Among the Wola people of Papua New Guinea, our category economy is problematic. Distribution is unnecessary; the producers of everyday needs are the consumers: produce goes largely “from land to mouth” – with no implication that resources are scarce. Yet transactions featuring valuable things -- which are scarce -- are a prominent aspect of life, where sociopolitical exchange figures prominently. The relationship –- or rather the disconnection –- between these two domains is central to understanding the fiercely egalitarian political-economy. In this detailed investigation of a Highland New Guinea agricultural ‘economy’ and acephalous political order—the most thorough inquiry into such a tropical subsistence farming system ever undertaken—esteemed anthropologist Paul Sillitoe interrogates the relevance of key economic ideas in noncapitalist contexts and challenges anthropological shibboleths such as the “gift.” Furthermore, he makes a reactionary-cum-innovative contribution to research methods and analysis, drawing on advances in information technology to manage large data sets. 
Over a span of more than three decades, Sillitoe has compiled a huge body of ethnography, gaining unprecedented insights into Highlands’ social, economic, and agricultural arrangements. He uses these here to illuminate economic thought in nonmarket contexts, advancing an integrated set of principles underpinning a stateless-subsistence order comparable to that of economists for the state-market. Sillitoe’s insights have implications for economic development programs in regions where capitalist assumptions have limited relevance, following his advocacy of development interventions more respectful of existing social orders.

From Land to Mouth: The Agricultural "Economy" of the Wola of the New Guinea Highlands (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)

Business & Money

Sillitoe, Paul

Industries

Yale University Press

Managing Animals in New Guinea (Studies in Environmental Anthropology)

Managing Animals in New Guinea analyzes the place of animals in the lives of New Guinea Highlanders. Looking at issues of zoological classification, hunting of wild animals and management of domesticated ones, notably pigs, it asks how natural parameters affect people's livelihood strategies and their relations with animals and the wider environment.

Managing Animals in New Guinea: Preying the Game in the Highlands (Studies in Environmental Anthropology)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Routledge

Managing Animals in New Guinea analyzes the place of animals in the lives of New Guinea Highlanders. Looking at issues of zoological classification, hunting of wild animals and management of domesticated ones, notably pigs, it asks how natural parameters affect people's livelihood strategies and their relations with animals and the wider environment.

Anthropology

An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition

Melanesia has always been a popular fieldwork site for anthropologists, including Bronislaw Malinowski and Margaret Mead. Many of the most important theoretical contributions to anthropology were first formulated with reference to Melanesian studies. This book is intended for undergraduate students with some grounding in the issues and ideas that inform the discipline. It will be useful at an introductory or intermediate level for undergraduate studies in general anthropology, or for courses on Pacific cultures.

Cambridge University Press

Melanesia has always been a popular fieldwork site for anthropologists, including Bronislaw Malinowski and Margaret Mead. Many of the most important theoretical contributions to anthropology were first formulated with reference to Melanesian studies. This book is intended for undergraduate students with some grounding in the issues and ideas that inform the discipline. It will be useful at an introductory or intermediate level for undergraduate studies in general anthropology, or for courses on Pacific cultures.

Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History

This book offers a clear and absorbing account of social change in Melanesia since the arrival of Europeans, covering the colonial period and the history of the new postcolonial states. It discusses economic and technological change, urbanization, the development of the modern state--and the often violent reactions to these dramatic transformations. The book also considers the dilemmas of development that threaten the environment.

Made in Niugini: Technology in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

History

Australia & Oceania

British Museum Publications, Ltd.

Negotiating Local Knowledge: Power and Identity in Development (Anthropology, Culture and Society)

The contributors to this volume offer an original approach to debates about indigenous knowledge. Concentrating on the political economy of knowledge construction and dissemination, they look at the variety of ways in which development policies are received and constructed, to reveal the ways in which local knowledges are appropriated and recast, either by local elites or by development agencies.Until now, debates about indigenous knowledge have largely been conducted in terms of agricultural and environmental issues such as bio-piracy and gene patenting. The contributors to this volume break new ground by opening up the theoretical debate to include areas such as post-war traumatic stress counselling, representations of nuclear capability, architecture, mining, and the politics of eco-tourism. Their findings have important implications for anthropology, development studies and other related disciplines.

Pottier, Johan

Bicker, Alan

Economics

Pluto Press

This monograph provides a range of materials on subsistence gardening practices in different parts of the highlands region of Papua New Guinea.  It consists of one main case study executed in considerable depth of detail on a single people, the Wola, by Sillitoe; followed by a comparative sketch on gardening patterns in three areas, inhabited by the Duna, Pangia, and Hagen peoples, by Stewart and Strathern.  This comparative sketch is intended to illustrate similarities in overall practices between different parts of the Highlands, showing that the Wola gardening system is characteristic of a wider regimen found throughout the region.  The sketch is also intended to introduce some broad suggestions on how gardening patterns may have developed and diffused over time in particular parts of the Highlands.  We do not deal with questions of change resulting from cash-cropping of coffee, tea, and vegetables, although these changes have greatly impacted gardening arrangements since the 1950s in most parts of the Highlands.  The monograph as a whole contributes significantly to debates on the history of argricultural practices in the Highlands, where Jack Golson’s work has established a considerable time depth for agriculture at Kuk in the Hagen area; on the relative efficiency of stone versus steel tools; and on the precise details of subsistence practices in terms of inputs and crop production among the Wola.

Horticulture in Papua New Guinea: Case Studies from the Southern and Western Highlands (Ethnology Monograph Series No. 18)

Science & Math

Strathern, Andrew

Stewart, Pamela J.

Agricultural Sciences

University of Pittsburgh

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sillitoe, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sillitoe, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sillitoe, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

From Land to Mouth: The Agricultural "Economy" of the Wola of the New Guinea Highlands (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)

Managing Animals in New Guinea: Preying the Game in the Highlands (Studies in Environmental Anthropology)

Managing Animals in New Guinea (Studies in Environmental Anthropology)

An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition

An Introduction to the Anthropology of Melanesia: Culture and Tradition

Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History

Social Change in Melanesia: Development and History

Made in Niugini: Technology in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

Negotiating Local Knowledge: Power and Identity in Development (Anthropology, Culture and Society)

Horticulture in Papua New Guinea: Case Studies from the Southern and Western Highlands (Ethnology Monograph Series No. 18)