ABSTRACT
Even the category of ‘development’ itself is problematic in its use to define, describe, and consider economic and social change in particular Pacific societies. What we as ethnographers can document and analyze is historical change and the accommodations that are made by people to changing circumstances (Friedman and Carrier, 1996; Stewart and Strathern, 2002a; Strathern and Stewart, 2004). In this chapter we examine Sahlins’ theoretical propositions about ‘development’ in the Pacific through an analysis of changing exchange and marriage practices in Highlands Papua New Guinea, and specifically in Mt. Hagen where moka, competitive exchanges, entered into a decline in the 1990s. The earlier cycles of moka exchange were replaced by large, single, unilateral compensation payments for killings (see Strathern and Stewart, 2003), by increased competitive brideprice prestations (Stewart and Strathern, 1998a), and by the intertwining of exchanges with parliamentary politics.
