Dreams, Gender, and Artisanal Mining in Papua New Guinea - (Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories) by Dan Moretti (Hardcover)
About this item
Highlights
- Up to 200,000 Melanesian men, women, and children work as artisanal miners, yet their lifeworlds are seriously under-researched.
- About the Author: Dan Moretti was British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge (2007-2010).
- 342 Pages
- Social Science, Anthropology
- Series Name: Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories
Description
Book Synopsis
Up to 200,000 Melanesian men, women, and children work as artisanal miners, yet their lifeworlds are seriously under-researched. This ethnography of a multigenerational community of migrant miners in Papua New Guinea shows that dreaming mediates how they experience and manage gold mining. Men argue that they alone can mine successfully by forming oneiric marriage bonds with the spirits of the land. Women draw on their own dream experience to challenge this, asserting their equal capacity to marry spirits and their right to mine. For women and men alike, dreams provide legitimations of agency and commentaries on mutual dependencies and moral obligations in the domestic domain and between humans and nonhumans.
Review Quotes
"This is a thoughtful, deeply researched and well-written study of dreaming, gold mining and gender relations in Papua New Guinea. It is a major contribution to several fields at once." - Charles Stewart, University College London
"This is an excellent book: clearly written, interesting and easy to read, impressively erudite." - Roger Lohmann, Trent University
About the Author
Dan Moretti was British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge (2007-2010). Since 2007, he has consulted on projects related to artisanal and small-scale mining in Laos and Papua New Guinea.
