Money and Values in Urban Settlement Households in Port Moresby Part 1: Money is Important, So Are Children, Water and Firewood

This In Brief presents some preliminary findings of my doctoral research examining the politicaleconomy context of livelihoods in urban informal settlements in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It highlights the gendered dimensions of economic engagement, household livelihood choices, and the importance of situating these issues within economic processes occurring in the urban context.AusAI

Nahau, Pihi Manus, Pilapan: Hegemony's gender as artefacts of history

It is a pleasure to contribute to the book forum on the republication of the book Culture and History in the Pacific. My contribution comprises two parts. In the first part, I briefly reflect on the book and its current relevance and highlight some issues that resonate with me. In the second part, I provide a more personal response to the book. Together, I hope that this two-part reflection shows the important place this book has in mediating past and present contributions and challenges in anthropological practice

Big Men Drink Beer; Drunk Big Men Do Not Hit Women

Alcohol-related violence among security-sector forces in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG), highlights ongoing concerns regarding security and violence. This In Brief explores the question: what can studies of material culture, commodities or substances offer to policymakers addressing the social, political and economic implications of alcohol?AusAI

Money and Value in Urban Settlement Households in Port Moresby Part 2: Understanding Spatial and Income Inequality Through Housing Choices

This In Brief highlights how different land and housing regimes in Port Moresby, the national capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG), drive spatial and income inequality in the city. Among the issues I explore in my PhD research are the housing challenges that people face in Moresby and the strategies they pursue to access land and housing in settlements. I draw on two sets of preliminary data collected as part of my research. The first is ethnographic and income data based on a survey of 32 households in the ATS settlement1 in Moresby where I conducted fieldwork over a six-month period in 2013. The second dataset, comprising advertised rental and sale prices of properties in Moresby, is compiled from newspaper advertisementsAusAI

The Formal, the Informal, and the Precarious: Making a Living in Urban Papua New Guinea

For many Papua New Guineans, the dominant accounts of 'the economy' � contained within development reports, government documents and the media � do not adequately reflect their experiences of making a living. Large-scale resource extraction, the private sector, export cash cropping and wage employment have dominated these accounts. Meanwhile, the broader economic picture has remained obscured, and the diversity of economic practices, including a flourishing 'informal' economy, has routinely been overlooked and undervalued. Addressing this gap, this paper provides some grounded examples of the diverse livelihood strategies people employ in Papua New Guinea's growing urban centres. We examine the strategies people employ to sustain themselves materially, and focus on how people acquire and recirculate money. We reveal the interconnections between a diverse range of economic activities, both formal and informal. In doing so, we complicate any clear narrative that might, for example, associate waged employment with economic security, or street selling with precarity and urban poverty. Our work is informed by observations of people's daily lives, and conversations with security guards (Stephanie Lusby), the salaried middle class (John Cox), women entrepreneurs (Ceridwen Spark), residents from the urban settlements (Michelle Rooney) and betel nut traders and vendors (Timothy Sharp). Collectively, our work takes an urban focus, yet the flows and connectivity between urban and rural, and our focus on livelihood strategies, means much of our discussion is also relevant to rural people and places. Our examples, drawn from urban centres throughout the country, each in their own way illustrate something of the diversity of economic activity in urban PNG. Our material captures the innovation and experimentation of people's responses to precarity in contemporary PNG.AusAI

Falling Through the Net? Gender and Social Protection in the Pacific

This paper examines the gender dimensions and implications of social protection in relation to rapid transformations in the globalizing economies in the Pacific region. The paper analyzes the dynamics of gender and social protection in three countries of the region -- Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu -- and explores how best to approach social protection so as to promote gender equality rather than risk reinscribing prevailing gender inequalities. The paper emphasizes the need to move beyond bipolar divisions of customary and commodity economies or informal and formal economies to consider the everyday realities of making a living. Women will 'fall through the net' if social protection is unduly yoked to the public sphere of the state and the formal commodity economy in which women are marginalised. Women's own perceptions of their contemporary situation and their agency as both individuals and collectivities should be carefully heeded in finding creative solutions for gender equality in social protection for sustainable Pacific futures. The paper concludes by suggestion that efforts to ensure women's social protection in the Pacific need to be alert to the risks that women might 'fall through the net.' This paper was produced for UN Women's flagship report Progress of the World's Women 2015-2016 to be released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series

Leaving it at the gate:Phenomenological exploration of resilience in mental health nurses in a high secure personality disorder unit

Aims & design:This study reports a qualitative phenomenological investigation of resilience in nursing staff working in a high secure personality disorder service.Method:Interviews were carried with six nursing staff, and these captured the richness and complexity of the lived experience of nursing staff.Results:Four superordinate themes emerged from the analysis: Management of emotions: participants showed an awareness that their job is about giving care to patients who may present with very challenging behaviours. The care that they offered appeared to be conceptualised as something that needed to be provided in a measured way, with boundaries. A clear distinction was drawn between ‘caring personally’ for patients, and ‘providing care’. Teamwork: teamwork was cited as a major influencing factor by all participants. This was seen as directly impacting on the smooth running of the ward, and therefore on the wellbeing of staff, but also of patients. Understanding: staff were acutely aware that they were working in an environment where everyday interactions would be open to intense scrutiny and possible misinterpretation by patients. Work-life balance: All participants spoke of making a conscious effort to have a separate work and home life, which appeared to be influenced by a number of factors.Conclusion:There was an acknowledgment of the emotional labour of the work, and discussions about how they managed within this demonstrated an emotionally intelligent approach to their own health, wellbeing and resilience.Impact:In secure environments mental health nurses need organisational support and assistance to develop ways of managing difficult experiences with patients, systems that promote recovery, and the educational and supervisory support to help understand and process the effects on them. This paper provides evidence to support the work of managers and clinicians in these environment

The Productivity Consequences of Two Ergonomic Interventions

Pre- and post-intervention data on health outcomes, absenteeism, and productivity from a longitudinal, quasi-experimental design field study of office workers was used to evaluate the economic consequences of two ergonomic interventions. Researchers assigned individuals in the study to three groups: a group that received an ergonomically designed chair and office ergonomics training; a group that received office ergonomics training only; and a control group. The results show that while training alone has neither a statistically significant effect on health nor productivity, the chair-with-training intervention substantially reduced pain and improved productivity. Neither intervention affected sick leave hours.ergonomics, chair, pain, DeRango, Upjohn

Leaving it at the gate:Phenomenological exploration of resilience in mental health nurses in a high secure personality disorder unit

Aims & design:This study reports a qualitative phenomenological investigation of resilience in nursing staff working in a high secure personality disorder service.Method:Interviews were carried with six nursing staff, and these captured the richness and complexity of the lived experience of nursing staff.Results:Four superordinate themes emerged from the analysis: Management of emotions: participants showed an awareness that their job is about giving care to patients who may present with very challenging behaviours. The care that they offered appeared to be conceptualised as something that needed to be provided in a measured way, with boundaries. A clear distinction was drawn between ‘caring personally’ for patients, and ‘providing care’. Teamwork: teamwork was cited as a major influencing factor by all participants. This was seen as directly impacting on the smooth running of the ward, and therefore on the wellbeing of staff, but also of patients. Understanding: staff were acutely aware that they were working in an environment where everyday interactions would be open to intense scrutiny and possible misinterpretation by patients. Work-life balance: All participants spoke of making a conscious effort to have a separate work and home life, which appeared to be influenced by a number of factors.Conclusion:There was an acknowledgment of the emotional labour of the work, and discussions about how they managed within this demonstrated an emotionally intelligent approach to their own health, wellbeing and resilience.Impact:In secure environments mental health nurses need organisational support and assistance to develop ways of managing difficult experiences with patients, systems that promote recovery, and the educational and supervisory support to help understand and process the effects on them. This paper provides evidence to support the work of managers and clinicians in these environment

"We Want Development": Land and Water (Dis)connections in Port Moresby, Urban Papua New Guinea

This article examines development practices of residents, who are also migrants and citizens, living in informal settlements in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Using the analytical frame of the nexus between development and land, I problematize PNG’s national development discourse in the urban context. By examining the connections and disconnections between local practice and national and international development discourse, I highlight how informal processes, development discourse, and land discourse in PNG intersect to spatialize development practices and outcomes in urban spaces. Citizens who informally occupy state land are trapped by the legal fault lines of state land tenure, and, consequently, their efforts to obtain services are rendered informal or illegal in development policies. The outcomes of their efforts to secure services and their relationships with state actors are in turn characterized by disconnections and connections according to their ability to meet policy conditions and engage with the state actors. Urban space in PNG is a construct of a colonial legacy of property. It is also coconstructed by contemporary policies that spatialize development services in the urban context and by Indigenous social values and collective responses to overcome systemic and structural impediments to achieving development goals