Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the impact of Papua New Guinea’s oil and gas industry on the indigenous communities living within its boundaries to show how such research offers valuable insight into kinship, descent, the individual and notions of ‘culture’ and ‘society’ in the contemporary world.

Paper long abstract:

Papua New Guinea's oil and gas industry has a number of positive and negative impacts on the indigenous communities living within its boundaries. Research suggests that the type of interventions employed by the state and company may comply with global 'performance standards' but these help the corporate sector maintain their 'social licence to operate' rather than benefitting local communities. This paper considers the impact of both the process and the ideology accompanying engagement, focussing specifically on the long-term implications of a development discourse that advocates individualism, private property and independent wealth accumulation. The aim is to show how contemporary development interventions can have negative impacts because they are not attuned to the social and cultural factors that essentially dictate how they are articulated and employed at the village level. This highlights the benefits of research in resource extraction contexts to the discipline, emphasising that whilst the extractive sector employs sustainable development discourse (CSR etc) its priority is neither development nor sustainability. The Papua New Guinea case study presented in this paper shows how elements of social organisation of particular value to communities affected by the oil/gas extraction industry are brought into sharper focus in response to interventions. Such research offers valuable insight into disciplinary standards such as kinship, descent, the individual and notions of 'culture' and 'society' in the contemporary world.