Paper short abstract:

After WW2 indentured laborers brought gambling back to their communities in Highland New Guinea. It was enthusiastically adopted. To what extent did these practices actually conflict with traditional practices and how much of that cultural dissonance was actually the result of official approbation?

Paper long abstract:

After World War Two, more and more indentured laborers from Highland New Guinea were sent to work away from their homes for years at a time, mainly on coastal plantations. They usually returned with an array of durable goods, and increasingly with money. Most had also learnt to gamble secretly, because the practice was illegal and carried a heavy penalty. Nevertheless, gambling spread through Highland populations like wildfire once these pioneers returned. Those who developed a talent for gambling became wealthy and respected as 'win-men' in their communities, only to find themselves imprisoned or fined by police and Patrol Officers. This presentation looks at the reaction to gambling among return migrants' home communities, and the new lives that gamblers carved out. Gambling encountered traditional exchange practices, but to what extent did these practices actually conflict? What role did colonial and missionary officials and their representatives play in promulgating the idea that gambling was antithetical to both traditional forms of exchange and officially approved economic activity? The paper explores ethnographic material that reveals a complex relationship between adaptation and approbation, suggesting that conflicts resulting from social change are sometimes political as much as they are conceptual.