Roads, Marketplaces and Plantations

Abstract

Food and infrastructure are entangled in numerous ways both on and around the oil palm plantations in Wide Bay, situated on the eastern coast of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea.First, the plantations are highly infrastructured spaces and produce palm oil used to make food, fuel and consumer products. Second, the oil palm plantation in Wide Bay was established in 2009 as a part of a plan by local politicians to bring not only income and employment possibilities, but also roads to connect the remote and rural area to urban centers. Third, women from local communities sell food they grow on the plantation, while traders from town use the precarious road connection to come and buy rural produce from locals.In this photo essay I describe how the plantation and local food infrastructure co-exist, intersect and constitute one-another, and how the unequal relations between the plantation company, workers and villagers are materialized in and enacted through food and infrastructure.