Emotional monies

Aesthetics and affect in a Highlands mortuary payment (Papua New Guinea)

Abstract

In this article I argue that paying attention to the emotional aspects of economic transactions can be a means of understanding how value is produced. I use a case study of a mortuary payment between two clan groups in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea to demonstrate the significance of aesthetic and affective processes that women and men use to transform money into a valuable and the high stakes (literally) this comes with. I am concerned with the explanations that my interlocutors gave for this gift exchange, leading me to suggest that theories of emotion should be considered relevant and important aspects of economies. Treating aesthetics, affect, care and emotion as critical to this context also allows us to recognise the significant place of women in creating the conditions for gift exchange. Money becomes an adornment, decoration and object that moves in different quantities, velocities and temporalities according to the social relationships that are being made and recognised.