Defining Citizenship for a New Nation

A key part of any process of decolonisation is the need for the emerging nation to determine the rules for citizenship. In Papua New Guinea, what it meant to be a citizen was the first topic that the Constitutional Planning Committee considered when it set about its task to develop a ‘home grown’ constitution in late 1972. The process by which it first comprehended this matter and then involved thousands of Papua New Guineans in their villages, missions and schools in a territory-wide exercise in consultation forms the subject of this paper. The records of the discussions that took place between February and April of 1973 reveal much of how the criteria for membership of the national enterprise came to be established. This case study of defining citizenship in PNG demonstrates the intensive consultation of the local peoples on key issues in nation-building and reveals the high degree of Indigenous agency in the decolonisation process.     

Postscript: on the Original Nave Of Ripon Cathedral

Abstract

The final two centuries of the Middle Ages are conventionally considered a period in which castles and castle-building were in decline. ‘The Decline of the Castle’ and ‘Decline’ are the titles of chapters dealing with this period in books written by Allen Brown. In each case the contrast with what went before is strongly emphasised: the previous chapters are named ‘The Perfected Castle’ and ‘Apogee’. In the same vein, these final centuries after c. 1300 have been described as ‘the period of decline in use but survival in fantasy’ in a recent authoritative account, significantly entitled The Decline of the Castle. Our view of this period is different. We consider that the castles of the later Middle Ages show a steady development, not a decline, and the main elements of that development can already be traced in buildings of the ‘Golden Age’.     

Pop Anthropology,With Little Anthropology or Pop

Unlike other scientific fields, anthropology popularizations are as likely as not to be written by scientists who are not themselves experts in the subject. This is because the subject, the scientific knowledge of our origin and patterns of bio-cultural diversity—or more broadly, who we are and where we come from—is the source of our culturally authoritative origin myths, and consequently of broad general interest in and of itself. But anthropology popularizations come with the responsibility not only to get the facts and theory correct, but as well to understand the history and embedded politics in the stories themselves.     

Daughter of the Sun

In this guest editor’s introduction to this thematic volume on the historical archaeology of Queensland, Australia, I briefly discuss some of the history and archaeology of Queensland in light of some of the major themes currently being investigated. The papers presented in this volume are also introduced.