Wayward Women : Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society.

By: Wardlow, HollyMaterial type: TextTextPublisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, 2006Copyright date: ©2006Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (227 pages)Content type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780520938977Subject(s): Bride price -- Papua New Guinea -- Tari District | Courtship -- Papua New Guinea -- Tari District | Tari District (Papua New Guinea) -- Economic conditions | Tari District (Papua New Guinea) -- Social conditions | Women, Huli -- Papua New Guinea -- Tari District -- Economic conditions | Women, Huli -- Papua New Guinea -- Tari District -- Social conditions | Women, Huli -- Sexual behavior -- Papua New Guinea -- Tari DistrictGenre/Form: Electronic books.Additional physical formats: Print version:: Wayward Women : Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea SocietyDDC classification: 305.409956/1 LOC classification: DU740.42 -- .W354 2006ebOnline resources: Click to View
Contents:
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. "Tari is a jelas place": The Fieldwork Setting -- 2. "To finish my anger": Body and Agency among Huli Women -- 3. "I am not the daughter of a pig!": The Changing Dynamics of Bridewealth -- 4. "You, I don't even count you": Becoming a Pasinja Meri -- 5. "Eating her own vagina": Passenger Women and Sexuality -- 6. "When the pig and the bamboo knife are ready": The Huli Dawe Anda -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index.
Summary: Written with uncommon grace and clarity, this extremely engaging ethnography analyzes female agency, gendered violence, and transactional sex in contemporary Papua New Guinea. Focusing on Huli "passenger women," (women who accept money for sex) Wayward Women explores the socio-economic factors that push women into the practice of transactional sex, and asks how these transactions might be an expression of resistance, or even revenge. Challenging conventional understandings of "prostitution" and "sex work," Holly Wardlow contextualizes the actions and intentions of passenger women in a rich analysis of kinship, bridewealth, marriage, and exchange, revealing the ways in which these robust social institutions are transformed by an encompassing capitalist economy. Many passenger women assert that they have been treated "olsem maket" (like market goods) by their husbands and natal kin, and they respond by fleeing home and defiantly appropriating their sexuality for their own purposes. Experiences of rape, violence, and the failure of kin to redress such wrongs figure prominently in their own stories about becoming "wayward." Drawing on village court cases, hospital records, and women's own raw, caustic , and darkly funny narratives, Wayward Women provides a riveting portrait of the way modernity engages with gender to produce new and contested subjectivities.
Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.
    Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)
No physical items for this record

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. "Tari is a jelas place": The Fieldwork Setting -- 2. "To finish my anger": Body and Agency among Huli Women -- 3. "I am not the daughter of a pig!": The Changing Dynamics of Bridewealth -- 4. "You, I don't even count you": Becoming a Pasinja Meri -- 5. "Eating her own vagina": Passenger Women and Sexuality -- 6. "When the pig and the bamboo knife are ready": The Huli Dawe Anda -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Written with uncommon grace and clarity, this extremely engaging ethnography analyzes female agency, gendered violence, and transactional sex in contemporary Papua New Guinea. Focusing on Huli "passenger women," (women who accept money for sex) Wayward Women explores the socio-economic factors that push women into the practice of transactional sex, and asks how these transactions might be an expression of resistance, or even revenge. Challenging conventional understandings of "prostitution" and "sex work," Holly Wardlow contextualizes the actions and intentions of passenger women in a rich analysis of kinship, bridewealth, marriage, and exchange, revealing the ways in which these robust social institutions are transformed by an encompassing capitalist economy. Many passenger women assert that they have been treated "olsem maket" (like market goods) by their husbands and natal kin, and they respond by fleeing home and defiantly appropriating their sexuality for their own purposes. Experiences of rape, violence, and the failure of kin to redress such wrongs figure prominently in their own stories about becoming "wayward." Drawing on village court cases, hospital records, and women's own raw, caustic , and darkly funny narratives, Wayward Women provides a riveting portrait of the way modernity engages with gender to produce new and contested subjectivities.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.

Powered by Koha