis of Fiji’s gender politics, see George 2012). The subjective experience of security—whether personal, political, or cultural, the last of which may, for example, be particularly pertinent for Kanaks in Noumea—is another aspect of city life that requires nuanced and “situated” (George 2012) analysis. I have offered an account of Port Moresby in an effort to point toward the value of bet­ ter understanding the complexities of cities in the Global South. Other cities, both in the Pacific and elsewhere in our urbanizing world, also present themselves as sites for exploration. Each of the Pacific cities men­ tioned here are dynamic places in which to examine what Linda McDowell

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(1999) calls “gender at work in the city.” By expanding the range of cities we study beyond those in the Global North, and by considering the lives of diverse (and not only impoverished and voiceless) women, feminist geographers and urban studies scholars alike are likely to generate new insights into a range of topics, including the legacies of colonialism and the creativity of local responses to domination. Through my examination of the lives of middle-class women in Port Moresby, I hope I have demonstrated that it is erroneous to “carve off” cities in less economically developed countries from purposive and mul­ tifaceted feminist inquiry. Asking how to make markets safer for women is not the same as asking what it will take to make Port Moresby a more gender-equitable city. The residents of cities in the less economically developed world are as deserving of attention and complex thought of the kind it will take to answer these questions as those in more economi­ cally developed nations.

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Notes

Chapter 1: Representations of Port Moresby 1. Cowboy (Kauboi in Tok Pisin) wrote the song Les McLaren translated into English for the film’s subtitles. Chapter 2: At Home in the City 1. Buai (betel nut) is a mild stimulant chewed throughout PNG. As Timothy Sharp (2013) notes, “its consumption produces the voluminous amounts of red saliva splattered across the country’s roads, walls, posts, bins, offices, and buses, and [it] has deleterious health consequences, not dissimilar to smoking tobacco” (n.d.). Although, as he writes, this mess “has been the justification for recent attempts by National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parkop to ban the sale and consumption of betel nut in Port Moresby,” Sharp argues that for vari­ ous reasons, including the role betel nut plays in the local economy, “prohibition is unlikely to succeed in the long term.” In 2018, Parkop came under criticism for directing significant funds for the Moresby yoga program, to his alleged partner, a yoga teacher (Tlozek 2018). Chapter 4: From Mosbi to “POM City” 1. I thank Tattz Boi-balopa of Naka Blood for consent to reproduce the lyrics here. 2. The most recent issue of Stella, which came out in 2016, is number 17. Donigi continues to update the magazine’s online presence, run the fashion show, and in 2018 commenced a podcast series, but it has been difficult to find time to produce the magazine while working full time. 129

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6923_Book_V4.indd 146

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Index

Adventure Park, 76, 77

Airways Hotel, 72

Albaniel, Mary, xiii

Alice (informant), 111, 113, 114, 117,

118, 119

Aliko and Ambai (film), 9

Anderson, Christopher, 21

Anderson, Robin, 23

Andrew (informant), 61–62 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

(APEC) 2018 meetings, 17, 18

Baki, Gari, xv

Barbara, Julien, xvi, 19, 49, 62, 63

Barber, Keith, 62

Bell, Rashmii, 2, 11, 73, 93, 109, 111, 118

Bernadette (informant), 113–114 Besnier, Niko, xvi, 50, 56, 63, 76, 102

Beth (informant), 52–55, 57

Biersack, Aletta, 123

boarding houses, 44, 53–54, 57

Bona, Judith, 89

Brigitte (informant), 110, 112–113, 119,

121, 122

Bruder, Gazellah, 38

Buase Jr., Golonzo, 31

Business and Professional Women (BPW): Susil Nelson and, 88–92

Chant, Sylvia, xv, 12, 14–15, 35

Christianne (informant), 83

Cindy (informant), 72, 73, 74

class, definitions of, xvi–xvii, 11, 19, 49,

50, 56, 62. See also middle class

Cloke, Jonathan, 14

Connell, John, 3, 4, 11, 60

Connolly, Bob, 23

Conway, Dennis, 60

Cowboy and Maria in Town (film), 23–27,

28, 34, 62

Cox, John, xvi, 19, 49, 62, 63

Crocodile Prize, 10–11 Cummings, Maggie, 102

Dalsgaard, Steffen, 60

Demian, Melissa, 3, 9, 43, 44–45, 53, 55,

57, 63

Denoon, Donald, 3

development sector: contradictions in, 104–107; race and hierarchies in, 108–116; shapes lives of local women, 116–121 Donigi, Amanda, 86–88, 92–93, 94–95,

96–97, 98, 103

Donigi, Peter, 92, 93

Duffy café, 17, 21, 22, 77, 81, 82

147

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148

◊

E. (informant), xix Eggins, Joys, 39–41 Equal Playing Field (EPF), 99, 100

Errington, Frederick, 25, 56, 60, 68, 82,

101–102

Evara, Rosalyn Albaniel, xiii–xv, 4, 7, 10,

20, 123, 124, 126

Evari, Caroline, xix

Everill, Adam, 99

Extreme World (documentary), 28–30,

31, 36

Ezebilo, Eugene, 46

feminist geographies, 12–15

Foster, Robert, 71

Gajdusek, Daniel Carleton, xviii

Gewertz, Deborah, 25, 56, 60, 68, 82,

101–102

Gladys (informant), 80, 111, 112

Gladys (informant, Noumea), 83

Goddard, Michael, 4

Grace (informant), 58–61, 62, 63, 72,

74–75, 78, 100

Grand Papua Hotel, 61, 67, 70

Hamago, Lucy, 46

Hands Up: Your Betelnut or Your Life (film),

25, 27, 30–33, 37

Harbour City shopping complex, 68, 70,

76

Holiday Inn (Port Moresby), 67, 70, 71

housing: and communities, 50–52; independence, 48–49, 50; and security, 56; in settlements, 46–48, 61–62; and women, 44–46, 63–64. See also boarding houses Hukula, Fiona, 9–10, 41, 45, 51, 63,

104–105, 110, 122

Inglis, Amirah, 7

Jarvis, Helen, 14

Jo (informant), 65–66, 72, 77, 79

Johnson, Dianne, xiv, 6, 7–8, 86, 118,

125, 126

Jones, Paul, 4

6923_Book_V4.indd 148

Index Jones, Vinnie, 28–29 Josefa (informant), 111–112, 120–121 Joseph, Jacqueline, 86–88, 97, 98–101,

103

Julie (informant), 47–49 Kamalia (informant), 71, 74, 75

Kaman, Valentina, 90

Kamit, Lady Winifred, 2

Kantor, Paula, 14

Karen (informant), 55–58, 111, 114–115,

118

Karuka (informant), 67, 68, 70, 73, 76,

77, 79, 81

Kedea, Allen, 38

Kemp, Ross, 28–30 Kidu, Dame Carol 89

Kildea, Gary, 23

Kofman, Eleonore, 35

Leach, Michael, xvi, 19, 49, 62, 63

Lebas, Elizabeth, 35

Lefebvre, Henri, 35

Lepani, Charles, 86

Leslie (informant), 61–62 Levine, Hal, 6

Levine, Marlene, 6

literature: on women in Port Moresby, 5–10; recent publications, 10–11 Lovai, Betty, 125, 126

Lukim Yu (film), 21–22, 36, 78

Macintyre, Martha, 9, 46, 108, 121, 123

Manzo, John, 68

Marie (informant), 75–76, 77, 79–80,

81, 83

Massey, Doreen, 76, 116

McDowell, Linda, 12, 13, 14, 15, 66,

127–128

McGeorge, Michelle, 77–78 McIlwaine, Cathy, 12, 14–15, 35

McKinnon, Katherine, 44

McLaren, Les, 23, 24–25, 27, 129n Mecartney, Sarah, 11

Meg (informant), 75, 76, 77, 81

Meli (informant), 109–110, 117–118,

119

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Index Melissa (informant), 70, 74, 79, 80

Merry, Sally Engle, 87

middle class: and cars, 74–76; films

about, 36, 37, 38, 40; self-description

and values, xvi, 42, 45, 60, 81–82;

women, 15, 19, 39, 68, 82, 99, 102,

124, 125

migration, 24, 59, 60–61

Moresby Modern (film), 25, 32, 36–38, 39,

82, 88

Moser, Caroline, 12, 35

Moses, Rhoda, 38

Muecke, Stephen, 41

Naka Blood, 85–86 Namarong, Martyn, 92, 95–96 Narokobi, Bernard, 32, 86

Narokobi, Emmanuel, 25, 31, 32, 36, 37,

39, 40–41

Nature Park, 76, 77–78 Nelson, Hank, 4

Nelson, Susil, 38, 39–40, 85, 86–88,

97, 98, 103. See also Business and

Professional Women

Nemia (informant), 111, 113, 115

Noumea, 83–84 Oeser, Lynn, 5

Oram, Nigel, 2, 6, 72

O’Rourke, Dennis, 23

Owen, Chris, 23

Parkop, Powes, xiv, 18, 42, 51, 77, 78

Patricia (informant), 109, 115, 120

Pawa Meri project, 36, 39, 85

Peake, Linda, 105, 115

Phillips, Lena Madesin, 89

Port Moresby: colonial history, 2–3; depicted in film, 21–23, 25–26, 28–38; after national independence, 3–4; nature of modern, 16–19, 125. See also individual entries Pratt, Mary Louise, xvii

Purina, Leila, 127

Puwar, Nirmal, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115

6923_Book_V4.indd 149

◊

149 Radice, Martha, 15, 66, 70, 80

Ravuriso-Kali, Alurigo, 69, 126

Rheeney, Alexander, xv, 123

Rieker, Martina, 105, 115

Rita (informant), 112, 116, 118

Rooney, Michelle, 10, 45, 63

Rose (informant), 49–52, 56, 57, 78

Rose (informant, Noumea), 84

Rose, Gillian, 13, 68

Rosi, Pamela, 8

Runway, 94–95, 96, 97, 99

Safe Cities: buses, 12, 75; films, 33–35

Save Meri, Skulim Meri (film), 36, 39–40,

85, 88

Sharp, Timothy, 49, 129n

Somare, Michael, 3, 86, 104, 122

Stanley hotel, 17, 18, 67, 72

Star Mountain hotel, 17, 71, 72

Stella magazine, 67, 92, 93–95, 96, 97, 99

Stivens, Annie, 23

Strathern, Marilyn, 5–6

Sweetman, Caroline, xv

Taking Pictures (film), 23

Taviri, Lesieli, 2, 97–98, 101

Taylor, Dame Meg, 2

Toughest Cops (documentary), 28–30,

31, 36

urbanization, literature, 11–12, 16

urban space: cosmopolitan, 78–79;

exclusion from, 72–73; money and,

80–82; national independence and,

83–84; Port Moresby, 66–67, 68;

safety, freedom and 76–78. See also

Harbour City shopping complex;

Vision City Mall

Val (informant), 72, 78

Veronica (informant), 84

Vetuna, Pauline, 93

Vision City Mall, 11, 17, 68–69, 71–72,

76, 77, 126

Walsh, Brendan, 31–32, 36, 37

wantok system, 31, 51, 52, 63

4/30/20 11:04 AM

150 Whiteman, Josephine, 5

Wilson, Elizabeth, 20

women: creating change, 88, 90–91, 92,

94–95, 96–97, 101; as leaders, 1–2;

violence against, xiii–xv. See also

individual entries

6923_Book_V4.indd 150

◊

Index Yacht Club (Port Moresby), 72–73

Yala, Charles, 46

Young, Iris Marion, xiv

Zimmerman, Lorraine, 6

Zimmer-Tamakoshi, Laura, 8

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About the Author

Ceridwen Spark is Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She conducts research in the Pacific region on a wide range of topics relating to gender, culture, and social change, including on edu­ cation, women’s leadership, development, the media, and urbanization. Spark has written and published on these topics for more than a decade. Emphasizing research that reaches a wide audience, she has engaged in various funded projects for government and nongovernment organiza­ tions. This includes research on women leaders in the Pacific, filmmaking projects, and working with Equal Playing Field in Port Moresby and the Bougainville Women’s Federation in Buka. In 2017, Spark coedited Trans­ formations of Gender in Melanesia (ANU Press) with Martha Macintyre.

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