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Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea

Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2019 Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 369–375 Book Reviews JOHN COX Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2018 Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea is an ethnographically grounded study of a money scheme called U-Vistract. Founded in the late 1990s by King David Peil II of the Kingdom of Papala (aka, Noah Musingku of Bougainville), enticing investors with rates of return of 100 per cent per month, at first glance this scheme looks like a classic twenty-first century version of a Melanesian cargo cult. Cox persuasively argues that, despite some similarities, this is not the case; what he offers instead is an invitation to ruminate on the role of deception in the world of global money and finance today. Cox’s argument is founded on two key moves. First, his principal informants, the investors taken in by the scheme, were all highly educated members of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) middle class from different parts of the country. He conducted inter- views with some 26 people, whose ages, occupations, and regional affiliations appear in a table in the front matter of the book. Transcriptions of these interviews form the eth- nographical backbone of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Taylor & Francis

Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea

Gregory, Chris
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology , Volume 20 (4): 3 – Aug 8, 2019
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Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2019 Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 369–375 Book Reviews JOHN COX Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2018 Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea is an ethnographically grounded study of a money scheme called U-Vistract. Founded in the late 1990s by King David Peil II of the Kingdom of Papala (aka, Noah Musingku of Bougainville), enticing investors with rates of return of 100 per cent per month, at first glance this...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2019 Chris Gregory
ISSN
1740-9314
eISSN
1444-2213
DOI
10.1080/14442213.2019.1636346
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2019 Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 369–375 Book Reviews JOHN COX Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2018 Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea is an ethnographically grounded study of a money scheme called U-Vistract. Founded in the late 1990s by King David Peil II of the Kingdom of Papala (aka, Noah Musingku of Bougainville), enticing investors with rates of return of 100 per cent per month, at first glance this scheme looks like a classic twenty-first century version of a Melanesian cargo cult. Cox persuasively argues that, despite some similarities, this is not the case; what he offers instead is an invitation to ruminate on the role of deception in the world of global money and finance today. Cox’s argument is founded on two key moves. First, his principal informants, the investors taken in by the scheme, were all highly educated members of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) middle class from different parts of the country. He conducted inter- views with some 26 people, whose ages, occupations, and regional affiliations appear in a table in the front matter of the book. Transcriptions of these interviews form the eth- nographical backbone of

Journal

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Aug 8, 2019

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