THE EROTICISM OF DEBT - PEARL DIVERS, TRADERS, AND SEA WIVES IN THE ARU ISLANDS, EASTERN INDONESIA

Seductive and dangerous undersea female spirits provide male divers wi th pearl oysters and in return demand store-bought goods, thereby reve aling their complicity with the Sino-lndonesians who own the stores an d motorboats and to whom the divers are indebted. Rather than simply m aking trade meaningful or mirroring assumed social realities, the feti shized sea wives are crucial to the workings of trade and debt and to the negotiation and refashioning of commerce, gender, and interethnic exchanges.