Economies of Care: Market Women in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea [Hardcover]

Economies of Careexplores 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 Carespeaks 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.

Examines emotional aspects of economic life in the marketplaces of Papua New Guinea, where market women's labour is a nexus for gender relations.Olivia Barnett-Naghshinehis a social anthropologist and postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University. She is also a Research Associate with the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia. She has taught courses in Decolonising Anthropology and Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The words and feelings of women marketing produce in Goroka give the author a fresh view on how to interpret the moral economy that drives their aspirations. This spirited account, at once endorsing and challenging the ethnographic record, will open out in a very accessible way to a wide readership. Marilyn Strathern, author of Women in Between

This book is based on 12 months lS