Home-Brewed Alcohol, Gender, and Violence in the West Papuan Highlands

Abstract

Alcohol is officially banned in the West Papuan highlands, but home-brewed alcohol (minuman lokal in Indonesian, literally, 'local drink') is inexpensive, widely available, and transforming interpersonal, political, and gendered violence in the area. Scholarship on alcohol in the Pacific views consumption as a mode of male social differentiation related to racialised power and status, owing to the gendered, colonial history of alcohol consumption (Marshall 1982), as well as the 'prestige economy' of burgeoning resource sectors (Macintyre and Bainton 2013). In contrast to beer and other forms of alcohol, home-brew has received less attention. Show more