Neoliberalism, Mobility and Cook Islands Men in Transit Kaliss a Alexeyeff Gender Studies Program, University of Melbourne From the 1990s, neoliberalism has been vigorously promoted by aid agencies operating in the Cook Islands. The solution to the country's economic problems has been sought in the privatisation of government assets and services and the development of free-market principles. Social Impact Assessment reports of these reforms have included information on their effect on women and children under the heading of 'gender'; men, however, are notably absent as a category of analysis. Building on recent work about men, masculinities and development, this paper begins to address this imbalance by examining how Cook Islands men have been effected by, and how they react to, neoliberalism in a series of gender specific ways. In particular, it explores the relationship between masculinity, class, status, and migration. Introduction On 8 August 2006 Cook Islander Teina Marokura Ngamata, 37, was killed when he drove over a landmine in Baghdad. Ngamata had spent ten years in the New Zealand military serving in Bosnia, East Timor and the Solomon Islands before taking work as a truck driver for a security company in Iraq. He planned to retire when he was 40 on the savings he had accumulated. Ngamata's body was brought home to the island of Rarotonga for burial. His funeral attracted over a thousand people, including his wife and four children, extended family, politicians and traditional leaders. At the funeral service the officiating pastor somewhat awkwardly credited Ngamata's death with national and global significance: 'Never has the passing of a Cook Islander made it into the world news but Teina's [has] ... He has been a good ambassador, made our country proud to know that one of our boys was part of the rebuilding efforts in Iraq' {New Zealand Herald 2006). Not everyone shared his opinion. After the ñineral Ngamata's sister is reported as saying 'Pacific Island people should think twice before accepting high paying security jobs overseas' (ABC Radio Australia 2006). Her remark, which includes not only the Cook Islands but the Pacific region as a whole, can be read as a comment on how people from developing countries become fodder in war and conflict situations in countries from which they are geographically, economically and politically remote. Despite their extreme nature, mercenary and security contracts are but one example of broad global trends which sees people from developing nations filling labour shortages in wealthy countries, predominately in menial, low status areas.' As well as being a product of the transnational division of labour across developed and developing countries, Ngamata's death is also a result of local economic forces and their THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, 2008,19:2,136-149