Economies of Care

In this major intervention in feminist anthropology - which remains largely rooted in western feminist ideologies - Indigenous Economies of Care examines emotional aspects of economic life in the marketplaces of Papua New Guinea; where market women's labour is a nexus not only for gender relations, but also for wider spiritual, cosmological and reciprocal ones. What role do emotions and care for others play in the relational economy in which this marketplace is embedded? Against a background of rapid urbanisation and social change, this book analyses notions of exchange from the perspective of these women, demonstrating that what motivates their choices, and what gives them their agency, is a system of reciprocal care. Equally, by examining new tendencies in production and exchange which have been imposed as a result of colonial power, this ethnography makes proposals for agro-ecology as a solution to global food insecurity, showing the ways in which many small-scale farmers choose unsustainable methods due to economic challenges. Countering common western feminist perspectives - that to be responsible for social reproduction is symbolic of exploitation - Barnett-Naghshineh proposes that care for others remains a key route to prestige, influence, and recognition for women, and that embodied acts of care produce value in the broader structures of economic life.