Publication: Oceania
Publication Date: 01-NOV-06
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Lahn, Julie
Article Excerpt
'It is a truism that people are always conscious of connections to other people. It is equally a truism that some of these connections carry particular weight--socially, materially, affectively' (Carsten 2000:1).
'The reproduction of social relations is never automatic, but demands work, resources, energy' (Weiner 1992:4).
INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the distribution of women's line-caught fish on Warraber Island in the Tortes Strait, exploring the complex and often disjunctive relationship between the demands of public ideals and individual strategy (Riches 2000:676). (1) In doing so, I address the 'paucity of information on the vernacular formulation of the ethic of sharing and its day-today practice' (Peterson 1993:870). Douglas, in summarising the central insight offered by Mauss' classic The Gift, suggests that there is no such thing as a 'free gift': 'a gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity is a contradiction' (2002[1990]'x). On Warraber, it might equally be said that there is no such thing as a free fish--fish that are given away always remain socially entangled, but do not necessarily always act to enhance solidarity. The movement and consumption of 'girl-fish' are rather indicative of the state of relations between a giver and a receiver (and their households). They also constitute a statement, one that speaks less of the generosity of the giver, but rather of the giver's commitment to meet the social expectations of their community. As a result, the provision of gift-fish by Warraber women can be considered an expression of local 'moral economy'.
The continuing relevance of the moral economy idea to forms of indigenous Australian sociality is borne out in a number of recent contributions that variously stress the centrality of 'sharing' to Aboriginal notions of personhood (Macdonald 2000); explore conflict as an outcome of the intersection between commodities and cash, and kin relations (Austin-Broos 2003); and identify indigenous strategies for avoiding requests to share (Saethre 2005). Throughout this literature, the movement of resources according to the local terms of relatedness under the guise of 'sharing' emerges as a defining feature of indigenous moral economy. On Warraber, this kind of sharing takes place in specific areas of life; the moral economy exerts a stronger influence in some aspects of productive activity. For example, not everything from the sea is shared; instances of sharing women's line-caught fish can be distinguished from commercial marine activity where people do deal in commodities.
In common with many indigenous Australian communities, economic activity on Warraber has various components: state, market and customary (Altman 2001:4-5). The state provides local housing, health and educational facilities and residents receive regular unemployment, parenting and disability payments. Alongside these payments, Warraberans pursue a range of marine based activities for commercial, ceremonial and subsistence purposes. These areas are not entirely independent of each other; all three state, market and customary components operate in marine activities, for example, where welfare cycle impacts can increase people's subsistence production. Marine-based subsistence activities for example, assume a regular, and for some families, an often crucial food source especially during the second week of the fortnightly welfare payment cycle when cash is scarce (called dragin wik, literally 'dragging week').
Warraber is surrounded by extensive reefs that yield a plentiful variety of marine biota. While marine-related pursuits can be impelled by immediate economic needs, they also form a critical underlying component in Warraberan characterisation of their lives and identity as primarily sea-oriented. But marine labour and the distribution of its products are perhaps the most important and practical everyday contexts in which Warraber residents enact their ideas concerning the moral terms of relatedness and sociality. The giving and receiving of fish caught by women illustrates both the social embeddedness of the individual generally, and the generational aspects which characterise the practice of fish-giving and fish-receiving. Warraber residents reference their productive marine activities to notions of 'family'-based relatedness, involving the occupants of several dwellings contributing their labour and its products to particular kin. These transactions are understood as basic expressions of sociality in terms of kin relatedness as well as constituting a strong indication of the state of these relationships.
Being a resident at Warraber carries the expectation of attention to pamle ('family'). To 'belong' to Warraber, a person must have a pamle to contribute to in daily life, or exercise an entitlement to claim a share of the labour of others. Giving and eliciting the products of marine labour constitute a fundamental Warraberan mode of being in relation to others. Belonging to Warraber as a community entails a commitment to participating in these kinds of transactions on a highly regular, indeed daily, basis. And Warraber residents actively gauge the extent to which the actions of those giving and receiving reflect adequate attention or inattention to pamle members--both their own and others--in addition to local ideals of sociality, usually framed in terms of gud pasin, a term used to refer to correct moral behaviour.
Acts of 'eliciting' and notions of 'entitlement' have parallels with the notion of 'demand-sharing'. In common with the contexts described by Peterson (1993) and later synthesised by Peterson and Taylor (2003:110) the Warraber community possesses 'a universal system of kin classification requiring a flow of goods and services to produce and reproduce social relationships' (in which gift-fish are prominent). And everyday sociality contains an emphasis on 'polite indirectness in interaction that certainly makes open refusal difficult'. But fish are not generally provided in relation to 'direct verbal and/or nonverbal demands' (these rarely occur); sharing is not 'passive' (kinfolk do not directly take fish for example); and in situations where sharing is withheld or deemed insufficient, there is often 'rancour', which may involve a refusal to consume fish that has been provided (Peterson 1993:860, 868, 870). Moreover, 'elicitation' and 'entitlement' also have generational dimensions. The character of fish-giving and fish-receiving carries different emphases across the life-span where the greatest obligation to give falls to able-bodied married females and the greatest likelihood of receipt assumed by elderly women of ascending generations. Finally, fish distribution is locally understood as both an instance of generosity and obligation and demonstrates a person's general desire to engage in morally correct behaviour (or correct past failings in this regard). These features of Warraberan fish-giving and fish-receiving are discussed below in relation to the practical realities of the pressure to distribute these products according to Warraberan terms of familial relatedness and their commitment to the communal terms of moral life.
WOMEN'S MARINE ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION
Warraber Island is geographically situated at the centre of the Torres Strait, a region flanked to the north by a short strip of southern Papua New Guinea coastline and to the south by Cape York Peninsula, the north-eastern tip of Australia. Twenty communities in the region contain more than 6,000 Torres Strait Islanders, with many more now residing on the Australian mainland (Arthur 2003:2). (2) Warraber has a resident population of more than two hundred people living across fifty dwellings.
Warraber households consume a combination of store-bought and marine gathered foodstuffs. Main meals are consumed in the evening, with preference for fish or chicken with rice and vegetables (in particular sweet potato, potato and pumpkin). In an average week, fresh fish would likely be eaten as part of an evening (or lunchtime) meal on four or five occasions. As well as bearing primary responsibility for preparing meals, women on Warraber are expected to regularly gather marine foods--mainly fish--for consumption in their own household and to make a contribution to a broader familial network. Though supplemented by men's sporadic efforts at spearfishing and turtle hunting, fishing is an established part of women's duties on Warraber, and given suitable weather and opportunity, a part of each day will generally be spent trying to catch fish. If necessary, small...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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