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Paper short abstract:

The PNG LNG project is simultaneously constituted as both flagship achievement and proxy indicator of the endemic failings of the PNG state. A tangible absence of the state in PNG's Hela Province has the effect of amplifying the perception of the state as criminally negligent source of discontent.

Paper long abstract:

The Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas (PNG LNG) project has the curious role of being both the flagship achievement of the Papua New Guinean state, while at the same time representing the endemic failures, absence and neglect of the state in relation to its people. During fieldwork undertaken in PNG's Hela Province through 2016 I was able to document an extraordinarily uniform response to the presence of the PNG LNG project, accompanied by an almost deafening absence of both state and company. Rather than reduce the amount in which the state was being imaginatively constituted, this absence had the effect of magnifying the idea of the state as a monolithic, criminal and unreachable entity that existed as the ultimate source of all discontent. As the impact of state absence steadily increased, the imagined form of the project's behemoth developer, ExxonMobil, steady diminished. Eventually the form of the state as punishing absence became amplified to such an extent that the vacuum that was being created by this absence forced the state to materialise in the form of its ministerial representatives who turned up to face a torrent of threats and abuse at the hands of the people who had come together to shut down its most vital organ: the PNG LNG project itself.