Anthropology Seminar Series – “Reconfiguring social identities among Febi and Kubo, Papua New Guinea: anticipating the PNG LNG project”

A/Prof. Monica Minnegal, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne and Dr Peter D. Dwyer, Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne

Abstract:

Through late 2013 and the first half of 2014, in anticipation of the PNG LNG royalty payments they expected to start flowing from mid-2014, people at Suabi village dramatically ramped up a reconfiguring of social identities they had tentatively begun eight years earlier.  This paper explores how people are responding to what they see as new demands and potential opportunities, by renegotiating relationships within, between and crosscutting previously named groupings and among variously named persons.  To some extent, the negotiations are occurring in an information ‘vacuum’; people do not know the bases on which benefits will be distributed, or the legal requirements and processes for incorporating land groups (ILGs) which they know will have a part to play in the receipt of royalty payments.  There is thus considerable variation in how identities are being mobilised and redefined.  But prior understandings of relational personhood continue to shape the ways that people are responding to those uncertainties.  And politics of allegiance beyond those entailed in securing access to royalty payments are crucial in shaping the configurations that are emerging.  The consequence of these processes has been a cascade of decisions that will have effects far beyond those that the people making them envisage. This paper describes that cascade and explores some of its implications.

Bio:

Monica Minnegal is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the processes that shape change in the ways that people understand relationships to each other and the land. Monica has spent many years working in Papua New Guinea studying the impacts of modernity on their understandings and practices.  Her latest research explores how anticipating the arrival of a major resource-extraction project – the PNG LNG pipeline – is affecting local social practices and cultural understandings.

Peter Dwyer is an honorary Senior Fellow in the School of Geography, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne. After many years researching and teaching as a zoologist – bats, rats, rock wallabies, bowerbirds, ants – he diverted to anthropological concerns after taking a sabbatical in Papua New Guinea. He has undertaken research, for the past 28 years with Monica Minnegal, among Siane, Etolo, Kubo, Bedamuni and Febi people in PNG and among commercial fishermen in Victoria. An early emphasis was on ethno classification but social and ecological concerns now predominate and questions of social change – particularly of process – are always focal.

Where: Deakin University, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Sally Walker Building, Seminar Room ad1.122. A map of the campus can be found here: http://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/330364/waterfront.pdf

When: Thursday, Mar 5, 5.00-6.50pm

All welcome. For enquiries, contact Gillian G. Tan, [email protected]. After the seminar, please join us for drinks/dinner at the Max Hotel, Gheringhap Street, Geelong.

 

Interdisciplinary Human Ecology Reading Group

Friday 13th March – Interdisciplinary Human Ecology Reading Group (invite only – please contact Tanya King for more information)Prince Alfred Hotel, 191 Grattan St, Carlton. 2pm – 3:15pm.

Sherren et al 2010, p.1060

Sherren et al 2010, p.1060

Under consideration:

Kate Sherren, Joern Fischer, Richard Price, 2010, ‘Using photography to elicit grazier values and management practices relating to tree survival and recruitment’, Land Use Policy 27:1056–1067.

Emma Kowal Book Launch – 23rd April

Thursday 23rd April – Book Launch – Emma Kowal – ‘Trapped in the Gap: Doing Good in Indigenous Australia’ (Berghahn, 2015), plus, Academy of Social Sciences of Australia Paul Bourke lecture. 4-7pm, Deakin Melbourne City Centre, Level 3, 550 Bourke Street, Melbourne.

In Australia, a ‘tribe’ of white, middle-class, progressive professionals is actively working to improve the lives of Indigenous people. This book explores what Trapped in the Gaphappens when well-meaning people, supported by the state, attempt to help without harming. ‘White anti-racists’ find themselves trapped by endless ambiguities, contradictions, and double binds — a microcosm of the broader dilemmas of postcolonial societies. These dilemmas are fuelled by tension between the twin desires of equality and difference: to make Indigenous people statistically the same as non-Indigenous people (to ‘close the gap’) while simultaneously maintaining their ‘cultural’ distinctiveness. This tension lies at the heart of failed development efforts in Indigenous communities, ethnic minority populations and the global South. This book explains why doing good is so hard, and how it could be done differently.

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Ethnoforum

Friday 13th March – Ethnoforum – (Melbourne University) – 3:30-5pm (followed by dinner).

The University of Melbourne Ethnography Forum is a place where graduates can think about fieldwork in its broadest terms. It’s intended to be a relaxed, collegial space to float ideas and gain feedback within a supportive academic environment. Graduate students, staff and others with an interest in fieldwork are invited to attend, including those from other disciplines and universities. Continue reading