Abstract
Changes in what anthropologists understand “clan” to refer to, and the social relations that many sociologists think of as constituting a “nuclear family” are at the centre of this article. It is based on ethnography among Wampar speakers in north-eastern Papua New Guinea (PNG). Among the Wampar, different, sometimes conflicting, transitions relevant to the emergence of the family as an accentuated social entity can be observed; yet all are a result of Christianisation and the local effects of capitalism. Nominally patrilineal clans (sagaseg), after a period when they seemed to have a somewhat diminished social significance, are again crucial social units: a result of the government’s requirement that statutory Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) form the sole legal basis of compensation for land use. At the same time, there has been an increasing emphasis on the nuclear family, which, along with the aspiration for modern lifestyles (and their associated consumption patterns) and education for children, has reconfigured the gendered division of labour. Ideals of companionate marriage and values specific to the nuclear family have become much more critical to social practices. In some families, traditional notions of descent have lost importance to such an extent that some young people are no longer aware of their sagaseg membership. Wampar men and women discuss these conflicting tendencies and argue about the different values that ground them. Which argument prevails often depends on the specific position of the person confronting them.
Highlights
In the late afternoon when the sun is lower, one frequently meets couples coming back from a long, hot day in one of their subsistence gardens near Gabsongkeg, a village in the Markham Valley where I have performed fieldwork since 1997
The possibility of sending children to school is an important site of articulation between the nuclear family, inequalities and relations between the generations; questions of school and university fees, who should be encouraged, and who provides appropriate role models for the young all influence the life-chances of children
NGOs operating in Papua New Guinea (PNG), are crucial to the provision of health, and in social welfare and work with understandings of ‘family’, proper family practices, and domesticity grounded in non-Melanesian lifeways
Summary
In the late afternoon when the sun is lower, one frequently meets couples coming back from a long, hot day in one of their subsistence gardens near Gabsongkeg, a village in the Markham Valley where I have performed fieldwork since 1997. The woman’s head strains against the weight of a netbag full of garden products, which she will prepare with other female relatives for the evening meal Often, she carries a second netbag in which a baby sleeps. The majority of families, called ‘smallholders’ or ‘customary landowners’, still depend on land for food production and access to timber and other vital resources. Today, they hope for income from rents, leases, and royalties or compensation for land use Histories 2022, 2, 15–32.
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