The Emergent Middle Classes in Timor-Leste and Melanesia: Conceptual Issues and Developmental Significance

The emergence of a middle class has been identified as an important factor driving economic and political transitions in Asia and Africa. Class has been 'happening' in the broader Pacific region1 for some time, as Gewertz and Errington (1999:2) observed of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Nevertheless, to date, little systematic policy attention has been given to questions of class. We believe that the concept of an emerging middle class provides a useful entry point for understanding significant developmental and political transformations in Timor-Leste and Melanesia and is important for informing development policies. However, in order to explore the potential consequences that an emergent middle class may have, it is necessary to first consider how such a class can be identified in the region. We have chosen to focus on Timor-Leste, PNG and Solomon Islands because these countries are undergoing comparable social and economic transitions, many of which correlate strongly with the emergence of a middle class. Such changes include rapid economic growth driven by resource booms in Timor-Leste and PNG, associated formalisation of regional economies, deepening urbanisation, increasing social integration with metropolitan powers through growing diaspora communities, changing consumption patterns, and the transformative impacts of social media following recent internet and mobile telephone penetration. This paper has three substantive sections. First, it considers contemporary discussions of class and development in Asia and other developing regions. Second, the paper develops a multidimensional framework for identifying an emergent middle class, drawing on a range of economic, political and social criteria. Finally, the paper uses these criteria to examine recent developments in each of three case study countries and then draws some conclusions on the developmental and political significance of an emergent middle class in the broader Pacific region with a view to establishing a longer term research agenda.AusAI

The emergent middle classes in Timor-Leste and Melanesia: conceptual issues and developmental significance

The concept of an emerging middle class provides a useful entry point for understanding significant developmental and political transformations in Timor-Leste and Melanesia and is important for informing development policies. Overview The emergence of a middle class has been identified as an important factor driving economic and political transitions in Asia and Africa. Class has been ‘happening’ in the broader Pacific region for some time, as Gewertz and Errington observed of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Nevertheless, to date, little systematic policy attention has been given to questions of class. We believe that the concept of an emerging middle class provides a useful entry point for understanding significant developmental and political transformations in Timor-Leste and Melanesia and is important for informing development policies. However, in order to explore the potential consequences that an emergent middle class may have, it is necessary to first consider how such a class can be identified in the region. We have chosen to focus on Timor-Leste, PNG and Solomon Islands because these countries are undergoing comparable social and economic transitions, many of which correlate strongly with the emergence of a middle class. Such changes include rapid economic growth driven by resource booms in Timor-Leste and PNG, associated formalisation of regional economies, deepening urbanisation, increasing social integration with metropolitan powers through growing diaspora communities, changing consumption patterns, and the transformative impacts of social media following recent internet and mobile telephone penetration. This paper has three substantive sections. First, it considers contemporary discussions of class and development in Asia and other developing regions. Second, the paper develops a multidimensional framework for identifying an emergent middle class, drawing on a range of economic, political and social criteria. Finally, the paper uses these criteria to examine recent developments in each of three case study countries and then draws some conclusions on the developmental and political significance of an emergent middle class in the broader Pacific region with a view to establishing a longer term research agenda

Alternative Families: Obtaining Traditional Family Benefits Through Litigation, Legislation and Collective Bargaining

This article will first discuss the constitutional and equitable basis for extending rights to alternative families. Next, it will discuss each major protection and benefit granted to traditional families and then examine the litigation, legislation, and collective bargaining agreements obtaining or attempting to obtain the same benefit for alternative families. This article will end by arguing that equity and justice require an extension of these benefits to alternative families

From One Town\u27s \u27Alternative Families\u27 Ordinance to Marriage Equality Nationwide

Many articles have already discussed the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision. In that opinion, the Supreme Court held that individuals who are same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry just as individuals who are different-sex couples. Basing its decision on the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held that states could not deny same-sex couples that right. Instead of the numerous scholarly works analyzing the Obergefell decision, this essay looks back at my part in the marriage equality movement, before it was a movement and before it was about marriage, and its transition to both. I have been working toward obtaining legal rights for same-sex couples since 1983. My work began when I helped draft what became the third domestic partnership ordinance in the country in Madison, Wisconsin, and my work will continue into early 2016 when my service as the chair of the board of directors for Freedom to Marry, Inc. will end. Over the past three decades, I played a small but regular role in helping to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from legal recognition of our relationships in the United States. This essay considers how my experiences as an activist, scholar, and married lesbian mirrored those of the movement since the early 1980s. The essay is divided into three parts that roughly correspond with the three decades of the marriage equality movement: the early 1980s to 1993, 1993 to 2003, and 2003 to 2015. Part I discusses the early efforts to win limited rights through city ordinances and employer health insurance benefits and how those efforts led activists to recognize the inherent limitations with the options to protect the legal rights of same-sex couples. Part II discusses the legal changes that resulted in the decade following the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in Baehr v. Lewin; changes not marriage itself, but numerous statutes and constitutional amendments purporting to deny recognition of any Hawaiian or other marriage by same-sex couples. Part III focuses its attention on the movement after the first state started marrying same-sex couples, the ups-and-downs resulting from the adoption or rejection of anti-marriage ballot measures by states across the country, and the national resolution that finally came with the Obergefell decision

The Lesbian Wife: Same-Sex Marriage as an Expression of Radical and Plural Democracy

This Paper considers three ideas. The first is recognizing that a reactionary and exclusionary democracy exists in this country today. The second is considering the argument by some gay and lesbian activists that including gay men and lesbians under the rubric of state-sanctioned marriage will actually prevent a radical and plural democracy from occurring by removing the outlaw nature of the queer community and leading to the wholesale movement of gays and lesbians from the anti-subordination project into the mainstream middle-class. The third argues that, despite this concern, the gay and lesbian community can help move the country toward a progressive, pluralistic democracy by embracing the radical notion of redefining the family. Redefinition is a way to displace compulsory heterosexuality from its location as the main state-recognized family in the country. In order to do that, however, it will be necessary to forge, as Chantal Mouffe argues, a chain of equivalences between all the democratic demands to produce the collective will of all those people struggling against subordination. Without the help of others working against subordination, the Right will be successful in its attempt to redefine democracy in a restrictive way to reduce its subversive power. With a group as misunderstood and despised as gay men and lesbians, we will need the help of all people struggling against subordination to radicalize family and citizenship enough to include married gay men and lesbians

Choosing One\u27s Family: Can the Legal System Address the Breadth of Women\u27s Choices of Intimate Relationships

In discussing the legal system\u27s response to alternative families seeking an extension of traditional family benefits, this paper is divided into two main sections. The first section summarizes the Madison experience in trying to pass a comprehensive alternative family rights ordinance. It takes an in-depth look at the entire process from the grassroots pressures on the M.E.O.C. which resulted in formation of the task force to the Common Council\u27s enactment of two minor sections of the proposed ordinance. It will analyze the political and legal process used in an effort to obtain significant reform in the definition of family within Madison. It will note that over six years of work was expended by numerous activists, extensive grass-roots organizing was done to generate broad community support for the proposed ordinance, and thus far the legislative process has only yielded two minor amendments to the local statutes. The second section examines the limited progress that has been made from working within the system to obtain an extension of benefits and protection to all family members and raises the dilemma currently facing activists working in this area. Because of our social and educational training, activists turn to the legal system with the belief that, by going to it and challenging the inequities in society-in this case, the discrimination against alternative families-we will be able, through legislation or litigation, to obtain the recognition, benefits, and protection given to the traditional family. Because of our feminist perspective and the lessons we have learned from seeing how patriarchal society deals with problems of inequity, however, we turn away from the legal system with an understanding that it is a system of rules and regulations designed to perpetuate the power of the patriarchy over women\u27s lives. As Audre Lorde so eloquently explained, [T]he master\u27s tools will never dismantle the master\u27s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change

But Why Not Marriage: Some Thoughts on Vermont’s Civil Unions Law, Same-Sex Marriage, and Separate But (Un)Equal

This article is divided into three sections. Section one considers the positive results from the civil unions law. It recognizes that this legislation represents an important step along the path toward full recognition of same-sex couples by extending significant rights, benefits, and responsibilities beyond opposite-sex marriage. With these benefits, however, come several problems. Section two places the civil unions law along side other examples of separate but equal restrictions in the race and sex contexts and considers it within the sexual orientation context. This section explains how government-sponsored segregation has always caused damage to both groups that are taught they must remain separate from one another. Section three discusses how separate can never be equal. It considers the issues of portability of civil unions and federal recognition of them. The essay concludes that, if these two vital aspects of marriage are not also characteristics of civil unions, then they truly are unequal. While we can view civil unions as an important step in the path of civil rights for sexual minorities, historically, steps which have included separate but equal have limited freedom, rather than promoted it

“A Painful Process of Waiting”: The New York, Washington, New Jersey, and Maryland Dissenting Justices Understand that “Same-Sex Marriage” is Not What Same-Sex Couples Are Seeking

This essay focuses on the recent decisions by the highest courts of four states rejecting the claims of individuals in same-sex relationships that they must be permitted to marry the partner of their choice. In the cases of Hernandez v. Robles, Andersen v. King County, Lewis v. Harris, and Conaway v. Deane, a majority or plurality of each court determined that the bans preventing individuals in same-sex couples from marrying were constitutional. Understanding these cases is particularly important as additional state supreme courts address the cases of similar plaintiffs pending before them