Doctoral Dissertation Research: Modernity, Materiality, and the Moral Economy

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The United States is deeply involved in projects around the world that promote Western ideals of responsible modernity. Some of these initiatives aim to strengthen the financial circumstances of people in developing economies. Frequently, however, the indigenous moral economies are overlooked. Without accounting for how people already understand responsible economic decision-making, efforts to educate people about personal finance and small business ventures, for example, will be unsuccessful. This research will examine how family organization impacts economic management and how Western norms of kinship and ideals of personal economic responsibility interact with indigenous views. The results of this study will improve understanding of how people respond to globalizing modernity and can help Americans design more effective development programs at home and abroad. The research will be conducted by University of Virginia doctoral student Carolyn Howarter, under the supervision of Dr. Susan Mckinnon. Howarter has chosen the Kingdom of Tonga as an appropriate field site in which to pursue these questions because the small scale of the interactions make them more visible and amenable to social science research. In Tonga, the local structure of family (broad networks of extended kin) and appropriate allocation of one's resources (immense acts of giving and sharing) contrast starkly with externally introduced norms that favor nuclear family organization and household thrift. Usefully, for research purposes, Tongan mores are currently being challenged by three different Western religious organizations, each of which has a different emphasis. This allows for a natural experiment to explore the relationship between global and local values. Methodists, Catholics, and Mormon are all active in Tonga but they vary significantly in how they promote values to church members, despite using Tongan cultural symbols to do so. The researcher will focus particularly on the symbolic use of dress to promote or express adherence to traditional Tongan ideals, a rejection of those ideas, or the creative combinations of the two. The researcher will collect data through observation at church and family events, extensive and repeated interviews with informants, and participant observation. She will assess patterns across the three religious communities to determine how informants recognize and maintain kin relationships, how financial, food, and textile resources are managed, and the emergent patterns of dress as a key symbol of identity. Results of this research will elucidate ties between kinship and economic systems, the complex ways in which value systems shift, and how they are visually and physically represented through clothing and bodily adornment.