Health workers' housing and moral geographies of citizenship in Papua New Guinea

The provision of housing for public servants and other essential workers in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been a matter of interest for urban planners and the general public since the colonial period. While free housing is no longer a condition of employment in the public sector, subsidized and institutional housing is still an option for many Papua New Guineans with skilled and professional jobs. This paper examines the continuities between historical constructions of care professionals as “nation-builders” and the experiences of health workers in contemporary PNG through the lens of employee housing. Drawing on ethnographic research with nurses and nursing students as well as a review of historical policy and planning literature, I argue that the professional subjectivities of health workers are shaped by “transferability”, a form of mobility that illuminates moral geographies of nationhood. Despite changes to public employee entitlements and diversified employment options, PNG nurses' housing experiences provide a window on constructions of the nation that can help illuminate broader debates about urban belonging and citizenship in Melanesia. Nurses are exemplary “disemplaced citizens” whose ambivalent relationship to both urban and rural space helps constitute Papua New Guinean modernity. • Employee housing has shaped urban development in Papua New Guinea. • Despite policy changes, many health workers still rely on employee housing. • Nurses' housing choices show how relationships to place and space work in urban PNG. • Melanesian nations are built through movement as well as connections to place.