Gardening for gold: customary land tenure as a relational infrastructure in Southeastern Papua New Guinea.

In this paper I demonstrate how residents of Duau (Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea) utilise customary communal gardens called talamaleleya as a blueprint for organising their artisanal gold mining. I will posit that it is productive to think of talamaleleya gardens as infrastructures, as they organise both the production and channel the distribution of yams towards external commercial relations, including kula trading partners. However, I will ultimately argue that gold mining fails to follow talamaleleya’s blueprint in the effects of its distribution. While yams create enduring exchange relations that position Duau people within a ‘sea of islands’, gold encourages more individualistic relations and consumption practices which are having deleterious social consequences.