Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the donor-driven narrative of “fragility” in Papua New Guinea in light of work on community organisations in the PNG city of Lae that serve local understandings of what stability and security might look like.

Paper long abstract:

In 2019 the United States passed the Global Fragility Act, creating a priority area for development initiatives focused on stabilising the economies and political landscapes of “fragile” states, particularly those in which China has evidenced an interest. Among the countries included in this initiative is Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has not been a strategic priority for the US since World War II. As PNG is catapulted back over the horizon of American attention, the “fragility” of the country’s institutions and major population centres has become an area of focus for the US alongside other donor countries.

My research in the city of Lae suggests some of the ways in which people living in Lae’s informal settlements create their own stability out of precarious living conditions. Settlement communities have organised “take back the streets” events to confront rising crime rates, held reconciliation meetings to de-escalate conflicts, and created self-help groups for women seeking redress for domestic violence. These initiatives occur at the nodes of contact between state or church organisations, and community groups so small that they fly below the radar of either national or international agencies. I will explore how these points of connection support the durability of life in Lae’s settlements, and ask how the “fragility” narrative contains the potential not only to make these connections more visible to the donorscape, but also to obscure the ongoing work of settlement communities to govern themselves.