Raitman Olgeta: Negotiating What it Means to be a ‘Good’ Man in Contemporary Papua New Guinea Stephanie Lusby BA (International Studies) Honours A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University Department of Pacific Affairs Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs March 2018 © Copyright by Stephanie Alice Lusby 2018 All Rights Reserved Declaration of Originality I certify that this thesis does not incorporate without acknowledgement any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university; and that to the best of my knowledge and belief it does not contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text. Signed: On: 26/11/2018 ii Acknowledgements I am very grateful to the many individuals and institutions that contributed to the completion of this thesis. Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their stories, experiences, insights, time, and hospitality in East New Britain. Stanley, Hazel, Toea, Marta, Meriba, Mercy and their families and neighbours; Peter and Agatha, Anna, Ellie, Rafaela, Josepha, Willie, Felix, Rosalyn, Pius and families; Edina Timmie; Sylvia and Boas; Sebastian Pagot; James Wong; Ruby Matane; Elizabeth Tongne; Andrew Tiotorau; Esther Gabut; Tanmay Brigade; and all of the many men and women who showed generosity and curiosity over the months I spent in their place. I hope that this work can help to inform your on-going contributions to communities. I am grateful to the National Research Institute for research visa support, and to the National AIDS Council and Institute for Medical Research for ethics guidance. Thank you also to the East New Britain Provincial Administration for permission to conduct the research, especially Mr Akuila Tubal, Mr Levi Mano, and their staff; and to Mrs Elpin Sampson, Mr Nicholas Larme, Commander Kiddy Keko, and Commander Sylvester Kalaut for allowing access into their departments and facilities, as well as for their insights and support. Special thanks to the officers at the Family and Sexual Violence Unit for their friendship, counsel, insights, good humour, and for the hard work that they do every day for families, and especially for women, in East New Britain. Boina tuna to all of my colleagues from ENBSHIP, Geraldine Wambo, ‘Mama’ Ellen Kavang, Sakaia Luana, Anne Sawa, Hadlee Supsup, Rebecca Gabong, Elizabeth Norman, and all of the stret tokers and clinicians who do great work in the most challenging circumstances. Thanks too to Beverly Akuila-Dam, former Provincial AIDS Council Secretariat coordinator for her valuable guidance and input into my research, and for facilitating access to PAC staff and volunteers. I have been very fortunate in the academic, collegial and institutional support that I have received from the Department of Pacific Affairs and especially from my supervisors. Richard Eves has been a continuous source of excellent advice, resources, iii guidance, and patience, and I am especially grateful to him for being so available and responsive, even in the midst of many competing demands. Thanks to Elizabeth Reid for challenging me to think critically and carefully about feminism in research and in everyday practice, and to engage with joy and hope in the midst of making sense of accounts of fear and violence. Thanks to Nicole Haley for crucial advice in shaping and refining my project, as well as for facilitating support from the Department that allowed me to complete a long period of fieldwork and writing. Thank you to all of the scholars who have given me feedback, guidance and friendship along the way: Ceridwen Spark who kept me sane in Melbourne, my ‘academic fairy godmother’ Kathy Lepani, John Cox, and especially Anja Kanngieser—for reading, encouraging, critiquing, celebrating, holding space, making space, and keeping me going. I’m so lucky to have you in my corner. Thank you too to all of my fellow PhD students in the Coombs corridor, in particular, Kerryn Baker, Michelle Rooney, Claire Cronin and Almah Tararia: for reading drafts, for tea and sympathy, and for taking the time to nut out the most difficult ideas in chats in offices, corridors and over drinks. Thanks to my family: to my wonderful parents Liz and Warren for supporting me every step of the way with patience and love, my brother Chris for helping me to not take myself too seriously, and my sister Trish for unwavering support and early editing advice. To the friends who have held me up while I’ve struggled and who have celebrated every milestone, especially Fuchsia Hepworth, Ferdi Hepworth, Tessa Meyrick, Jasmine-Kim Westendorf and Heather Murphy, I’m so grateful to have you rad women in my world. Particular thanks to Paul Bridgman for being an excellent friend, sounding board, housemate, conduit to understanding the aid programme, and general advisor—the thesis would truly not have happened without you. Thanks also to Hannah and Mike Stewart for keeping me housed and in great company, and to Simone, Geoff, Liz, Alice, Janna, Vignesh, and Arul for their friendship and support. Finally, I am very lucky to have had the support of my partner Stephen, who stuck by me and loved me and has endured sharing our entire relationship with my PhD for many years without ever complaining or telling me to hurry up. You are truly the best one. iv I was the grateful recipient of an Australian Post-graduate Award Scholarship from the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training. A draft of this thesis was edited by Elite Editing. Editorial intervention was restricted to Standards D and E of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice, as per The Australian National University policy Higher Degree by Research: Editing of Theses. Sections of Chapter 5: Good Men, Bad Women and Narratives of Violence were previously published as: Lusby, Stephanie. 2017. ‘Securitisation, development and the invisibility of gender’. In Transformations of Gender in Melanesia, edited by Martha MacIntyre and Ceridwen Spark, 23-44. Canberra: ANU Press. The content of the sections used in the thesis benefitted from the editorial suggestions of the volume editors and reviewers. v Abstract This thesis investigates ambivalences and tensions in the ways that men and their communities frame what it means to be a raitman, a ‘real’ man or ‘good’ man, in contemporary East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. In looking at the refraction of aspirational masculinity through lived experiences of men and their communities, I argue that to affect change, there is a need for more nuanced and politicised conceptualisations of masculinities in the context of campaigns for equal gender rights. The figure of the raitman is a common trope in Papua New Guinean and international campaigns to address HIV and AIDS, sikAIDS in Tok Pisin, and violence against women. This figure is imagined as a perfect role model who is compliant with the directives of prevention slogans: a wearer of condoms, a faithful partner, non-violent and in control of everything from anger to sexual appetite, to alcohol consumption. In reality, these tropes manifest unevenly and ambivalently in the lives of men, their partners and their broader communities as they are refracted through personal and collective aspirations; loving and complex relationships with peers, families and intimate partners; existing normative ideas of the most esteemed way of being a man; and collective efforts to navigate structural violence and uncertainty. Within this milieu, I consider how men’s efforts to navigate ideas of aspirational masculinity, and their desire to position themselves as raitman, impact upon how they relate to and position women, and what this can tell us about efforts to address issues of gender violence and inequality in Papua New Guinea. The thesis takes the transnational campaign framing of good masculinity as a starting point and asks how these attempts to influence gender norms and practices are heard and adopted, or subverted, in everyday encounters. The research draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in urban, semi-rural and rural-remote field sites in 2012-13. The thesis is anchored in feminist scholarship and engages with literature from anthropology, geography and development studies to complement the narratives of women, men and communities heard through the fieldwork. In doing so, the thesis provides an account of how gendered norms intersect with, and are made malleable by, individual and collective development aspirations, and experiences of structural violence and precarity. vi Table of Contents Declaration of Originality ......................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................ ix List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................. x Referencing of Interviews ......................................................................................... xi Note on Translation ................................................................................................... xi Note on Use of Acronyms ........................................................................................