2" . . . a great strength of this book is its description of ideas that resonate all over the country . . . Reed's writing is always lucid and often bold." - Contemporary Pacific "The book corresponds well with recent studies that attempt to understand Papua New Guinea's varied social scene and the political and economic realities of this recently independent country, and should be read by anyone interested in postcolonial conditions in Melanesia." - Focaal What kind of experience is incarceration? How should one define its constraints? The author, who conducted extensive fieldwork in a maximum-security jail in Papua New Guinea, seeks to address these questions through a vivid and sympathetic account of inmates' lives. Prison Studies is a growing field of interest for social scientists. As one of the first ethnographic studies of a prison outside western societies and Japan, this book contributes to a reinterpretation of the field's scope and assumptions. It challenges notions of what is punitive about imprisonment by exploring the creative as well as negative outcomes of detention, separation and loss. Instead of just coping, the prisoners in Papua New Guinea's Last Place find themselves drawing fresh critiques and new approaches to contemporary living. Adam Reed received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and currently is a research fellow and lecturer at the School of Human Sciences at the University of Surrey.