Losing the Forest but not the Stories in the Trees

In 1922, F.E. Williams began his first assignment as the Australian Territory of Papua's assistant government anthropologist in the Purari Delta. During this eight-month trip, Williams obtained information on daily life, social relations, material culture, as well as religious beliefs and practices. He collected ethnographic specimens, made sketches and took some 96 photographs and used 29 of these photographs in his 1924 monograph The Natives of the Purari Delta, a publication that subsequently came to define the area for Europeans. However, Williams obscured the culturally specific ways in which Purari histories were locally reproduced and understood. This essay highlights a long-term ethnographic trend by which communities of the Purari have been portrayed as without ‘history’ or as having only a rudimentary historical consciousness and suggests that, despite this ‘particular bundle of silences’, the Purari is not without ‘important stories’.     

Family Man: The Papua New Guinean Children of D. Carleton Gajdusek.

ABSTRACT The name Carleton Gajdusek is familiar to many scholars and those otherwise interested in Pacific anthropology and history. Yet while much has been written about Gajdusek's work on kuru and his achievements in science, little is known about his unusual family life. Addressing this gap, this article examines Gajdusek's adoption of sixteen Papua New Guinean children from among the Fore and Anga peoples. These children form part of Gajdusek's large family adopted from the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Micronesia. Drawing on Gajdusek's extensive personal journals and interviews with his friends, colleagues and children, the paper refutes arguments which explain the adoptions through reference to Gajdusek's sexuality or humanitarianism, demonstrating rather that Gajdusek adopted the PNG children primarily because he wanted to create a family. Highlighting some of the ways in which Melanesian models of kinship suited Gajdusek's preference for an extended family, the article addresses an under‐researched aspect of the life of this important twentieth century figure.     

‘Which Way?’ Big Man,Road Man,Chief: Bernard Narokobi's Multifaceted Leadership Career

ABSTRACT

Among the topics that Bernard Narokobi addresses in his numerous writings is the place of traditional Melanesian leadership styles in a modern Papua New Guinea. This article explores Narokobi's leadership status to show how far-reaching and multifaceted his leadership career was: he was at once a traditional Melanesian bigman, a chief, and a modern public figure. The actions he took in these roles were for him a matter of the highest principle, something that at times had severe political consequences. Because in Melanesia the scope of the ritual that takes place upon an individual's death is an index of their status, an analysis of the mortuary rituals undertaken upon Narokobi's death provides insight into the significance of his leadership at every level from his clan up to the national level of Papua New Guinean society.     

Duke Richard of York's intentions in I450 and the origins of the wars of the roses

The return of Richard, duke of York, from Ireland in 1450 represents his first overt attempt to remedy certain grievances. His criticism of the Lancastrian régime eventually brought him leadership in the Wars of the Roses. The grivances of 1450 are contained in two bills addressed to Henry VI. At first, the duke harboured personal grievances — fear of attainder and having his claim to the throne bypassed, resentment at his counsel being ignored and his debts unpaid — which were exaguerated by unsertainty and the king's readiness to believe the worst. Richards apreciation of the widespread hostility towards the government and the disarray of the king's Household after Suffolk's murder enabled him to convert grievances into public criticisms in his second bill. He encouraged investigations into official oppression in southeastern England, and his supporters may have stimulated risings there to demonstrate support for him. Compared with Henry's nervous reaction to York's first bill, he firmly checkmated the pretensions of the second, and Yorks achievement in 1450 was limited. But he had taken a first step towards appealing for support by converting personal grievances into a general bid for sympathy. Whether he aid so for personal or public motives — or both — remains an open question.     

Marijuana,Guns, Crocodiles and Submarines: Economies of Desire in the Purari Delta

Traded down the Purari River by male youth through a network of friends, kuku dipi, as marijuana is known in the Purari Delta, is consumed locally, and traded for guns it is rumoured that the American Mafia bring in submarines. The movement of kuku dipi is part of a constellation of informal trade that has emerged alongside the large‐scale logging and oil projects in the Gulf Province. These networks involve the exchange of alcohol, pornography and radios by logging ship crews for live birds, crocodile skins and other local flora and fauna. Numerous sets of speculations have arisen about the seen and unseen transactions that these exchanges are felt to entail. Focusing on aspects of kuku dipi's use and movement in the Delta, I examine some of the explanations and anxieties around this illicit commodity. Doing so provides insight into kuku dipi's social impact and illuminates how the Purari's engagement in this trade is an attempt to transcend and cope with the economic and political disparities caused by the current resource extraction projects.     

From the Grassroots: Bernard Narokobi and the Making of Papua New Guinea's Constitution

ABSTRACT

Bernard Narokobi's concept of the Melanesian Way was influenced by a variety of factors, including his own childhood in the village, his religion, and the understandings of the people around him. He also drew inspiration from his exposure to the views and opinions of the many Papua New Guineans who contributed to the work of the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) between 1972 and 1975 when he served as a consultant to the committee. He shared the belief in a specifically ‘Melanesian’ way of social organization and cosmological understanding with the others who took part in the CPC's work, most prominently its de facto chairman, Father John Momis. With Momis he drew on the people's contributions to formulate PNG's National Goals and Directive Principles, which, at least in part, embody Narokobi's understanding of what it is to be Melanesian.     

Jean Améry's Concept of Resentment at the Crossroads of Ethics and Politics

The questions of forgiveness and political justice have recently become intertwined with the “transitional justice” project, the aim of which is the coming to terms with past human rights violations. This article demonstrates that “transitional justice” is less concerned with providing justice than with achieving historical closure, moral redemption, and a “new beginning.” It proposes that justice requires a profound reflection of a political nature by introducing and discussing Jean Améry's concept of resentment. Central to Améry's view of resentment is the restoration of the victim's social status and dignity, the validation of the experience of victimhood; his view therefore contrasts with the Nietzschean derogative view of ressentiment. On the basis of Améry's conceptualizations and with reference to Derrida's notions of “hiatus” and “forgiveness as impossibility,” the article problematizes the relation of ethics and politics—which the “transitional justice” project takes as given. It suggests that to theorize on justice, one needs to parenthesize the moral imagery of forgiveness and bring thirdness (or plurality) to the fore as the space where the identities of “victims” and “perpetrators” are established and played out.     

Preservation of and Access to South Seas Photographs

In August 2001, in a constitutional reform of potentially far-reaching consequences, Papua New Guinea's parliament voted to change the country's electoral system. As a result of this decision, all elections held after 2002 will be conducted under a system of preferential voting. A similar system was used for Papua New Guinea's first three elections between 1964 and 1972, before the change to a first-past-the-post system at independence in 1975. This paper, drawing on a combination of historical records, election studies and recent observations, looks at the historical impact of both electoral systems in Papua New Guinea, and at the different kinds of political behaviour encouraged by them, including their divergent influences upon election campaigning, candidature rates, support levels for successful candidates, electoral violence and the party system. It concludes by examining the potential consequences of a return to preferential voting in Papua New Guinea.     

Petztorme Women: Responding to Change in Lihir,Papua New Guinea

The goldmining project on Lihir Island in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea, has brought dramatic socio‐economic changes. In this matrilineal society, while women's economic contributions were substantial, their political status was not. Women's participation in decision‐making about the mine has been restricted, mainly because men have excluded them. The mining company established a women's section that has supported the development of women's organizations and a range of economic development projects. The women's organizations provide the context for new political roles for women but have experienced many setbacks that are common in such groups across Papua New Guinea. Through the Lihir experience in the first five years of the mine, this paper examines the tensions and divided loyalties that constrain women's organizations and often lead to the failure of income‐generating women's projects in Papua New Guinea.     

On Reading Patrol Reports – 2: Travels in East Awin

ABSTRACT

Reports of patrols through remote areas of Papua and New Guinea led by officers of the Australian administration must be read with care. We discuss the case of a patrol report from the mid 1960s where the patrol cannot have travelled the route indicated on the accompanying map. By cross-referencing to reports from later patrols, we provide both an improved reading of the report in question and, more generally, an appreciation of motivations that influenced the knowledge patrol officers produced.     

On Reading Patrol Reports – 1: South of the Blucher Range

ABSTRACT

Reports of patrols through remote areas of Papua and New Guinea led by officers of the Australian administration have much to contribute to understandings of the work entailed in rendering both land and people legible to the colonial state. But these must be read with care. Using the text and maps produced by one patrol, led by John McGregor in 1968, we demonstrate how topographic maps, produced well after particular patrols were undertaken, may be used to both refine interpretations provided in such reports and reveal factors that shaped the knowledge patrol officers produced.     

Fixing the Membership of the Lords and Commons: The Case of Sir John Cam Hobhouse and the Nottingham By-Election, 1834

When Melbourne replaced Grey in 1834 he looked to recruit men with experience to join his government. He enlisted Sir John Cam Hobhouse, but Hobhouse needed a seat in the Commons. This was achieved by a writ of acceleration, whereby Viscount Duncannon, one of the sitting MPs for Nottingham, was called into the Lords in his father's lifetime to release a seat in the Commons. Writs had normally been used to strengthen the power of the government in the Lords, and the resentment in Nottingham at this political fix was expressed in a full-scale contest with accusations that the town was being turned into a government nomination borough. Hobhouse might have hoped for a free run as he had already been appointed to the cabinet. Rather, he was forced to fight for the seat, and to go through most of the activities more frequently associated with general elections.     

To Excel at bridewealth,or ceremonies of Office

At a bridewealth payment made at the start of a wedding in Papua New Guinea, the groom diligently kept a note of contributions from relatives and co‐workers. The next day, he used one of his employer's computers to compile an Excel spreadsheet that detailed all the guests, what each one brought, and, in a separate column, its value in money. Turning people's gifts into nominal amounts of money helped register these into an enduring electronic form. The spreadsheet – an all too familiar tool of enumeration – gave the groom a record of transactions going forward. Papua New Guinea is most often known for the widespread emphasis placed on gift‐giving, especially the large prestations that are particularly important in the making of ‘Big Men’ and which are based on the belief in the high status of the giver and the onus of reciprocity. Today, spreadsheets permit transactions to be analyzed in a very different way – namely, in terms of currency‐like properties – allowing Papua New Guineans to understand, tap into and ultimately control the powers of money that echo current debates about the manipulation of big data.     

Narokobi’s Melanesian Philosophy in the Papua New Guinean Legal System

ABSTRACT

Bernard Narokobi dedicated his career as a law reformer, jurist and parliamentarian to making Papua New Guinea’s legal system a catalyst for a distinctively Melanesian philosophy. This philosophy, ‘the Melanesian Way’, emphasized Papua New Guineans’ embeddedness within their local social worlds, including spirits and the natural environment. The legal foundation for the Melanesian Way was set down in the National Goals and Directive Principles and Basic Social Obligations, which are stated in the Preamble to the Constitution of Papua New Guinea. These make the ideals of social justice, participatory democracy, national sovereignty and sustainable development a legal aspiration and an impetus for formally recognizing the social forms that Papua New Guinean people themselves experience as providing order in their lives. Legislation that Narokobi promoted over the course of his career offered practical mechanisms for operationalizing these ideals in accordance with their original constitutional foundation.     

The Last Big Man: Development and Men's Discontents in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

Big Men achieve that status by making good things happen for others as well as for themselves. In the minds of many Papua New Guineans development promises a direct route to becoming Super Big Men and Women. Mostly, however, it produces inequality and conflict. This is striking in places peripheral to major developments and in situations where not everyone benefits (e.g. compensation to ‘local landowners' - narrowly defined by mining companies - and lucrative urban employment - enjoyed only by the few, mostly male elite). Uneven development pits men and women, parents and children, and whole communities against one another as those less fortunate fail to match the generosities or competition of more prosperous exchange partners. In this article, I look at development through the eyes of one self-proclaimed ‘last Big Man’. As a youth, Ruge participated in male initiation and worked for the colonial outsiders, hoping to manipulate both old and new systems. He married several wives in the tradition of past Gende leaders but chose one because she had been to school, knew the ways of Europeans and had a keen business sense. In spite of what looked like the right moves and a sincere concern for his followers, Ruge could not prevent his society from being ravaged by inequality or help a growing number of bachelors afford expensive brideprices as more and more village girls married wealthy strangers from other parts of Papua New Guinea. In the end, a clan brother killed Ruge in an argument over land, making Ruge a victim to capitalist development's indifference to local traditions of family, reputation, and leadership.     

‘Access to Women’: Securing Mormon Whiteness in the US Army's Regulation of Commercial Sex in Chihuahua, 1916

This article argues that Mormon colonists – once refugees who had sought freedom from persecution for their sexual practices – asserted a white middle-class respectability as they cooperated with the US Army and corresponded with officers on the management of the soldiers’ sexual conduct. Their success depended heavily on shared understandings of the race and gender of the people involved. That is, they leveraged prevailing assumptions about Black soldiers’ bodies as aggressive and in need of sex, about white Mormon women's bodies as vulnerable and about Mexican women's bodies as racially in-between and thus suitable for the sexual service-work of enlisted men, pliable and ready to be made ‘accessible’ to soldiers. John Pershing, when asked to explain his decision to build the brothel, justified his choice by saying he had all Black troops at the camp and that nearby Mormon colonists had complained of these Black men meeting women outside for sex. This article explains how, why, for whom and to what end Pershing's explanation worked.     

Tactical Flexibility: Libyan Foreign Policy under Qadhafi, 1969–2004*

On September 1, 1969, a group of junior Libyan Army officers took control of the Libyan government in a bloodless coup d'état. After the coup, the group formed the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), chaired by Muammar al‐Qadhafi. In the four decades following, Libya faced numerous foreign policy challenges. The Qadhafi regime took on a distinctly anticolonial flavor that mirrored the revolutionary political trends of Egypt under of Gamal Abdul Nasser. This change in foreign policy posture shook Libya's relations with the United States and the United Kingdom and initiated the degradation of Libyan–Western ties. Under Qadhafi's leadership, Libya chose an ideological path for that focused on the strengthening of sovereignty while pursuing policies of unity and anti‐imperialism. This often put Libya at loggerheads with the West, and at times with its neighbors. Nevertheless, Qadhafi maintained popularity among his constituency. ¹ His domestic fame was the product of a carefully constructed persona that gave him the charismatic appeal necessary to maintain leadership during the latter quarter of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Publicly, Qadhafi highlighted the similarities between himself and Libya's rural working class. He lived in a tent, and wore modest clothing. He fancied himself a devout Muslim, and praised the wisdom of the Libyan masses. He connected with his constituency through rhetoric that illustrated the stability of his policies over time, and their connection to the ideas that originally made him popular. This argues that the source of Qadhafi's charismatic power lay in his rhetoric, which connected Libya's foreign policy decisions to his foreign policy vision, the basis of his charismatic leadership. Qadhafi articulated his foreign policy vision during his first major speech to the Libyan people in September 1969, and he referred to it time and again when speaking about major Libyan foreign policy decisions. To demonstrate, this article describes the basis of Qadhafi's leadership authority and defines the parameters of his vision. Then Qadhafi's rhetoric surrounding major shifts in Libyan foreign policy is analyzed to show its congruence with his foreign policy vision. The rhetoric surrounding the Libya–Egypt war, the end of Libya's Chad intervention, Libya's surrendering of the two Lockerbie bombing suspects to be tried under Western authority, and Qadhafi's denunciation of the weapons of mass destruction programs—all major shifts in Libyan foreign policy—demonstrate how Qadhafi was able to maintain a single message, and thus his authority, over his first 35 years in power based on values established in the early days of his revolution. The flexibility of his vision enabled Qadhafi to maintain authority, while tactically adjusting Libyan foreign policy positions.     

The Missing Rib: Mobilizing Church Women for Change in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines the particular shape taken by a modern instance of ‘Third World’ feminism. In Papua New Guinea, an emerging nexus between grassroots female activism and Christian churches is helping to liberate and empower some female citizens in a state which in practice has neglected women's interests and gender relations despite early national rhetoric about the importance of women to nation‐building. Tracing the origins of modern women's fellowship groups to the early work of female missionaries with indigenous women, the paper considers the increasing politicization of women's organizations during the last two decades as they expand their ‘traditional’ preoccupation with spiritual, domestic, and welfare matters to embrace wider social, political, and human rights issues. In the course of surveying church women's groupings in Papua New Guinea, the paper looks specifically at the National Council of Women, women's groups in East New Britain Province, the United Church Women's Fellowship, and women's involvements in the developing ecumenical movement. The paper concludes by contrasting the class dimensions of grassroots Christian women's activism to official denial of the existence of class differentiation or exploitation in this purportedly egalitarian Melanesian state.     

A Lapse in Historical Memory: Guy Weadick and the Calgary Stampede

Guy Weadick was the American founder of the Calgary Stampede in 1912. By 1930, due to Weadick's vision and promotional genius, the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede (two events having merged by then) was internationally recognized as the premier event of its type in the world. Then, with dramatic suddenness, Weadick was fired in 1932. This article suggests that the mutual bitterness and resentment that accompanied this termination resulted in “a lapse of historical memory” and to Weadick's relative under-recognition by the organization for which he did so much.