The Social Life of Rights: ‘Gender Antagonism’, Modernity and Raet in Vanuatu

Abstract

In the northern Vanuatu town of Luganville a small group of men have responded to social and legal changes engendered by women's rights activists by forming a male support group called ‘Violence Against Men’. Members of this ‘backlash’ movement argue that the insidious promotion of Western‐style ‘women's rights’ is leading to discrimination against men in divorce proceedings, child custody battles, and in domestic violence and rape cases. They directly oppose recent and ongoing legal changes aimed at protecting women from domestic violence, such as Domestic Violence Protection Court Orders, and the repeatedly tabled (but long‐delayed) ‘Family Protection Bill’. Such interventions, they argue, undermine Vanuatu's ‘natural’kastom and Christian patriarchal gender order and, in doing so, pose a serious threat to the socio‐economic productivity of the nation‐state. For other men, however, rather than opposing women's rights activism, such challenges have raised questions about how men might successfully negotiate their identities in ways that are sensitive to contemporary issues of gender equality without undermining existing paradigms. Thus, this paper addresses the value accorded to universalism and relativism in gender activism in Vanuatu, and especially in terms of the linked discourses of kastom, church and modernity. It therefore explores gender relations in terms of the contemporary entanglement of indigenous and exogenous epistemologies, and in doing so argues that the contextual analysis of ‘rights’ should consider the specific historical, political and socio‐cultural circumstances in which they are put to use.

Kindy and grassroots gender transformations in Solomon Islands

“…They can also be seen as ideological products of indigenous elites who have already captured the benefits of education and other services and economic opportunities and seek to justify their position by arguing that the 'innocent population' of Melanesian subsistence horticulturalists has no real need of such Western impositions (Golub 2014;Hau'ofa 1987). These views often entail condescending and oppressive views of the place of women in society and may seek to 'protect' women from the corrupting and destabilising influence of 'foreign' ideas such as women's rights or gender equity (George 2012;Taylor 2008). …”

“…Nor was he personally threatened by the new paradigm, as some men have been (Taylor 2008). Indeed, as the quotes from Iriqila (a large village in North Vella Lavella) reproduced by Pauline Soaki (this volume) indicate, Solomon Islands women themselves often find rights discourse troubling and frame it in opposition to kastom.…”

Gender Violence in Melanesia and the Problem of Millennium Development Goal No. 3

“…These objectives require strategies for reducing or removing their power over women's bodies; disallowing their use of force to pursue their own interests; removing customary or accepted rights to services provided by women; taking from men the rights and powers that entitle them to discipline and punish those whom they see as their social inferiors; and enabling women to participate in domains of power that men consider exclusively theirs. Moreover, men are alert to the implications for their authority if women's rights are protected by the state and as John Taylor has indicated in his work on Vanuatu (Taylor 2008), they are prepared to defend their privileges as customary rights. Even if there are people in government who support such social, economic and cultural changes, the task cannot easily be represented as inspired by the favoured 'bottom-up' approach to aid that is universally supported.…”

Gender struggles of educated men in the Papuan highlands

“…Scholarship that foregrounds men's perspectives and lived engagements with contemporary gender values and expectations can contribute nuanced insights into gendered struggles around inequality and cultural change (e.g. Brison 1995;Kempf 2002;Taylor 2008). Drawing on periods of ethnographic research with educated Dani men from the Papuan highlands (Indonesia) between 2005 and 2013, in this chapter I consider what insights can be generated by looking at the experiences and views of men who actively consider and try to pursue modern gender ideals, but whose efforts may be thwarted, go awry, or result in unpredictable outcomes.…”