Nupela Masta? Local and Expatriate Labour in a Chinese-Run Nickel Mine in Papua New Guinea 1

Abstract

Studies of mining projects in Papua New Guinea, since the development of the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville during the 1960s, have contributed to our understanding of the politics of interactions between resource companies, host governments and landowners. The Ramu Nickel mine, situated in northern Papua New Guinea, is China’s largest investment in the Pacific to date at US$1.4 billion. The project is managed by a state-owned enterprise, China Metallurgical Corporation, and financed by China ExIm Bank. This venture presents an opportunity to understand Chinese resource investment in a comparative perspective. While many issues, such as conflict over land, internal migration, and the limited involvement of the Papua New Guinean state, are constant, one aspect specific to Chinese resource investment is the use (or non-use) of host country labour, and the high proportion of Chinese labour employed at the mine sites. This practice differs from the relatively limited, short-term use of expatriate labour common to Western mining projects in developing countries. The attitudes and experiences of local and Chinese workers and managers will be examined to determine what is new in this approach to resource extraction.     

Book reviews

Brian Girvin (ed.). The Transformation of Contemporary Conservatism. London: Sage Publications, 1988. 232pp. $10.95.

Ingrid Detter DeLupis. The Law of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. xx + 411pp. $54.00.

Martin Shaw (ed.). War, State and Society. London: Macmillan, 1984. viii + 266pp. No price given.

Denis de Rougemont (translated by Anthony J.C. Kerr). The Future is Within Us. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1983. v + 244pp. No price given.

David Goldsworthy (ed.). Development Studies In Australia: Themes and Issues. Melbourne: Monash University, Development Studies Centre, Monograph No. 1, 1988. 203pp. $10.00.

Martin Walker. The Waking Giant: The Soviet Union Under Gorbachev. London: Abacus Books, 1987. xxvii + 315pp. $16.95.

Andrew Farran. Changing Directions in the Soviet Union?: Perestroika, Glasnost ... and Australia ?with particular reference to the Soviet Far East. Canberra: The Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1988. iv + 24pp. $6.00.

Eberhard Kolb (translated by P.S. Falla). The Weimar Republic. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988. xi + 237pp. $27.95.

Ian S. Lustick. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. xi + 244pp. $11.95

Michael Mandelbaum. Israel and the Occupied Territories: A Personal Report on the Uprising. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. 20pp. No price given.

Robert A. Scalapino and Masataka Kosaka. Peace, Politics and Economics in Asia. London and Washington: Pergamon‐Brassey's, 1988. xiv + 209pp. No price given.

Hal Hill. Foreign Investment and Industrialisation in Indonesia. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988. xxi + 179pp. No price given.

Chelvadurai Manogaran. Ethnic Conflict and Reconcilitation in Sri Lanka. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. xiv + 232pp. $US22.00.

C.K. Brown (ed.). Rural Development in Ghana. Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1986. xii + 325pp. No price given.

Helen Fraser. New Caledonia: Anti‐Colonialism in a Pacific Territory. Peace Research Centre Monograph No. 2, Australian National University, 1988. 88pp. $10.00.

Susan K. Purcell (ed.). Mexico in Transition: Implications for U.S. Policy. Essays from Both Sides of the Border. New York: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. viii + 156pp. $US9.95.

James Ferguson, Papa Doc. Baby Doc: Haiti and the Duvaliers. Oxford, Basil Blackwell Inc., 1987. xi + 164pp. $39.95.     

Book reviews

Glen St J. Barclay. A Very Small Insurance Policy. The Politics of Australian Involvement in Vietnam. 1954–1967. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1988. 199pp. No price given.

Robert J. Cooksey. Review of Australia's Defence Exports and Defence Industry. Report to the Minister for Defence. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1986. x + 569pp. No price given.

Ernest McNamara, Robin Ward, Desmond Ball, J. O. Langtry and Richard Q. Agnew. Australia's Defence Resources: a compendium of data. Sydney. Pergamon Press Australia, 1986. 186pp. $ 16.

Jacob Bercovitch. Social Conflicts and Third Parties: Strategies of Conflict Resolution. Boulder. Westview Press, 1984. xv + 163pp. $US23.50.

Norman P. Barry. The New Right. London, New York and Sydney. Croom Helm, 1987. 205pp. $87.95.

Douglas E. Ashford. The Emergence of the Welfare States. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. x+352pp. $87.50.

J.B. Ghartey. Crisis Accountability and Development in the Third World. The Case of Africa. Aldershot: Avebury, 1987. x + 170pp. $34.50.

Jan‐Erik Lane and Svante O. Ersonn. Politics and Society in Western Europe. London: Sage Publications, 1987. x + 370pp. £20.00 (cloth), £7.50 (paper).

John Toye. Dilemmas of Development: Reflections on the Counter‐Revolution in Development Theory and Policy. Oxford: Basil Black‐well, 1987. ix+ 177pp. $29.95.

Eva Kolinsky. Opposition in Western Europe. London and Sydney: Croom and Helm, 1987. 400pp. £29.95.

Allen Lynch. The Soviet Study of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. xii+ 197pp. $90.00.

Uri Ra'anan, Francis Fukuyama, Mark Falcoff, Sam C. Sarkesian and Richard H. Shultz, Jr.. Third World Marxist‐Leninist Regimes: Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and U.S. Policy. Washington, D.C: Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc., Pergamon‐Brassey's, 1985. xv + 130pp. No price given.

Helene Carrere d'Encausse. Big Brother: The Soviet Union and Soviet Europe. Translated by George Holoch. New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1987. xii+332pp. $39.50 (cloth), $US24.50 (paper).

Ferenc Feher, Agnes Heller and Gyorgy Markus. Dictatorship Over Needs: An Analysis of Soviet Societies. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. xii+312pp. $62.00 (cloth), $ 18.95 (paper).

Bruno Rizzi. The Bureaucratization of the World. The USSR: Bureaucratic Collectivism. London and New York: Tavistock Publications, 1985. viii +111 pp. No price given.

Stephen Fortescue. The Communist Party and Soviet Science. London: Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham/Macmillan, 1986. x+ 234pp. $77.00.

Colin Mackerras and Nick Knight (eds). Marxism In Asia. London & Sydney. Croom Helm, 1985. 297pp. £22.50.

Harry Harding. China's Second Revolution: Reform After Mao, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987. xx + 369pp. $US32.95 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Jim Masselos (ed.). Struggling and Ruling: The Indian National Congress 1885–1985. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1987. 224pp. Rs. 150.00.

Lawrence B. Krause, Koh Ai Tee and Lee (Tsao) Yuan. The Singapore Economy Reconsidered. Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987. 230pp. $S38.50 (cloth) $19.90 (paper).

Raj Vasil. Governing Singapore: Interviews with the new leaders. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur: Times Books International, 1980 (Revised Edition 1988). 247pp. $S28.50.

Martin Stuart‐Fox. Laos: Politics, Economics and Society. London: Francis Pinter, Boulder. Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc., 1986. xxiv +220pp. £22.50 (cloth), £7.95 (paper).

United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations. Transnational Corporations and the Electronics Industries oj ASEAN Economics. New York: ESCAP/UNCTC Joint Unit on Transnational Corporations, 1987. v+49pp. $7.50.

Stewart Firth. Nuclear Playground. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987. xii +176pp. $14.95.

Lars Schoultz. National Security and United States Policy towards Latin America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987. 337pp. $US42.50 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Rose J. Spalding (ed.). The Political Economy of Revolutionary Nicaragua. Sydney. Allen and Unwin, 1987. 255pp. $87.50 (cloth), $34.95 (paper).

Abby L. Bloom (ed.). Primary Health Care. Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Development Dossier No. 20. Canberra: ACFOA, 1987.iv+80pp.$5.00.     

Underwater Excavation at Ederline Crannog, Loch Awe, Argyll, Scotland

A trial excavation was carried out on the near-submerged crannog at Ederline Boathouse, Loch Awe, in July 2004. A trench measuring 3 × 5 m was opened on the northern side, in c .3 m of water. Around 1 m of organic deposits was encountered, along with structural timbers and animal bones. Despite a previous 4th century BC radiocarbon determination from a structural timber, a sherd of E ware from a sealed context gives an Early Historic date for the deposits excavated in 2004. The results from this first intrusive investigation of a Loch Awe crannog demonstrate that these sites are complex and long-lived.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Kakadu National Park World Heritage Site: Deconstructing the Debate, 1997–2003

The case of Kakadu National Park has had an unusually large amount of time and expense devoted to it in meetings of the World Heritage Bureau and the World Heritage Committee since 1997. Major controversy arose following the announcement that a new uranium mine would be developed at Jabiluka, located in an enclave surrounded by the World Heritage property, but not legally part of it. The explosive juxtaposition of issues concerning the trio of conservation of heritage values, uranium mining, and Aboriginal land rights inevitably led to strong reactions against the Federal Government's decision to allow mining, not least on the part of Australian and international non‐government organisations. It was felt that the mining development would jeopardise the integrity of the key values for which Kakadu had been inscribed on the World Heritage List. This paper attempts to unravel some of the strands of the ensuing debate — to at least begin to deconstruct the debate — that saw Kakadu almost placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. This is an important task to attempt because there were many undercurrents to the publicly reported debate, and a large degree of ‘reading between the lines’ is needed to interpret official records of meetings adequately. The paper also attempts to throw some light on the forceful opposition to such a move on the part of the Australian Government, based in large part on its underlying developmentalist philosophy, and at a time when it was giving less than wholehearted support to many international agreements to which Australia is a signatory. Finally, it is hoped that an insight into the workings of the World Heritage Convention and its supporting bodies will be gained.     

Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language,Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective

In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the development of conscious symbolic storage, the emergence of musical traditions, and the archaeological evidence for the diversification of languages during the Upper Paleolithic. This critical reappraisal contradicts the hypothesis of a symbolic revolution coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago, but also highlights inconsistencies in the anatomically–culturally modern equation and the potential contribution of anatomically pre-modern human populations to the emergence of these abilities. No firm evidence of conscious symbolic storage and musical traditions are found before the Upper Paleolithic. However, the oldest known European objects that testify to these practices already show a high degree of complexity and geographic variability suggestive of possible earlier, and still unrecorded, phases of development.     

Building blocks of polycentric governance

Success or failure of a polycentric system is a function of complex political and social processes, such as coordination between actors and venues to solve specialized policy problems. Yet there is currently no accepted method for isolating distinct processes of coordination, nor to understand how their variance affects polycentric governance performance. We develop and test a building-blocks approach that uses different patterns or “motifs” for measuring and comparing coordination longitudinally on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Our approach confirms that polycentric governance comprises an evolving substrate of interdependent venues and actors over time. However, while issue specialization and actor participation can be improved through the mobilization of venues, such a strategy can also fragment overall polycentric capacity to resolve conflict and adapt to new problems. A building-blocks approach advances understanding and practice of polycentric governance by enabling sharper diagnosis of internal dynamics in complex environmental governance systems.     

From Moments to Histories: A Social Archaeology of the Mesolithic?

This contribution will provide a critical overview of the other papers within this special issue of Journal of World Prehistory (Elliott and Little 2018), identifying key aspects of the discussion and assessing potentials and problems in the development of Mesolithic archaeology in Britain and Ireland as a whole since 2006 (Conneller and Warren in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches, Stroud, Tempus, 2006a). Reflections will include how the contribution of very high-resolution analyses to Mesolithic archaeology has changed since 2006 and the scale of our interpretations. The review will also identify areas which appear to be falling from analytical focus, including the role of analogies in Mesolithic archaeology and the nature of power and social relationships in Mesolithic communities.