The Australian National University

Faculty Member, State, Society and Govenance in Melanesia Program

Senior Fellow

College of Asia and the Pacific

About

Richard Eves is an anthropologist and has published widely on issues of social change in PNG. His first book The Magical Body: Power, Fame and Meaning in a Melanesian Society, published in 1998, is a detailed study of social and cultural change in a rural community in New Ireland, his long-term fieldwork site. Richard’s work now deals widely with contemporary issues in Melanesia, straddling the boundaries between anthropology, development, and international health, with a particular focus on gender, violence and the AIDS epidemic. He also has wide experience consulting on issues of health, AIDS and gender-based-violence in PNG, having been a research advisor on two AusAID funded projects and a consultant for Caritas Australia. He has undertaken qualitative research in numerous provinces, including Western Highlands, Chimbu , Western, Eastern Highlands, Morobe, Milne Bay and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. He recently co-edited an important volume, Making Sense of AIDS, a collection of anthropological papers on how the epidemic is being understood and responded to in Melanesia, and is now completing a book on Christianity in PNG, looking particularly at the influence of the newer fundamentalist groups on gender and AIDS issues. Currently, he is preparing a project to critically assess programmes that work with Melanesian men in an effort to decrease their violence against women.

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