10 March 2011

Hiri Moale: contesting traditions, land and resources in a Papua New Guinea cultural festival

Dr Peter Phipps

Papua New Guinea faces many of the same challenges as other parts of the resource-rich developing world.

With a mostly rural population living in subsistence-based tribal communities, the thirty-five-year-old post-colonial state has only ever had a very shallow penetration into the social fabric. This relatively weak state faces the combined force of two regional power blocks and their currently co-operative quest for resources: the Anglo-imperial formation in the form of multinational resource companies and the Australian Government, and the Sino-imperial formation as resource hungry customer and emergent regional power. Not only does the 'resource curse' further distort relations between the population and the state, a case study illustrates the socially destructive effect it can have at the very local level.

In this meta-context, research into a Port Moresby festival celebrating the historic hiri trade between Papuans in the Moresby area and the Gulf becomes much more complicated than anticipated. The ownership of the festival remains contested between the city government and its newly-established tribal assembly, and a village which argues it is the true authority of the hiri legend and all associated activity. Going deeper, there's much more at stake than rights to the legend: from the Motu-Koita villagers' land rights in the city and surrounds, to the violent conflict over the latest resource royalty bonanza which is transforming life in PNG.

Peter Phipps is a researcher and lecturer in Global Studies and the Globalization and Culture research project Global Cities Institute. His research interests include the cultural politics of postcolonialism in the culture and history wars of the USA and Australia; Indigenous-settler relations in Australia; the history of theory in anthropology; and the cultures of global tourist and religious movements.

This seminar is part of the Global Studies Seminar Series presented by the Globalism Research Centre.