Over the past year, Ceridwen Spark have conducted 38 interviews with young, educated women in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Two important findings have already emerged. The first is that young women in Melanesia are subject to intimate forms of control. However educated and able they may be, family members continue to exert or seek to exert control over their behaviour and choices. The second is that young, educated Melanesian women derive solidarity and support from one another. This peer group support appears to be particularly important for women who have made countercultural ‘choices’ – for example, to remain single, leave violent partners or bring up children on their own. In this In Brief, I consider these findings in relation to the prospective benefits of supporting the development of a ‘community of practice’ (Kabeer
2011, 504) among young women in Vanuatu.
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