scholarly journals Closing the Frontier, Opening Doors

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-58
Author(s):  
Tuomas Tammisto
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Local Response ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Spatial Strategy ◽  
Temporal Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spatio Temporal

In this article I examine a recent communal cocoa planting project in a Wide Bay Mengen community in East Pomio, Papua New Guinea in relation to histories of resource extraction. I discuss how the community members modeled the current planting of cocoa in accordance with earlier forms of agriculture, namely copra production and swidden horticulture. The cocoa planting project is linked to a longer history of labour and resource extraction in Pomio. I analyze the cycles of labour recruitment, logging, and oil palm expansion through the framework of the frontier, by which I mean a spatio-temporal process through which certain areas are portrayed as having abundant resources, which are made available for extraction. The cocoa planting project was a local response to these conditions and intended to be a source of income based on inalienated labour and local landholding and a spatial strategy of establishing points of access to other places, called 'doors' by the community members. My aim in this article is twofold. First, I argue that the frontier understood as a spatio-temporal process helps us to conceptualize cycles of resource extraction. Second, I show how people living in areas understood as frontiers form their own analyses and responses to the conditions under which their land, labour, and resources are made available to others. Keywords: cocoa, commodification, frontier, infrastructure, natural resources, oil palm, Papua New Guinea, place, territorialization

COMBINING ORAL TRADITIONS AND BAYESIAN CHRONOLOGICAL MODELING TO UNDERSTAND VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GULF OF PAPUA (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Chris Urwin ◽  
Quan Hua ◽  
Henry Arifeae
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gulf Of Papua ◽  
The Village

ABSTRACT When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

scholarly journals Spatio-temporal integration in plant tropisms

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (154) ◽  
pp. 20190038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmine Meroz ◽  
Renaud Bastien ◽  
L. Mahadevan
Keyword(s):  
Response Function ◽  
Shoot Growth ◽  
Analytic Solution ◽  
Temporal Integration ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Local Response ◽  
History Of ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Plant Shoots

Tropisms, growth-driven responses to environmental stimuli, cause plant organs to respond in space and time and reorient themselves. Classical experiments from nearly a century ago reveal that plant shoots respond to the integrated history of light and gravity stimuli rather than just responding instantaneously. We introduce a temporally non-local response function for the dynamics of shoot growth formulated as an integro-differential equation whose solution allows us to qualitatively reproduce experimental observations associated with intermittent and unsteady stimuli. Furthermore, an analytic solution for the case of a pulse stimulus expresses the response function as a function of experimentally tractable variables, which we calculate for the case of the phototropic response of Arabidopsis hypocotyls. All together, our model enables us to predict tropic responses to time-varying stimuli, manifested in temporal integration phenomena, and sets the stage for the incorporation of additional effects such as multiple stimuli, gravitational sagging, etc.

History of non-physician anaesthesia providers in Papua New Guinea: from heil tultuls to Anaesthetic Scientific Officers

2021 ◽  
pp. 0310057X2110278
Author(s):  
Terence E Loughnan ◽  
Michael G Cooper ◽  
Pauline B Wake ◽  
Harry Aigeeleng
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Medical Assistants ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

The most recent estimates, published in 2016, have indicated that around 70% of anaesthesia providers in Papua New Guinea are non-physician anaesthetic providers and that they administer over 90% of anaesthetics, with a significant number unsupervised by a physician anaesthetist. Papua New Guinea has a physician anaesthetist ratio estimated to be 0.25 per 100,000 population, while Australia and New Zealand have a ratio of 19 physician anaesthetists per 100,000, which is 75 times that of Papua New Guinea. To reach a ratio of seven per 100,000, recommended as the minimum acceptable by the Lancet Commission in 2016, there will need to be over 35 practitioners trained per annum until 2030, at a time when the average annual numbers of recent years are less than three physicians and less than five non-physician anaesthetic providers. We review the development of anaesthesia administered by non-physician indigenous staff and the stages of development from heil tultuls, dokta bois, liklik doktas, native medical assistants, aid post orderlies, and Anaesthetic Technical Officers up to the current Anaesthetic Scientific Officers having attained the Diploma in Anaesthetic Science from the University of Papua New Guinea.

scholarly journals Enacting the Absent State: State-formation on the oil-palm frontier of Pomio (Papua New Guinea)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Tammisto
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The State ◽  
Rural District ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Active Worker ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
New Britain

Tammisto, Tuomas 2016. Enacting the Absent State: State-formation on the oil-palm frontier of Pomio (Papua New Guinea). Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 62: 51-68. In this article I examine the relationship between new oil-palm plantations and state-formation in Pomio, a remote rural district of East New Britain Province (Papua New Guinea). I am particularly interested in the kinds of spaces of governance produced by the new oil-palm plantations and how this contributes to state formation and territorialisation in Pomio.Plantations in Pomio do not became state-like spaces as a result of top-down processes alone, but also because of active worker initiatives. By contributing to state formation in this way, the inhabitants of Pomio also make claims on what the state should be like. While plantations become governable and statelike spaces, they do not produce simply governable subjects, nor do they produce a uniformly governable territory but an uneven space in which some places are more governable than others. The inhabitants of Pomio move between these places in their pursuit of different goals.

scholarly journals Human impacts and Anthropocene environmental change at Lake Kutubu, a Ramsar wetland in Papua New Guinea

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (40) ◽  
pp. e2022216118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsie E. Long ◽  
Larissa Schneider ◽  
Simon E. Connor ◽  
Niamh Shulmeister ◽  
Janet Finn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mineral Resource ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Wetland Management ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Ramsar Wetland

The impacts of human-induced environmental change that characterize the Anthropocene are not felt equally across the globe. In the tropics, the potential for the sudden collapse of ecosystems in response to multiple interacting pressures has been of increasing concern in ecological and conservation research. The tropical ecosystems of Papua New Guinea are areas of diverse rainforest flora and fauna, inhabited by human populations that are equally diverse, both culturally and linguistically. These people and the ecosystems they rely on are being put under increasing pressure from mineral resource extraction, population growth, land clearing, invasive species, and novel pollutants. This study details the last ∼90 y of impacts on ecosystem dynamics in one of the most biologically diverse, yet poorly understood, tropical wetland ecosystems of the region. The lake is listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance, yet, since initial European contact in the 1930s and the opening of mineral resource extraction facilities in the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in deforestation and an influx of people to the area. Using multiproxy paleoenvironmental records from lake sediments, we show how these anthropogenic impacts have transformed Lake Kutubu. The recent collapse of algal communities represents an ecological tipping point that is likely to have ongoing repercussions for this important wetland’s ecosystems. We argue that the incorporation of an adequate historical perspective into models for wetland management and conservation is critical in understanding how to mitigate the impacts of ecological catastrophes such as biodiversity loss.

Landowner Groups and the Codification of Custom in Papua New Guinea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria C. Stead
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Relations Of Power

Although it diverges markedly from the vision of the Melanesian Way elaborated in the 1975 constitution, large-scale resource extraction has in recent decades been championed as the key mechanism for development in Papua New Guinea. In this context, forms of “middle-way” land reform are advocated as means of rendering customary land tenure commensurable with the requirements of modern, capitalist practices of production and economic activity. Principal amongst these are Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) and lease-lease-back arrangements. Ethnographic exploration of communities affected by the tuna industry in Madang Province shows how these land reforms transform structures and cartographies of power, privileging the agents of the state and global capital at the same time that they transform relations of power within communities. At the same time, however, forms of codification and the assertion of landowner identities allow communities to make claims against outside agents involved in resource extractive activity on their lands.

The Search for Alternative Outcomes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Conservation And Development ◽  
Regional History

This chapter examines a conservation and development project in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1990s. These projects were intended as alternatives to more destructive forms of resource extraction, including logging and mining. In this case, the four sociolinguistic groups living in the area could not agree on a shared agenda, forestalling the project. This suggests the importance of understanding regional history before establishing conservation areas. Although I correctly diagnosed the challenges facing implementation of the project, my desire for an alternative to destructive forms of development tempered my assessment of the project. In subsequent work, I began to focus on corporations responsible for environmental degradation.

scholarly journals Power, pork and patronage: Decentralisation and the politicisation of the development budget in Papua New Guinea

1970 ◽  
pp. 7-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Allen ◽  
Zahid Hasnain
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
State Development ◽  
Patronage Politics ◽  
History Of

This paper examines a number of recent empirical studies of local-level decision-making in relation to development planning and, especially, the allocation of state development funds in Papua New Guinea. The discussion is framed by the extensive theoretical and Papua New Guinea literature on patronage politics and political culture, by the recent history of decentralisation reforms, and by the frequently articulated, but largely anecdotal, observations about the functioning of district and local-level governance processes.In contrast to the anecdotal vision of widespread and chronic dysfunctionality, the studies considered here paint a picture of considerable spatial and regional variation. We offer some tentative hypotheses to explain this variation, while flagging the need for more empirical work. We outline how these preliminary findings have informed a program of research that is currently being undertaken at the district and local government levels with a view to gaining a better understanding of the extent and nature of spatial variation in the local-level governance of state development funds in Papua New Guinea.

scholarly journals The invisible commodity: Local experiences with forest carbon offsetting in Indonesia

2020 ◽  
pp. 251484862090523
Author(s):  
Wendy B. Miles
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fires ◽  
Oil Palm ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Core Component ◽  
Development Interventions ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Carbon Offsetting ◽  
History Of ◽  
Village Government

A core component of the Paris Agreement is reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Originally envisioned as a form of payments for ecosystem services, REDD+ has played out in a myriad of ways on the ground. Examining the transition of REDD+ from theory to practice, this article provides an ethnographic account of local experiences with the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership in Indonesia. Challenges with the invisibility of “carbon” as a resource—both literally and figuratively—was a common theme as community members questioned the feasibility of carbon as a commodity and expressed concerns that if REDD+ did succeed, their land rights might be usurped by more powerful interests. Concurrent to REDD+, communities were navigating imminent threats from forest fires and oil palm expansion. Village government leaders saw REDD+ as a potential buffer against these threats, but due to a history of failed development interventions they proceeded carefully in REDD+. Because the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership was funded by bi-lateral aid, it was less susceptible to fluctuations in the carbon market but more vulnerable to changes in Australia’s administration and aid priorities, which ultimately led to the project’s closure in 2014. Since the project’s closure, villages have experienced the expansion of oil palm plantations onto community lands, and local forests and croplands have been engulfed in massive peatland fires—both threats that REDD+ was designed to confront. A key lesson from the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership is that if the international community wants to work with local communities to make a lasting impact, it is essential that their engagement be built upon commitment, transparency, and trust.

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