ON BEING MODERN PEOPLE: ABANDONMENT OF PIG HUSBANDRY IN HAIVARO, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Authors

Sandrine Lefort, University of Melbourne, Australia/Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, Paris, France

Abstract

The abandonment of pig husbandry by several communities in Papua New Guinea has been explained in terms of hygiene, Christianity, and economics or combinations of all three. At Haivaro—a small village in the lowlands of northwestern Gulf Province—these three factors were reinforced by an emerging desire to act, and be seen, as “modern.” A progressive decrease in social occasions that entailed the exchange of pigs or the sharing of pork, combined with increased availability of new modern items, led Haivaro people to revalue their world in monetary terms. In this process, they developed a sense that some of their past practices were antithetical to their desire to be modern. In this context, and for this reason, they chose to abandon pig husbandry.

Recommended Citation

Lefort, Sandrine (2017) "ON BEING MODERN PEOPLE: ABANDONMENT OF PIG HUSBANDRY IN HAIVARO, PAPUA NEW GUINEA," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 40: No. 3, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol40/iss3/2