In this chapter, the author argues that the emergence of places such as Café Duffy in Port Moresby indicates something other than the ‘failures of postcolonial development’ or the dominance of consumption-based place making. She writes that allowing young Papua New Guinean women an appealing palette of experience that is otherwise difficult to access in PNG, Duffy enables women to construct themselves as friends and customers—rather than daughters, wives or sisters—and in doing so provides momentary liberation from the ordinary constraints of life in Port Moresby.

This is a chapter in the book edited by Joanne Wallis, Lia Kent, Miranda Forsyth, Sinclair Dinnen and Srinjoy Bose (2018), ‘Hybridity on the Ground in Peacebuilding and Development: Critical Conversations’, ANU Press.