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Accepted Paper:

Gender and sexual diversity in contemporary Papua New Guinea  
Angela Kelly-Hanku (University of New South Wales/Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research) Peter Aggleton (University of New South Wales) Ruthy Boli-Neo (Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research) Herick Aeno (Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research)

Paper short abstract:

PNG is rarely included in studies of gender and sexual diversity in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, therefore marginal within comparative work on these issues. We will examine the life histories of gender and sexually diverse Papua New Guineans narrating themselves out of the margins.

Paper long abstract:

Papua New Guinea is rarely included in studies of gender and sexual diversity in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, therefore marginal within comparative work on these issues, and possibly not as progressed in the queering of comparative knowledge production. Its diverse cultures are predominantly patriarchal and patrilineal and within them a male child is highly respected and valued. In many parts of Papua New Guinea, rituals to ascribe manhood are undertaken to defeminise boys and turn them into men of a particular kind. Older men often assist in this transition through cultural performances which signify figuratively and literally the 'remnant substances' from the biological mother. Even in cultures devoid of such formal and ethnographically rich initiation practices, boys and men are expected to embody masculine qualities; boys in Papua New Guinea are not sanctioned to embody femininity. There exists no culturally recognised third gender in Papua New Guinea, as can be found in some nor do there exist there laws prohibiting boys from identifying as women/feminine. As a result, gender and sexual non-conformity, while present, goes largely 'unmarked' - linguistically and socially in many Papua New Guinean villages and communities. It is both there and not there, seen and unseen - although under the impact of modernization and globalization a range of new vocabularies and self-understandings are beginning to emerge and be appropriated locally. In this presentation we will examine the life histories of gender and sexually diverse Papua New Guineans narrating themselves out of the margins.

Panel P30
Queer comparisons: gender and sexuality in island Southeast Asia and the Pacific
  Session 1 Tuesday 3 December, 2019, -