Haggling Highlanders

Marketplaces, Middlemen and Moral Economy in the Papua New Guinean Betel Nut Trade

Bibliographic Data

ID18944318
AuthorsTimothy L M Sharp (0000-0002-5478-642X, Curtin University, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume89
Issue2
Pages182-204
Publication date2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOceania (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-8077 • E-ISSN: 1834-4461
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ocea.5221
OpenAlexW2960553100
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited64

The rise of competitive trade practices represents a significant development in Papua New Guinea's marketplaces. Overt competition and haggling, once conspicuous by their near absence, are now commonplace in the country's betel nut marketplaces, and increasingly visible in many of the large urban fresh food marketplaces. This has emerged with the rise of long‐distance and intermediary trading, and with increasing numbers of people dependent on trade for their livelihood. This paper explores moral economy, and the interactions and negotiations around price between lowland betel nut producers and highland wholesale traders as they occur in marketplaces and in rural production areas. It documents how the moral obligations that arise from trade itself, and entangled with self‐interest, tempers competition and fosters solidarity amongst traders, redirects competition onto their interactions with producers, and in doing so reinforces existing power asymmetries

Agriculture · Biology · Business · Competition (biology) · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Livelihood · Market economy · Negotiation · New guinea · Nut · Political science · Power (physics) · Sociology · Solidarity · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Ecology