Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

The project explores individual, family, household, and kin-group sources of income and expenditures as well as commodity aspirations, experiences with monetary institutions, and local notions of budgeting in Papua New Guinea. It maps networks of monetary relationships to see the relationships and tensions between money, traditional kinship and morality, changing notions of the family, and modern individualism. Additionally, the project investigates the symbolism of money, and the ways that Eastern latmul correlate money with traditional magic and esoterica. The study probes patterns of gender differences in the use, sharing, and perception of money as well as financial literacy and the utilization of banks. Most uniquely, the project explores local perceptions of the cost of parenting and childhood.