Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier

Q: What does this research mean for the field?

The Mengen people of Papua New Guinea actively produce places, social relations, and economic value through their labor and practices on a resource frontier. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.INCREMENTAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

John Cox

doi:10.1080/0030851x.2026.2730858

September 14, 2026Pacific Affairs

Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier

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Key Points

Examine how prolonged labor and resource extraction transform indigenous social relations, landscape production, and concepts of value among the Mengen people.
Long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted over nearly two decades in East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea.
Qualitative analysis of daily labor practices, customary land tenure, and community interactions with industrial resource frontiers.
Physical labor acts as a primary mechanism through which local actors establish spatial claims and define territorial boundaries amidst external resource development.
Engagement with extractive resource frontiers reorganizes customary kinship relations and traditional systems of moral and material value.

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Implication

Ethnographic study reveals how labor reshapes landscapes and cultural value among the Mengen, highlighting the social dynamics of resource extraction.

Abstract

Hard Work, Tuomas Tammisto’s critical account of the Mengen people, is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province over nearly two decades. The resourc...

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Cite This Study

John Cox (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aa913819013453be30a1656 https://doi.org/10.1080/0030851x.2026.2730858

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Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier

Key Points

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Implication

Abstract

Discussion

Cite This Study

Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier

Key Points

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Implication

Abstract

Discussion

Cite This Study

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