Richard Eves

Money, Mayhem and the Beast: Narratives of the World's End from New Ireland (PAPUA NEW GUINEA)

This article discusses the relationship between money, the nation, and new imaginings of apocalypticism in Papua New Guinea. Robert Foster has argued that money played an important role in the Australian administrations efforts to promote a sense of nation at the end of the colonial period. I explore the effects of the new imaginings beyond the nation that are occurring as Christian apocalypticism becomes a dominant framework for interpreting the world. New meanings and values are being attached to money, resulting in the destabilization of the strong link between money and nation that was observed by Foster. I argue that, within this new world-view, money is losing its symbolic potency, that new forms of identity are emerging, and that peoples attachment to the nation is being weakened.

Resisting Global AIDS Knowledges: Born-Again Christian Narratives of the Epidemic from Papua New Guinea

The recognition that HIV prevention materials need to be adapted to local cultures is not often sufficiently understood and applied. Counter discourses and determined disputation about the best means of HIV prevention show that success is not simply a matter of mindfully translating globally sanctioned knowledge and presenting it to receptive audiences. Beliefs contrary to global AIDS knowledges will not be displaced inevitably by scientific facts. As this study of born-again Christians in Papua New Guinea shows, there is incommensurability between the globalized approach preferred by the government and the approach of these Christians. The answer may lie in two words: respect and dialogue.

Billy Graham in the South Seas

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, evangelical Christians in the United States expressed their eagerness to enter the ruined country to proselytize among the population. Foremost among them was the outspoken Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, and heir to his father’s evangelical dynasty. Previously, Franklin Graham had condemned Islam as a ‘wicked religion’ and had made other inflammatory statements which enraged Muslims in the United States and elsewhere. During the Gulf War, he had orchestrated campaigns to distribute Arabic New Testaments in Saudi Arabia through supporters and chaplains in the US military, evoking the ire of General Norman Schwartzkopf (Cajee 2003). Under the guise of distributing humanitarian aid through his organization, the Samaritan’s Purse, Graham aimed to use Iraq as a field in which to spread the Christian message: ‘I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son … We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian, I do this in the name of Jesus Christ’ (Waldman 2003).1

Unsettling settler colonialism: Debates over climate and colonization in New Guinea, 1875-1914

Though the suitability of the tropics for European colonization and especially settlement had been a long-standing issue, it was particularly hotly debated from the mid-nineteenth century until at least the turn of the nineteenth century, when the imperatives of expanding imperial ventures placed the issue firmly on the agenda. This article explores debates over climate and colonization in the context of New Guinea, where it was widely believed that the tropical environment was enervating and ultimately detrimental to Europeans who attempted to live there. Such beliefs led some commentators to question whether it would ever become the “home of the white man” that some of the advocates of colonization had suggested.

The play of powers made visible: Magic and dance in New Ireland

To counter an ahistorical emphasis on ‘malangan’ in studies of New Ireland culture, this paper examines the historical emergence, among the Lelet people, of new cultural forms. My example is the dramatic new kinds of dance and associated magic that have been acquired from other parts of Papua New Guinea. These importations have changed peoples perception of the world in which they make their lives. I argue that part of the appeal of these new cultural forms is that they open the door to new more potent forms of power, allowing the Lelet to widen their capacity to act as agents in the enlarged regional arena and power networks of the colonial and post-colonial context.

‘Black and white, a significant contrast’: Race, humanism and missionary photography in the Pacific

Abstract Taking the example of ‘Studies in black and white’, a genre of photographs taken around the end of the nineteenth century by Methodist missionaries in the Pacific, this article seeks to go beyond conventional analyses that scrutinize colonial photography for forms of domination. I argue that these photographs, and the context in which some of them were published, reveal a complex interplay between two contradictory principles: on the one hand, a Christian humanism, articulating a vision of commonality and equality, and on the other, paternalism, articulating a vision of superiority and inequality .

‘Great Signs from Heaven’: Christian Discourses of the End of the World from New Ireland

The intensifying global spread of apocalyptic forms of Christianity, now well established in Papua New Guinea, has popularised readings of the Bible that stress a cataclysmic end of the world from which only the faithful will be saved. This paper examines the way that this apocalyptic discourse is being embraced by the Lelet of central New Ireland, taking the case of an earthquake that occurred during the year 2000. Apocalypticism is increasingly the operative explanatory framework for unusual events that are seen as signs. However, recourse to it varies between individuals. Signs are very carefully examined and various theories, new and old, are considered before an explanation is finally accepted. I argue that the acceptance of new beliefs does not always depend on the existence of prior similar beliefs, and neither are older beliefs simply displaced by the new.

Transgressive women don’t deserve protection: young men’s narratives of sexual violence against women in rural Papua New Guinea

Abstract Sexual violence against women and girls is commonplace in Papua New Guinea (PNG). While the experiences of women are rightly given central place in institutional responses to sexual violence, the men who perpetrate violence are often overlooked, an oversight that undermines the effectiveness of prevention efforts. This paper draws on interviews conducted with young men as part of a qualitative longitudinal study of masculinity and male sexuality in a rural highland area of PNG. It explores one aspect of male sexuality: men’s narratives of sexual violence. Most striking from the data is that the collective enactment of sexual violence against women and girls is reported as an everyday and accepted practice amongst young men. However, not all women and girls were described as equally at risk, with those who transgress gender roles and roles inscribed and reinforced by patriarchal structures, at greater risk. To address this situation, efforts to reduce sexual violence against women and girls require an increased focus on male-centred intervention to critically engage with the forms of patriarchal authority that give license to sexual violence. Understanding the perceptions and experiences of men as perpetrators of sexual violence is a critical first step in the process of changing normative perceptions of gender, a task crucial to reducing sexual violence in countries such as PNG.

Religion, Politics and the Election in the Southern Highlands

The great diversity in forms of religion in Papua New Guinea means that it is unwise to attempt to generalize about the effects of religion on politics. Although almost everybody in the country today identifies as Christian, the churches are very large in number and are widely divergent in beliefs and policies.1 Further, each denomination has its own local character, influenced in part by the many popular local religions drawn from traditional beliefs which remain extremely potent. In some areas, Christianity and local religion have been drawn on to produce elaborate syncretic forms of religion which are highly influential and some of which take great interest in the political arena.