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

by Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh (Author)

Economies of Care explores 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 Care speaks to scholars and students of anthropology, gender studies, Pacific studies, food studies and political economy.

Author Biography

Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh is 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.