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What Labour Engenders1: Women and Men, Time and Work in the New Guinea Highlands

What Labour Engenders1: Women and Men, Time and Work in the New Guinea Highlands Debates over equality in New Guinea have raged for years. While people may subscribe to egalitarian values, this seems hollow to some observers in the context of relations between women and men, notably the sexual division of labour. Some even talk of men exploiting the labour of women. This paper considers the validity of these claims in the Was valley of the Southern Highlands Province, using data collected in a time-budget survey to document and assess differences between women's and men's activities. It also reviews ideas of time expended undertaking any activity, and the relevance of notions of work and labour to people's daily routines. It questions the propriety of introducing capitalism's preoccupation with labour. Differences in the activities of women and men, far from evidencing relations of inequality, are significant for such stateless political orders in eschewing hierarchical arrangements, where no one exercises control over resources or capital needed by others to secure livelihoods. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Taylor & Francis

What Labour Engenders1: Women and Men, Time and Work in the New Guinea Highlands

Sillitoe, Paul
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology , Volume 7 (2): 33 – Aug 1, 2006
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33 pages

What Labour Engenders1: Women and Men, Time and Work in the New Guinea Highlands

Abstract

Debates over equality in New Guinea have raged for years. While people may subscribe to egalitarian values, this seems hollow to some observers in the context of relations between women and men, notably the sexual division of labour. Some even talk of men exploiting the labour of women. This paper considers the validity of these claims in the Was valley of the Southern Highlands Province, using data collected in a time-budget survey to document and assess differences between women's and...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
Copyright The Australian National University
ISSN
1740-9314
eISSN
1444-2213
DOI
10.1080/14442210600765053
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Debates over equality in New Guinea have raged for years. While people may subscribe to egalitarian values, this seems hollow to some observers in the context of relations between women and men, notably the sexual division of labour. Some even talk of men exploiting the labour of women. This paper considers the validity of these claims in the Was valley of the Southern Highlands Province, using data collected in a time-budget survey to document and assess differences between women's and men's activities. It also reviews ideas of time expended undertaking any activity, and the relevance of notions of work and labour to people's daily routines. It questions the propriety of introducing capitalism's preoccupation with labour. Differences in the activities of women and men, far from evidencing relations of inequality, are significant for such stateless political orders in eschewing hierarchical arrangements, where no one exercises control over resources or capital needed by others to secure livelihoods.

Journal

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Aug 1, 2006

Keywords: Economic Anthropology; Time; Work; Gender

References

  • ‘Work and value: reflections on ideas of Karl Marx’
  • ‘La “monnaie de sel” des Baruya de Nouvelle Guinée’
  • ‘Two essays concerning the symbolic representation of time’
  • ‘Production and inequality: perspectives from central New Guinea’
  • ‘Rethinking women's exploitation: the Duna case and material basis of big man systems’
  • ‘Gift exchange in the Mendi Valley’
  • ‘Meeting the Mendi’
  • ‘Counting on local knowledge’
  • ‘Some Wola thoughts on the year 2000’
  • ‘Introduction’