ABSTRACT
Since the introduction of money into Melanesia in the colonial period, monetised modes of exchange have had transformative effects on social life, producing new forms of economic inequality, consumer aspiration and political affiliation (Akin and Robbins 1999; Barclay and McCormack 2013; Foster 2002; Patterson and Macintyre 2011; Sharp 2016). These profound shifts in Melanesian understandings of wealth are examined in this chapter through an exploration of how contemporary money schemes, broadly understood, articulate various economic aspects of a Melanesian modern social imaginary (Taylor 2002; see below) that reflects an awareness of the relative position of Melanesians within the global economy (Robbins and Akin 1999: 22). The first section considers three long-running ‘fast money schemes’ (two from Papua New Guinea (PNG) and one from Solomon Islands) that mimic practices of investment, compensation and development assistance and so project imaginings of a prosperous society onto existing narratives of nationhood. The second section concentrates on multi-level marketing schemes, microfinance and other business-oriented programmes, focusing on their projects of entrepreneurial self-formation.
