Books

Pub DateOctober 2016
ISBN9780231178792
Pages216
Link to Publisher

Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea

Paige West
Columbia University Press

Winner of the third annual Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award.

When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating their dispossession. Paige West’s searing study reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today’s globalized world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for constant regeneration.

About the Author

Paige West is The Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University.