Baias, Bisnis, and Betel Nut

The place of Traders in the Making of a Melanesian Market

Dados Bibliográficos

ID24302425
AutoresTimothy L M Sharp (0000-0002-5478-642X)
Ano2013
Páginas227-256
Data de publicação2013-01-01
Open AccessNão
TipoCHAPTER
PeriódicoEngaging with Capitalism (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraEmerald Group Publishing Limited (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1108/s0190-1281(2013)0000033011
OpenAlexW2224586134
ISBN9781781905418
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas40

Purpose – This chapter examines the interactions among wholesale betel nut traders within Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) flourishing, contemporary, and indigenous betel nut trade. It explores the nature of the “social embeddedness” of the trade and how particular “place-based” practices and ideas shape people’s engagements with markets.Methodology/approach – Multisited ethnographic research focused on betel nut traders.Findings – This chapter highlights how local ideas about sociality and exchange shape the copresent rivalry and companionship that characterize interactions among Mt. Hagen’s betel nut traders. Traders travel long distances and take great risks to buy betel nut. They travel together, share resources, and trade in the same places, and through this they become part of one another’s social networks. This creates the expectation that traders will cooperate, consider other traders in their actions, contribute to each other’s safe-keeping, and act collectively in their interactions with producers. This does not preclude competition, however. Traders compete for profits, but the competiveness of their interactions is also influenced by a concern for status. This copresence of companionship and rivalry, which pervades Hagen sociality more broadly, is central to shaping the trade as a whole.Originality/value of the chapter – Betel nut is the most important domestic cash crop in PNG, and selling betel nut is a prominent livelihood activity for rural and urban people. This chapter reports some of the findings of the first detailed study of the betel nut trade in PNG.

cash crops · Domestic market · Papua New Guinea · rural livelihoods · social embeddedness · Social networks · Status · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies