Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

'I cannot see the human face?' The missing factor on development programs and projects in Papua New Guinea  
Linus Digim'Rina (University of Papua New Guinea)

Paper short abstract:

Where should the responsibility for long term human well-being lie? Are there clear parameters of inclusivity and exclusivity in PNG development projects and programs? These seemingly rhetorical questions will guide a critical re-examination of how development projects and programs might be framed.

Paper long abstract:

Where should the responsibility for long term human well-being lie? Are there inherently clear parameters of inclusivity and exclusivity in PNG development projects and programs? These seemingly rhetorical questions shall guide a critical re-examination of how development projects and programs might have been framed and perhaps abysmally, in the history of the region so far. The discussion is intended to generate questions on how projects and programs are conceived and delivered, arguably with minimal foresight on long term human well being. Using experiences from three recent engagements on projects and programs imposed on local cultural contexts and engaging locals as 'participants' in the programs, I will discuss how these state projects and programs actually overlooked critical human well being, particularly cultural, into the future. The three projects were/are: 1) Koitaki, including Sogeri, Itikinumu, Catalina and Elolo rubber estates of the Sogeri valley, 2) the forced self-help customary land transactions at the Taurama valley of the National Capital District, Port Moresby, 3) the application of the MotuKoitabuan cultural notion of Tabu at Napanapa, west of Port Moresby harbor. All three are in Papua New Guinea. Ultimately, the nub of the argument might be that development projects and programs framed so far lacked foresight insofar as long term human well-being is concerned. These cases are by products of related colonial government sponsored agendas; an urbanized city of Port Moresby, a tax-related revenue generating agricultural program, and a state-sponsored program on land dispossession and acquisition. All three were state related agendas.

Panel P09
Valuing destabilisation, resistance, and agency in a continuing and changing Papua New Guinean anthropology
  Session 1 Tuesday 3 December, 2019, -