Class, Labour and Consumption in Urban Melanesia

Urban living has had significant and far-reaching impacts on class, labour and consumption in Melanesia. As Melanesian economies grew and countries became more deeply entangled with processes of global capitalism, social stratification began to emerge in societies formerly characterised by an egalitarian ethos. In the 1960s social scientists began drawing on the concept of class to understand these social differences and the growing inequalities that accompanied Melanesian countries’ engagements with modernity and capitalism. Anthropological work on class in Melanesia engaged with the new relations of production brought about by development, cash cropping, resource extraction and other capitalist ventures, and how ensuing social changes were worked out in Melanesian contexts (e.g. Connell and Lea 1994; Cox 2011; Foster 1995; Koczberski, Curry and Connell 2001; Gewertz and Errington 1999; Levine and Levine 1979; Rawlings 1999; Wesley-Smith and Ogan 1992). These scholars showed how factors such as ethnicity and kinship resulted in distinctly Melanesian processes of class formation. This chapter examines the dynamic relationship between deepening urbanisation, class and consumption in urban Melanesia.