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SUMMARY:*CANCELLED* Economic Transformation and the Proliferation of Gambl
 ing in the Western Pacific - Dr Anthony Pickles\, Bye-Fellow\, Wolfson Col
 lege\, and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow\, Department of Social Anth
 ropology\, Cambridge
DTSTART:20190528T164500Z
DTEND:20190528T181500Z
UID:TALK123703@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Anthony Pickles
DESCRIPTION:PLEASE NOTE THIS TALK IS CANCELLED.\n\nThe pre-colonial econom
 ies of the Western Pacific are famous for their emphasis on reciprocity. G
 ambling is axiomatically not reciprocal\; it stipulates that winners don
 ’t owe a debt to losers\, and gambling was completely absent from the re
 gion before European contact. However\, once introduced\, gambling games w
 ere both enthusiastically adopted and dramatically transformed to reflect 
 the thoughts of Islanders experiencing intense upheaval. This paper invest
 igates the rising tide of gambling through a combination of source materia
 ls. I track gambling in Papua New Guinea in four decades (1931-1971) durin
 g which it went from a practice peculiar to Islanders who were in regular 
 contact with Europeans to a staple of village life and a recognisably Papu
 a New Guinean activity with a common set of rules. During the same period 
 gambling also transformed from an all-male\, high prestige activity to one
  of the few transactions that could be carried out freely across genders. 
 Through an exploration of this not-so-unique phenomenon\, the paper interr
 ogates how economic transformation is perceived and repurposed by people o
 n the capitalist periphery.
LOCATION:Gatsby Room\, Wolfson College
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