Full Description
Economies of Care explores how women market traders in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, navigate a complex moral economy rooted in care, reciprocity, and spiritual value. Challenging Western, individualistic assumptions of classical economic theory, this open access book foregrounds emotional labour and community responsibility as central to economic life.
Through vivid ethnographic storytelling, Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh reveals how women's economic choices are shaped not by personal gain, but by relational ethics and cosmological worldviews. Set against the backdrop of climate change, urbanization, and colonial-capitalist disruption, this book also proposes agro-ecology as a just and sustainable alternative.
A bold and timely intervention in feminist anthropology, Economies of Care speaks to scholars and students of anthropology, gender studies, Pacific studies, food studies and political economy.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.
Contents
Introduction - Research for Whom?
1. Gender in the Marketplace: the Coloniality of Shame and Queering Gendered Moralities
2. Money, Marriage and Relational Agency: Part One
3. Women's economies of Care: A Gratitude plant
4. Broccoli Moralities: Alienation and Emotions
5. My Own Braidprais I Shall Pay: Money, Marriage and Gendered Agencies Part Two
6. Big Women: Caring Entrepreneurial Women
Conclusion
