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Accepted Paper:

Re-designing the nation: ideological equipment for a globalized era  
Priscila S Santos Costa (IT University of Copenhagen)

Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to understand how individuals in Parliament seek to resolve tensions between tradition and modernity in the hope of creating a national ideology for Papua New Guinea. The concrete outcomes of their attempts has had great impact both nationally and internationally.

Paper long abstract:

In December 2013, the Speaker of the National Parliament of PNG, supported by his team and the House Committee, has decided that traditional wooden carvings that were placed in the building would be removed, because of their ungodly connotations. In April 2015, the group became visible once more, after accepting and solemnly receiving a donated 400-year old Bible, that was later declared a National Treasure. Their actions raised a lot of controversy, attracting attention from different social actors both within and outside PNG.

 

I did fieldwork in the National Parliament of PNG in 2015 and have worked with individuals involved in the "National Unity and Identity Program" (NUIP), under the Speaker's "Reformation, Restoration and Modernisation Program" (RRMP). The RRMP aims to promote change both in Parliament and in PNG as a whole, focusing on the way the Parliamentary Service works and on the impact of the institution outside its premises. However, part of my interlocutors' efforts also lie in contextualising and responding to changes faced by their country and its people, such as the impact of urbanisation and globalisation on a mainly rural nation known for its cultural diversity.

 

This paper aims to elicit the way in which individuals collaborating in the NUIP conceptualise the challenges posed by modernity and to show how, in order to face them, they articulate different sources of knowledge. Their search for an appropriate manner of positioning themselves offers a commentary on the way Christianity, development and modernity intersect in Melanesia.

Panel P54
Within and between: change and development in Melanesia
  Session 1