Economies of Care: Market Women’s Agency in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea

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.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.

Olivia Barnett-Naghshineh is a Post-doctorate Research Associate at the University of Exeter, UK, and Fellow at the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK. She is an editor for the Goldsmiths www.decolonialanth.co.uk website and convenor of the Decolonising Anthropology short course at Goldsmiths.