Haggling Highlanders: Marketplaces, Middlemen and Moral Economy in the Papua New Guinean Betel Nut Trade Timothy L. M. Sharp Curtin University ABSTRACT The rise of competitive trade practices represents a significant development in Papua New Guinea’s marketplaces. Overt competition and haggling, once conspicuous by their near absence, are now com- monplace in the country’s betel nut marketplaces, and increasingly visible in many of the large urban fresh food marketplaces. This has emerged with the rise of long-distance and intermediary trading, and with increasing numbers of people dependent on trade for their livelihood. This paper explores moral economy, and the interactions and negotiations around price between lowland betel nut pro- ducers and highland wholesale traders as they occur in marketplaces and in rural production areas. It documents how the moral obligations that arise from trade itself, and entangled with self-interest, tempers competition and fosters solidarity amongst traders, redirects competition onto their interac- tions with producers, and in doing so reinforces existing power asymmetries. Keywords: marketplace, trade, bargaining, middlemen, moral economy, Papua New Guinea. INTRODUCTION The rise of competitive trade practices represents a significant development in Papua New Guinea’s marketplaces. Overt competition and haggling, once conspicuous by their near absence, are now strongly evident in those marketplaces where intermediary resellers have appeared, and where sellers are dependent on trade for their livelihoods. In the betel nut trade, middlemen traders from the highlands pride themselves on their ability to push buying prices down, much to the frustration of lowland betel nut producers, and vendors in the highlands sing out to attract prospective customers. Competitive trade practices are also increasingly visible in many of the large urban fresh food marketplaces. This paper, by exploring interactions and negotiations around price between betel nut (and betel pepper) producers and wholesale middlemen traders, as they occur in the different settings of low- land marketplaces and in the villages of producers, describes how social ties, moral pres- sures, and shared understandings of what constitutes appropriate and moral conduct in trade, are central to the expression of competition. The paper documents how moral obligations entangled with self-interest, tempers competition and fosters solidarity amongst traders, redi- rects competition onto their interactions with producers, and in doing so reinforces existing power asymmetries. The betel nut commodity chain is complex. Market participants are engaged in vertical relationships with those from whom they buy and to whom they sell, and horizontal © 2019 Oceania Publications Oceania, Vol. 89, Issue 2 (2019): 182–204 DOI:10.1002/ocea.5221