Paper short abstract:

Papua New Guinea’s public realm is awash with conservative Christian moralising. This discourse reflects class distinctions but is in tension with a national ideology of inherently egalitarian Melanesian culture. This paper considers how PNG's middle-class negotiate these distinctions and dissonances.

Paper long abstract:

Papua New Guinea's (PNG) public realm is saturated with the moralising language of conservative Christianity. This discourse also reflects class distinctions but does so in tension with a national ideology of an inherently egalitarian Melanesian culture.

In a country characterised by extremes of wealth, PNG's middle class are often regarded as privileged 'elites'. However, their self-descriptions are characterised by complaints about the cost of living and reflect economic precarity, not the prosperous accumulation of property and other forms of social and economic capital. Meanwhile, powerful and affluent politicians, senior public servants and beneficiaries of resource developments control the flows of the nation's wealth, diverting it away from public goods into their own channels of patronage.

Public Christian moralising in PNG frequently takes two forms, both expressing class distinctions. One denounces corrupt leaders, who need to repent of their venial ways and turn to God for personal moral regeneration. This 'disparagement of elites' (Martin 2012) reflects an 'upward' critique of the powerful, in the process redefining the middle-class as moral actors constrained by dissolute leaders.

The second moralising denunciation is a 'downward' critique of the 'grassroots', who are often rendered as lazy and all too ready to ask for 'handouts' from their middle-class relatives. Nevertheless, middle-class Papua New Guineans are often far more accommodating of their importunate kin than this disparagement of the poor implies. This paper considers how PNG's middle-class negotiate these denunciations, distinctions and dissonances by blending Melanesian cultural norms with cosmopolitan practices of Christian charity and development assistance.