Categorical Dissonance: Experiencing Gavman at the Frieda River Project in Papua New Guinea

Capital and Inequality in Rural Papua New Guinea

“…Who counts as a rightful landowner and stands to benefit from these opportunities is highly contested, however. The advent of resource extraction has invariably led to a reframing of local social forms to meet the expectations of the state and companies (Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1997; Jorgensen 2007; Gilberthorpe 2013a; Bacalzo et al 2014;Minnegal et al 2015;Minnegal and Dwyer 2017;Skrzypek 2020Skrzypek , 2021, including the invention or 'forging' (Golub 2007b) of unilineal descent groups out of previously fluid cognatic fields (Guddemi 1997;Jorgensen 1997;Ernst 1999;Golub 2007aGolub , 2014Weiner 2007). Ballard and Banks (2003:297) go so far as to state that 'local communities are only summoned into being or defined as such by the presence or potential presence of a mining project'.…”