Changing Lives and Livelihoods: Culture, Capitalism and Contestation over Marine Resources in Island Melanesia

Abstract

TThis thesis is both a contemporary and a longitudinal ethnographic case study of Brooker Islanders. Brooker Islanders are a sea-faring people that inhabit a large marine territory in the West Calvados Chain of the Louisiade Archipelago in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea.

In the late 19th Century, Brooker Islanders began to be incorporated into an emerging global economy through the production of various marine resources that were desired by mainly Australian capitalist interests. The most notable of these commodified marine resources was beche-de-mer. Beche-de-mer is the processed form of several sea cucumber species.

The importance of the sea cucumber fishery for Brooker Islanders waned when World War I started. Following the rise of an increasingly affluent China in the early 1990s, the sea cucumber fishery and beche-de-mer trade once again became an important source of cash income for Brooker Islanders. With an increasing dependency on cash and a subsequent decline in sea cucumber stocks, a number of conflicts emerged across the Louisiade Archipelago due to competition to access areas that still held sea cucumbers stocks. In October 2009, the National Fisheries Authority imposed a moratorium on the sea cucumber fishery and beche-de-mer trade. This moratorium remained in place until April 2017. This moratorium caused major impacts on Brooker Islander livelihoods. Brooker Islanders have limited alternative income opportunities available and also have to contend with regular environmental shocks such as cyclones and El Nino associated droughts. An increasing population and projected impacts of climate change make for a very uncertain future for Brooker Islanders.

This thesis is based on anthropological fieldwork, historical research and continued contact with Brooker Islanders that now spans a 22-year period from 1998 to the present. Using a historical political ecology approach, I argue that the incorporation of Brooker Islanders into the global economy and the unevenness of development has produced profound changes in their livelihoods, local marine tenureship arrangements and social relations with their island neighbours. This thesis provides a case study of the role that capitalism plays in changing livelihoods and institutions over time when market opportunities arise and consumer dependencies become essential to maintaining livelihoods. The contestation over commodified marine resources is also viewed in the context of changing political and legal domains. Issues of governability for the sustainability of sea cucumber stocks are also explored. Show more