7. The Trouble with Trousers Gossip, Kastom, and Sexual Culture in Vanuatu

Cummings, Maggie; Butt, Leslie; Evers, R.

doi:10.1515/9780824863470-011

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Throughout Vanuatu, keeping women in check continues to be part of a contemporary attempt to control urban women's perceived ‘moral decline’, as well as a male sense of loss of authority over them. A nation‐wide ban on women wearing trousers (see Cummings ), and the prohibition of women drinking kava (see Taylor ) are both examples of attempts to hang on to male hegemony and the subjugation of women. Yet they are also examples of women pushing for gender equality.…”

Section: Conclusion: Refashioning Social Relationships In Townmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Do you have a mobile?’ Mobile phone practices and the refashioning of social relationships in Port Vila Town

Kraemer

2015

Australian J of Anthropology

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Mobile phones have quickly become an important part of young people's social relationships in Port Vila Vanuatu. In particular, young people embrace the new technology's capacity to broaden the breadth of their sociality. They use the mobile phone to facilitate private and secretive communication, engage in unsanctioned relationships, pre-marital sexual relationships, and also multiple concurrent intimate relationships. Literature on mobile phone use often either takes the approach that mobile phone technology becomes purely incorporated into pre-existing social practices, or that it dramatically reshapes social ontologies. The present article argues for an alternative view, one that takes into account the nuances between these two analytical poles. This article suggests that young people use the mobile phone in practices informed by previous models of social relationships, yet the specific materiality of the mobile phone technology is influencing the direction in which models of social relationships are changing. In demonstrating this point, I pay particular attention to two material aspects of the mobile phone technology -the mobile phone as a repository of a particular kind of information -'evidence', and the capacity of the mobile phone to 'disconnect' people from their relationships by switching off the mobile. This article argues that these practices are influencing the emergence of a radically altered kinship and gender landscape in the urban context.

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Section: Conclusion: Refashioning Social Relationships In Townmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Do you have a mobile?’ Mobile phone practices and the refashioning of social relationships in Port Vila Town

Kraemer

2015

Australian J of Anthropology

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“…women wearing trousers, short skirts/dresses, or shorts) also has links to the transmission of rabis sik (i.e. sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS) (Cummings, 2008).…”

Section: Sex Work In Vanuatumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further to the apparent tensions between kastom versus modernity and "foreignness," Mitchell (2002; see also Cummings, 2008) observes how the stigmatising phrase woman blong rod ("woman of the road"), a euphemism for women who sell sex, is a transposition of the phrase rod blong woman ("the path of women"). "Rod blong woman" is associated with the metaphorical understanding of women as "paths" in kastom: through marriage and reproductive labour their wombs are "paths" connecting clans to future generations, and their productive labour is an integral part of the upkeep of kastom ceremonies, and in graded societies, the movement of (often male) kin to higher ranks (Jolly, 1994).…”

Section: Sex Work In Vanuatumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…"Rod blong woman" is associated with the metaphorical understanding of women as "paths" in kastom: through marriage and reproductive labour their wombs are "paths" connecting clans to future generations, and their productive labour is an integral part of the upkeep of kastom ceremonies, and in graded societies, the movement of (often male) kin to higher ranks (Jolly, 1994). So, sex workers in Vanuatu are not only on the margins of Vanuatu society, but are the antithesis of feminine paradigms, and are even conceived to be the catalyst for broader social issues, such as youth delinquency and sexual assault (Cummings, 2008).…”

Section: Sex Work In Vanuatumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sex work, gender and developman in Vanuatu

Burry¹

2019

IJGWS

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The number of people engaging in sex work is increasing in the South Pacific, and the same is true in the context of Vanuatu (an archipelago nation located to the east of Australia) due to the demands of urbanisation alongside underemployment. To understand the experiences of people exchanging sexual acts for money and other goods in urbanising and developing settings, qualitative research was undertaken in Luganville, a rapidly developing town on the northern island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu. Those interviewed were male and female sex workers, "middle men," who manage sexual transactions, a client and an exboyfriend of a local sex worker. Discussions focused on the technicalities of Luganville"s sex industry, as well as sex workers" sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the extent to which sex workers are able to exercise agency during interactions with clients. Expanding on Marshall Sahlin"s (2005) concept of developman, I analyse these interviews through the lens of gender and developmanin Vanuatu; that is, the ways in which gender underpins how ni-Vanuatu have understood, adopted, moulded, and rejected that which is introduced, and who is able to arbitrate, control, and even bestride these changes. I argue that analysing sex work through the lens of gender and developman reveals the specific challenges to ni-Vanuatu sex workers exercising agency, as well as modern configurations of gender in Vanuatu in general.Younger men play a similar role as intermediaries in sexual transactions, brokering interactions between clients and young women whom they know from their street or area, however they are not necessarily paid, at least not to the extent of higher-level middle men. Younger men may also be employed by higher level middle men as "runners"; for instance, they are sent by a middle man to collect a female sex worker from her house and drop her at a place specified by the client. These young men had less claim over the money provided by the client, and are often instead compensated by the middle man in the form of marijuana or kava.Freddie: Sometimes I"m around, but if I"m not present at the time, there"ll be another one of my boys who"ll be around. KB: So, you and your brother [also a middle man] have some boys as well? Freddie: Yes, my brother and I, we"ve got some boys. If a client comes and requests a woman, if we"re too busy, the two of us send one [boy] to go and arrange [the transaction] with the woman. But if our boys aren"t around, we will just go. They are all young guys; we can"t deal with older men, only young guys -they"re easier for us to control. KB: How old are they? Freddie: Like, 18 to 25. KB: Do they also get commission? Freddie: Their commission, we re-pay them in a different way… they don"t receive a cut out of the money we get -that is for us. But there are ways we can compensate them for their work. Like, we"ll give him a small packet of marijuana, and he"ll feel that"s sufficient. Most of them really like smoking weed, so when they want to smoke weed, then, OK, give them som...

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“…A proper, urban woman dresses in a wide, long Mother Hubbard dress . Younger women might challenge the dress code and wear shorter dresses, or even trousers (see also Cummings ). There are constant complaints in church for instance about the impossibility of controlling young girls and their dressing habits.…”

Section: The ‘Interiorisation’ Of Femininitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The virtuous woman and the holy nation: Femininity in the context of Pentecostal Christianity in Vanuatu

Eriksen

2016

Australian J of Anthropology

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In this paper I connect an anthropology of Christianity to an anthropology of the body and an anthropology of the nation. I try to achieve this by looking at changing notions of femininity in the Pentecostal context of Vanuatu. I do this on two different levels; on the one hand I show how the meaning of womanhood is changed in what I call the 'pentecostalised' neighborhoods of the capital Port Vila, and on the other I show how the household and the nation become contexts into which this new notion of femininity is played. Thus, in the first part of the paper I look at the ways in which Pentecostal Christianity change the meaning of gender, whereas in the second part of the paper I look at how this new form of gendered meaning has relevance for our understanding of wider social contexts.

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7. The Trouble with Trousers Gossip, Kastom, and Sexual Culture in Vanuatu

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

‘Do you have a mobile?’ Mobile phone practices and the refashioning of social relationships in Port Vila Town

‘Do you have a mobile?’ Mobile phone practices and the refashioning of social relationships in Port Vila Town

Sex work, gender and developman in Vanuatu

The virtuous woman and the holy nation: Femininity in the context of Pentecostal Christianity in Vanuatu

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