To read this content please select one of the options below:

Global Warming or Cash Economy? Discourses of Climate Change and Food in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea

Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations

ISBN: 978-1-78560-361-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-360-0

Publication date: 22 September 2015

Abstract

Purpose

This paper describes the different ways in which people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea are talking about climate change. It demonstrates that people locate themselves in this process of change in terms of food production and exchange, and that some of the changes being witnessed are also related to the impacts of a growing cash economy on social relations.

Methodology/approach

This ethnography involved 12 months fieldwork including participant observation and interviews.

Research limitations/implications

This is a qualitative study that recognises the perspective of local people for understanding culturally mediated experiences of climate change. However, data regarding rainfall and temperatures over time would be a useful addition for thinking about the extent to which the climate has in fact changed in recent years.

Practical implications

The implications of this paper are that the predictions made in 1990 about increases in production as a result of climate change are apparently coming true, with benefits for some food and coffee producers. But that there are complex social processes occurring at the same time as climate change that mean people’s ability to adapt is dependent on other social conditions. Maintaining ecologically sustainable methods of production and local cultural practices may enable more resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Originality/value

The experiences of people living in the Eastern Highlands and the ways in which people use the discourse of climate change are yet to be acknowledged in policy circles or socio-cultural anthropology literature. This paper presents a partial account of how people in Papua New Guinea are experiencing and talking about change.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Significant thanks go to the numerous families and communities in Goroka that welcomed me and told me their stories, showed me their gardens and shared their food. I could not have conducted this research without the permission and support of Papua New Guinea’s National Research Institute in Port Moresby and the support of the Marsden Grant, Royal Society of New Zealand. Since returning from Goroka, I owe many thanks to Mark Busse, Cris Shore, Robin Hide, Richard Eves, Geir Presterudstuen, Yasmine Musharbash, Jane Horan, Samuel Taylor-Alexander, Fraser MacDonald and Correlli Barnett, as well as the anonymous reviewers, who gave me substantial feedback and suggested edits during the writing of this paper. Thanks go to Briar Sefton, University of Auckland for illustrations.

Citation

Barnett-Naghshineh, O. (2015), "Global Warming or Cash Economy? Discourses of Climate Change and Food in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea", Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 107-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120150000035005

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited