Joel Robbins

This thesis examines Papua New Guinean attitudes to money and modernity through an exploration of contemporary “fast money schemes” (Ponzi scams). The largest of these, U-Vistract Financial Systems, collected millions of Kina from 100,000s of “investors” on the promise of monthly returns on deposits of 100%. The scheme was declared bankrupt in 2000 but its founders escaped imprisonment, fleeing first to Solomon Islands and then to the “no go” zone of Bougainville, where the scheme re-established itself as the Royal Kingdom of Papala.

U-Vistract claimed to be a Christian reform of global finance systems that would deliver abundant prosperity to Papua New Guineans. U-Vistract cultivated a moral vision of its middle-class investors as compassionate Christian patrons whose coming wealth would deliver “development” to a nation disillusioned with social inequality and the postcolonial state.   

U-Vistract investors emerge from this study as morally engaged members of a transnational Christian civil society. This is a surprising conclusion to draw from studying fraud but it is all the more surprising in Papua New Guinea where anthropological interest has historically constructed the “village” as the central place where social meanings are generated. Here, urban Melanesians demonstrate moral and relational sensibilities that combine global aspirations for prosperity with Papua New Guinean disillusionment with the nation. In doing so, perhaps a more individualistic rendering of Melanesia emerges but these are individuals who are also more cosmopolitan in sentiment.

Dans cet article, nous discutons la pertinence d’une interprétation psychosociale de la notion de « perspectivisme ». Nous nous focalisons sur l’hypothèse, formulée par Aparecida Vilaça dans le cadre d’un projet dirigé par Tanya Luhrmann, selon laquelle le perspectivisme peut être entendu comme une « théorie de l’esprit locale ». Nous évaluons ainsi l’idée qu’il existerait des variations socioculturelles de la capacité à endosser le point de vue d’autrui (ou perspective-taking). Dans une première partie, nous comparons trois approches distinctes : la définition du perspectivisme comme « métaphysique » développée par Eduardo Viveiros de Castro ; l’approche du perspective-taking entendue comme une capacité universellement partagée dans le cadre de la psychologie cognitive ; la thèse avancée par Shali Wu et Boaz Keysar, pour lesquels il existe un effet de la culture sur la prise de perspective. Dans une seconde partie, nous postulons qu’une redéfinition du perspective-taking comme une compétence socialement structurée (et non comme une métaphysique locale ou une capacité universelle) permet une articulation prometteuse entre psychologie et anthropologie en faisant du perspectivisme un cadre ethnopsychologique global. Nous exemplifions alors cette idée en la confrontant à certains modèles récents dans le champ de l’ethnologie (comme la théorie de l’opacité de l’esprit d’autrui).

As Keith Hart (1986) articulated in his neat phrase ‘two sides of the coin’, money and the state are inextricably intertwined. However, academic discussions of the state tend to fall under the heading of ‘governance’, with implicit reference to democratic ideals, while money is regarded as ‘economics’, a field dominated by ideas of the market. In this paper, I use material from U-Vistract, a mass Ponzi scam to show how quasi-magical ideas of money and wealth have grown out of the disillusioning experience of the state in its failure to deliver ‘development’. These imaginings of prosperity entail a different kind of state, based on the moral reform of Christian citizens and political leaders and the reorientation of the banking system to deliver benefits to ordinary people. As the Royal Kingdom of Papala, U-Vistract sought to be seen to be like a Christian state and so deceived its investors into thinking that they were participating in a moral project that would allow them to redress the short-comings of the Papua New Guinean state. As the scam took on the appearance of the state, so the state came to be seen as a scam.

This paper explores some uncertainties arising from the question of what theology might contribute to social anthropology. It offers reflections on the proposal by Joel Robbins in ‘Theology and Anthropology: An Awkward Relationship’ (2006) and contrasts its approach with some recent work by Timothy Jenkins. I read both anthropologists as bearers of the legacy of GWF Hegel (1770-1831). Robbins and Jenkins are described here as reprising Hegel’s account of the struggle of Enlightenment against superstition, but in different ways.

Gambling and financial investment have a long shared history, with many convergences and many
moments where each has defined the other as its opposite. In the contemporary Pacific, not least among
evangelical Christians, gambling is often understood as wasteful entertainment and even as an irresponsible
vice. Investment on the other hand is seen as a productive activity for both individuals and
society at large. These moral concerns draw on discourses of proprietorship of the self, of money and of
risk. This paper explores moral attitudes to gambling/investment among middle-class investors in a mass
Ponzi scheme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and charts new valorizations of risk and investment as
components of the construction of modern ‘financial selves’.
Keywords: gambling, investment, fraud, Christianity, Papua New Guinea.