As a young anthropologist with PhD aspirations, the task of choosing a field site in which to commit at least a year of your life is, as you may imagine, no easy feat. Compelled to venture far from home in order to earn my proverbial stripes, I spent a solid month staring at maps and imagining myself living in every corner of the globe. The perfect proposition appeared in the form of an email. A new project was in need of a student to research the village courts in Papua New Guinea. I was signed up within a week.

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