'Life in All Its Fullness': Translating Gender in the Papua New Guinea Church Partnership Program

In this paper, I explore the sensitivity and complexity of the relationships between gender, religion, and development in the processes of translation of the gender agenda between the ‘secular’ donor AusAID, the faith-based Australian non-government organisations (NGOs) and the Papua New Guinea churches at work in the Church Partnership Program (CPP). When ideas move from one social world or frame of reference to another, they are subject to appropriation, adaptation and alteration and are thus translated (Rottenburg 2009:xxxi). Here, individual actors in Papua New Guinea churches are engaging with different forms of knowledge about gender and utilising different techniques for women’s empowerment as they work towards their vision of experiencing ‘life in all its fullness’. In so doing, change to culturally and socially constructed gender relations is being initiated working in aid and development projects and conducting research in the Pacific islands