Getting comfortable: gender, class and belonging in the 'new' Port Moresby

Port Moresby is consistently represented as a place that is dangerous for women. While recent transformations in the city have expanded the gap between rich and poor, some of the developments in the city are allowing for the creation of new 'spatial texts' in a place notorious for constraining women. In this article, I explore feminist geographer Linda McDowell's idea that the city is a place in which the active, independent woman comes into her own. Drawing on focus groups, emails and photos sent to me by educated, 'middle class' Papua New Guinean women living in Port Moresby, I demonstrate that the city's new places are paradoxical, even liberating places. The article reveals both the extent of women's subordination in the city but also the emerging possibilities for middle class women to experience a degree of autonomy.