Poster (EARTH)

[PE1-066] The Impact of Natural Gas Development on Marriages among Subsistence Farmers in the Papua New Guinea Highlands.

○Kiyoshi Tadokoro¹ (1. Akita University)

Keywords:bridewealth, local community, natural gas development, Huli people, cultural anthropology

It has been acknowledged that the development of natural resources causes social and environmental change in the local community. However, there is no clarity on its impact on marriage in the community. This study examines the marriages, and amount and items of bridewealth exchanged before and after a large-scale natural gas development project began in the Hela Province, Papua New Guinea, in 2009. This cultural-anthropological study included 178 Huli people (107 male, 71 female) from the Hela Province. A preliminary survey was conducted between October and November 2015, followed by semi-formal and semi-structured interviews between September and November 2016. The study found that during the period of development project-related construction (1) bridewealth changed from pigs, which were the most commonly used forms of bridewealth before, to cash; (2) the number of marriages rapidly increased; and (3) the marriage partners were chosen from a wider area than before. Results indicate that a lot of the income generated by the natural gas development project was used for marriage. The increase in the number of marriages could be because men, who did not have pigs, married using cash as bridewealth. This may have led to partners being selected not only from within the territory but also from outside it. Marriage creates a socially endorsed relationship between the kin groups of the partners. This study demonstrates that the development led to the widening of the network of social relationships between local communities in the province.