Mining Workers or ‘Opportunist’ Tribesmen?: a Tribal Workforce in a Papua New Guinea Mine1

Abstract

This paper looks at the formation and working of a 'green mining workforce' in a Papua New Guinea (PNG) mine. It describes and analyses a group of tribesmen whose entry into the modern wage-earning workforce has resulted from the establishment of a large mining project in their area. The Porgeran tribesmen', of the Highlands of PNG have embraced the concept of monetary employment and quickly assimilated into the mining work environment. However, their admission into wage employment has been achieved through a series of personal and workplace challenges, as anticipated of any transitory workforce. The paper discusses those challenges and also takes into consideration the views and perceptions of non-Porgeran mining workers towards them. Hence, one of the major objectives of this paper is to address the transformation of this tribal people into a modern wage-earning workforce. It concludes by identifying possible avenues for anthropological studies of such groups of people to record their peculiar perceptions of, and attitudes to, an alien but promising new alternative to their subsistence life style.

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