Waiting for Company: Ethos and Environment Among Kubo of Papua New Guinea

Dwyer, Peter D.; Minnegal, Monica

doi:10.2307/3034426

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Mining has brought unprecedented material, cultural and political change to Lihir. While many people have been disappointed or frustrated by what they perceive as insufficient or inadequate change, the reality of this transformation is fully known in comparison with other parts of PNG where people are still 'waiting for company' (Dwyer and Minnegal 1998). Managers like to imagine that the impacts extend to the limits of the SML zone, and that Lihirians should be grateful for any benefits that flow beyond this boundary.…”

Section: Islands In the Global Streammentioning

confidence: 99%

The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

Bainton¹

2010

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This book is primarily about Lihirian responses to large-scale resource development. In the process of writing this book, from its original genesis through to its current form, I have been engaged with Lihirian lives and resource development in several different ways. As such the list of people who have helped me along the way is that much longer. This book originated as my doctoral thesis at the University of Melbourne. My first 18 months of research in Lihir was made possible through financial support from the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies. Thanks to the National Research Institute for organising visas and research permits in Papua New Guinea. Throughout my candidature, Monica Minnegal, Peter Dwyer and Mary Patterson provided academic support, constantly challenging me to further develop my ideas and to ask more questions. I owe a great intellectual debt to Martha Macintyre who supervised my doctoral research. Her work in Lihir opened many opportunities for me and has strongly influenced my belief in the need for a genuinely engaged anthropology. Over the years Martha has generously shared her ideas, and provided continuing encouragement and friendship. Ways of transporting goods and people from place to place will be much easier. Each family will have a car of its own. Lihir is going to be full of raskols [petty criminals]. I think in the future many young men and old men will leave their hausboi [men's house] and live only in their high quality permanent buildings. They will find life easier and forget their traditional ways of life. Ways of education will be much different from Although Papua New Guinean students are educated for the first three years in the vernacular, English is the official language used for the remainder of their education. In many cases, the national lingua franca Tok Pisin is more commonly used and more readily grasped. Tok Pisin and Lihirian terms are italicised and listed in separate glossaries. to the performance of mortuary rituals that involve large-scale ceremonial feasting and exchange. In recent years, Lihirian kastom has grown significantly, partly reflecting the capacity of the ceremonial economy to absorb new objects and forms of wealth, while resisting the absorption of values and practices associated with them in the global capitalist economy. But this efflorescence is also due to a mass appeal to kastom for social stability which, like the earlier World systems theory has found new life in grander theories of globalisation which assert that the global envelops the local, creating similarity in the place of alterity. The significant issue in this book is the construction of particularity in the face of apparently homogenising and universalising forces. The discourse of globalisation is often uninformative because of an over-emphasis on global homogeneity. Too often it is assumed that the globalising capitalist economy obliterates local economies, only to remake them in its own reflection. However, as we can see from the students' stories, rega...

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Section: Islands In the Global Streammentioning

confidence: 99%

The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

Bainton¹

2010

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“…And, as was the case with Noah, those manipulations made use of ambiguities inherent in existing structures or created by new opportunities. When Kubo repositioned foreigners as existing beyond the limits of their own relational ethos, they played with the ambiguity inherent in two coexisting discourses that separated their world into social and environmental domains on the bases of different expectations and responsibilities; the domains were fixed, the boundary between them could be repositioned (Dwyer & Minnegal 1998). When, as a consequence of sedentarization, access to resources was experienced as problematic, both land‐owning and non‐land‐owning residents sought to manipulate social outcomes by drawing upon different, yet concurrent, discourses concerning use rights; genealogy was given, engagement was experienced (Minnegal & Dwyer 1999).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The empirical focus is with the role of agency in processes of social change among Kubo people who live in the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. In earlier papers we have described social change among Kubo through the years 1986 to 1996 but, in those reports, failed to be explicit with regard to the agency of people (Dwyer & Minnegal 1997; 1998; 1999; Minnegal & Dwyer 1997; 1999; 2007). We ground our empirical account by reference to the history and actions of one man (Noah 1 ) who, from 1997 onwards, had a major influence on the fate of residents who lived, or had lived, at the village of Gwaimasi.…”

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confidence: 99%

Social change and agency among Kubo of Papua New Guinea

Dwyer

Minnegal

2007

Royal Anthropological Inst

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An account of the history and actions of one man is used to show how agency was central to processes of social change among Kubo people of the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. Through a thirteen‐year period, a growing awareness of, but little exposure to, ‘Western’ modes of living challenged earlier certainties, created desires, and suggested alternatives. Modernity thus provided the context for change. But modernity is not itself a process of change. By drawing from ambiguities inherent in pre‐existing structures (or discourses) or created de novo through encounters with previously unimagined possibilities, and by favouring one or another of the multiple trajectories legitimized by those ambiguities, people were causally implicated in changing the conditions of their own existence. Those changes entailed a shift from a predominantly relational epistemology to an increasingly categorical epistemology. Résumé Dans cet article, le récit de la vie et des actes d'un homme servent à montrer comment l'intentionnalité (agency) a été essentielle dans les processus de changement social chez les Kubos des basses terres intérieures de la Papouasie‐Nouvelle‐Guinée. Sur une période de treize ans, la connaissance accrue qu'ils ont eue des modes de vie « occidentaux »– tout en y étant peu exposés – a remis en question des certitudes antérieures, créé des désirs, et suggéré des alternatives. La modernité a ainsi créé le contexte du changement, sans être en elle‐même un processus de changement. À partir des ambiguïtés inhérentes aux structures (ou discours) préexistantes ou créées de novo par la découverte de possibilités jusqu'alors inimaginables, et en privilégiant l'une ou l'autre des multiples trajectoires légitimées par ces ambiguïtés, les Kubos ont été impliqués dans une relation causale de changement des conditions de leur propre existence. Ces changements ont entraîné le passage d'une épistémologie principalement relationnelle à une épistémologie de plus en plus catégorielle.

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“…While many people have been disappointed or frustrated by what they perceive as insufficient or inadequate change, the reality of this transformation is fully known in comparison with other parts of PNG where people are still 'waiting for company' (Dwyer and Minnegal 1998). Managers like to imagine that the impacts extend to the limits of the SML zone, and that Lihirians should be grateful for any benefits that flow beyond this boundary.…”

Section: Islands In the Global Streammentioning

confidence: 99%

Lihir Destiny : Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

Bainton¹

2010

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Waiting for Company: Ethos and Environment Among Kubo of Papua New Guinea

Cited by 21 publications

References 20 publications

The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

Social change and agency among Kubo of Papua New Guinea

Lihir Destiny : Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia

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