Preface and Acknowledgments

This book comes out of a much larger project of global ethnography conducted in Australia, Papua , Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and else- where.1 It emphasizes three major themes: community sustainability, commu- nity livelihoods, and community learning. Our overriding concern is to map the complex intersection—the tensions, both destructive and creative—of ontologi- cally different formations as they work in and through each other in the contem- porary globalizing world. The long-term objective of this ongoing project is to contribute broadly to social sustainability—culturally, politically, economically, and ecologically. More particularly, here in , we focused on ways of sup- porting and building the base-level foundations for enhancing the resilience and vibrancy of communities under threat.2 In effect, we wanted to rewrite the mainstream development literature by emphasizing the possibilities for revital- izing nonformal economies, restructuring health practices, and providing alter- native pathways to community development through informal learning. One of the core strategies suggested by the research involves drawing on the existing strengths of communities and working in partnership with government and civil society organizations to create networks of community learning centers. The book is one outcome of a long-term, collaborative research partnership between a team of academic researchers and the national Department for Com- munity Development (DFCD) in Papua New Guinea, a partnership that from the outset aimed to contribute toward the development of a new, national policy for strengthening and enhancing local communities and local livelihoods in a country of extraordinary diversity and contradiction. The publication of this vol- ume marks the end of the first stage of a research engagement that is far from complete. Most pointedly, the project provided background research to support the development of an ongoing policy framework for community development in Papua New Guinea. The project was set within a community-engaged research framework to finalize the DFCD’s community development policies. It involved a consultative process across local, provincial, and national levels. In local com- munities throughout Papua New Guinea a community-consultation process

xi xii preface and acknowledgments provided the basis for our research. Our research framework meant, for exam- ple, paying careful attention to the protocol of Organic Law while we waited for a letter to get off a provincial desk and into the hands of a district liaison officer. It meant waiting in a pressing crowd to get on an overnight boat to a distant is- land because our flight booking had not worked. It meant explicitly confronting embarrassing questions of monetary compensation, power broking, and gender inequities. The research rarely went in the way that we first intended, and it was never without initial setbacks, failures, and problems, but it was always conducted with committed care. There have been many interconnected parts to the Papua New Guinea (PNG) project—from local research training to writing a series of government reports. Perhaps most significant, drawing upon field research in local com- munities and on policy work done in the Department for Community Sustain-

Karen Haive, Department for Community Development preface and acknowledgments xiii ability by Karen Haive, Marian Jacka, Mollie Willie, and others, we worked to draft the Integrated Policy for Community Development for circulation to the provincial ministers, chairs, and advisors in preparation for the First National Ministerial Forum in October 2006. The eighth draft was completed in late 2006, with the final version of the policy document accepted by the Parliament as policy in early 2007. During the same period, community mapping was initi- ated in eleven locations comprising about forty villages across four provinces of Papua New Guinea—Central, Morobe, , and Milne Bay. We subse- quently documented the roll-out of the district focal points in a series of further places: -Green District (), Bialla District (West New Britain Province), Madang Town District (), Wosera Gawi Dis- trict (East Province), Rigo District and Moresby South (Central Province), Pomio District (East New Britain), and Sohe District (), although this was done with much less depth than was the case with the community mapping sites. The present community mapping project is unique in that a comprehen- sive national government policy and implementation process had been based on iterative, collaborative research and consultation with diverse communities across the nation.3 This was the first time in Papua New Guinea that research with policy outcomes was planned in association with repeated visits to an ex- tensive and intentionally diverse range of communities—urban, hinterland, and remote. And the project was unusual in bringing together a government depart- ment and an outside collaborating team to develop policy guidelines that were both taken back to communities and into the department for further discussion and debate. This second round of consultation occurred in 2007 and across 2008 into early 2009. The logistics were complicated, and we did not always live up to our own expectations. For example, we had planned to include two other provinces in the community mapping process, but, because of political violence and a declared state of emergency in the Southern Highlands and administrative issues includ- ing funding delays in relation to Manus , those two provinces were reluc- tantly dropped from the ethnographic part of the study. The Southern Highlands subsequently became central to the Liquefied Natural Gas Project, with more vio- lence ensuing. We remain acutely aware of the weakness that in the community- mapping chapters there is no Highland community and that working in eleven primary locations provides only a partial picture of such a complex country. We have been assiduous in drawing on the secondary-literature research including ethnographic studies that covered the whole of Papua New Guinea. Our approach, drawing on what can be called “engaged theory,” comes to- gether around a number of core principles: xiv preface and acknowledgments

• That the global research is locally engaged and committed to making a difference; • That the research always aims to move creatively between on-the-ground inquiry and generalizing theory; • That the research is reflexive. Engaged reflexive research entails stepping back from the subjective immediacy of on-the-ground engagement. In oth- er words, the passion of engagement needs to be carefully qualified by the reflexive dimension of objective distance; • That the research involves a mutual and slowly negotiated relationship be- tween researchers and other participants, including, where relevant, local communities. All participants are to be involved where possible as partners in a dialogue of exchange and mutual learning; • That there is a duty of care to the people with whom we work to protect privacy and security where appropriate, to negotiate the boundaries of knowledge, to properly acknowledge sources where public, and to return the outcomes of our work to the community in a reciprocal relationship of mutual learning.

Alongside consultation in communities, background document-based and library research was conducted on the major themes of community develop- ment, health issues including HIV/AIDS, the informal sector, informal learn- ing, and community learning centers. A project of this nature necessarily draws on a wide range of literatures, touching on diverse fields of both scholarly and applied research. One of the hallmarks of the kind of exploratory work under- taken here is the need for interdisciplinary engagement as well as the capacity to work across a diverse range of terrains and community groups. Our work has thus been informed by literatures in the social sciences and humanities, the hu- man and biomedical sciences, and economics and development, and we owe an enormous amount to all those researchers who are listed in the endnotes. This is a large range of fields to draw on, and the researchers involved in the project brought overlapping knowledge and methodological skills to the task at hand. Our second major weakness is that, though the book has been redrafted and redrafted, in working across many fields we have exposed many possible cracks in our own expertise. Moreover, because we are addressing multiple audiences across multiple fields—local people reading about their own com- munities, national and global policy makers, anthropologists and theorists of community development—some readers will find some sections difficult or not to have an immediate resonance, and other readers will want more depth. We have tried to keep significant sections of the book accessible to general readers. For example, the chapters concerning the community profiles are not exercises preface and acknowledgments xv in deep anthropology. However, they have been critically read by community leaders in Papua New Guinea to make sure that they pass a basic test: “Does the writing properly represent my community in all its strengths and weaknesses?”

This publication, which builds on the draft reports that we presented in 2007 and 2009 to Dame Carol Kidu, then minister for the Department for Community Development, Papua New Guinea, is the outcome of a massive un- dertaking and collaboration among many people over a number of years. Julie Foster-Smith, herself both an Aboriginal Australian and a Papua New Guin- ean, played a crucial role in establishing the initial contact between Dame Carol and the Globalism Research Centre, through Paul James, Martin Mulligan, and Peter Phipps. Julie Foster-Smith mediated the Melbourne two-day exchange in 2004, and other experts on Papua New Guinea such as Martin Syder and Rog- er Southern contributed to setting up the project. Julie continued on with the project as a central advisor on community engagement and methodology ques- tions. Despite poor health she contributed significantly on numerous difficult research sojourns until she could no longer travel. Dame Carol was a constant inspiration—both personal and intellectual— and an ongoing source of guidance that was crucial to the changing nature of

Dame Carol Kidu, former minister for Community Development xvi preface and acknowledgments our engagement across the complex boundaries of government, civil society, and communities. Secretary Klapat was wonderfully generous with his time and wisdom. We could not have done the work without his support, includ- ing his leadership in thinking through policy development and how the DFCD- Globalism research team might contribute to that process. Joseph and Dame Carol generously allowed us the independence and space to do much more than provide a basis to a pressing policy process. Whatever rigor this document has reflects the engagement they supported. One intellectual home of the work is the Globalism Research Centre, and we warmly thank our colleagues there—in particular Todd Bennet, Damian Grenfell, Anne McNevin, Martin Mulligan, Tom Nairn, Heikki Patomaki, Peter Phipps, Andy Scerri, Helen Smith, Manfred Steger, Anna Trembath, Erin Wil- son, and Chris Ziguras. Another intellectual setting for the project is the Com- munity Sustainability Program within the Global Cities Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Here we particularly thank Supriya Singh, research leader of the Community Sustainability Program within which this project falls, as well as Frank Yardley and Michelle Farley for their administra- tive support. The imaginative source of our thinking that Papua New Guinea could and can be otherwise came from writings years ago in Arena Journal by people such as Nonie Sharp and Utula Samana. A third important intellectual setting for our work is the international organization Global Reconciliation—a number of the coauthors of this book are involved in that organization—and we acknowledge the inspiring work of Ian Campbell, Robert Costa, Michael Dra- pac, Kushil Gunesekera, David Lurie, Elizabeth Reid, Paul Sheehan, and John Zelzer, among others. A further intellectual setting is the UN Global Compact Cities Programme, which developed the circles of sustainability method used in the present approach. Here we acknowledge the work of Andy Scerri, Liam Magee, and Martin Mulligan. Many, many people have contributed to the researching and writing of this report. Peter Phipps managed the project across 2005–2006, Kate Cregan in late 2006–2007, and then Victoria Stead in 2008–2009. Apart from managing the project in late 2006, Kate provided research and writing for Chapters 7 and 12, for which we thank her warmly. She withdrew from the project in early 2007. Apart from the main authors, a number of persons contributed major sections of writing or chapters upon which the report was based: Peter Annear (health equity), Kelly Donati (development issues), Helen Smith (informal learning), Sabine Spohn (microfinance), and Zarnaz Fouladi (HIV/AIDS). Many others contributed to the research on the ground, by providing advice or by doing background work on particular issues, and we also acknowledge them with gratitude: Albert Age, Sama Arua, Kelly Donati, Jean Eparo, Beno preface and acknowledgments xvii

Joseph Klapat, secretary of the Department for Community Development

Erepan, Julie Foster-Smith, Betty Gali-Malpo, Elizabeth Kath, Andrew Kedu, Max Kep, Paul Komesaroff, Leo Kulumbu, Stephanie Lusby, Karen Malone, Ron- nie Mamia, Lita Mugugia, Martin Mulligan, Gibson Oeka, Jalal Paraha, Peter Phipps, Leonie Rakanangu, Elizabeth Reid, Isabel Salatiel, Chris Scanlon, Pou Toivita, Kema Vegala, Naup Waup, Mollie Willie, and Joe Yomba. Others have provided important administrative and logistic support, ideas, and friendship: Kila Aoneka, Jenny Kidu, Albert Obia, and Gibson Oera. Other research support came from Wasana Weeraratne, Alex Stott, and Mardi O’Connor in compiling the bibliography and checking references. Colleagues have expertly and thoroughly commented on sections of the book, and we particularly thank Phillip Darby, Andy Scerri, Martha Macintyre, and Thomas Strong for their insightful contributions. Collaboration with the remarkable Phillip Darby has been fundamental to this book. This volume is a contribution to a lifelong project with Phillip and the Institute of Postcolonial Studies, which aims to get beyond the postmodern turn in postcolonial studies and to ground theory in the lives of people. Nonie Sharp read the manuscript with her usual generous care and was always an inspiration in our thinking about engaged ethnography and theory. We thank Jim Robins at the National xviii preface and acknowledgments

Research Institute, Papua New Guinea, for advice at crucial junctures. We also thank Steffen Wirth at the Asian Development Bank for offering both encour- agement and material support. His gentle cynicism about the achievability of our project aims was matched by his generosity of spirit in making it possible. And we thank the University of Hawai‘i Press, in particular director William Hamilton and editor Susan Stone for their careful and considerate attentions. Our work in communities was conducted with a number of leaders and activists who facilitated discussions, organized community forums and conver- sations, and coordinated the feedback on community profiles and recommen- dations. We thank in particular Gerard Arua, Vanapa, Central Province; Monica Arua, Yule Island, Central Province; Viki Avei, Boera, Central Province; Su­nema Bagita, Provisional Community Development Advisor, ; Mago Doelegu, , Milne Bay Province; Clement Dogale, Vanagi, Central Province; Jerry Gomuma, Alepa, Central Province; Alfred Kaket, Simbukanam/ Tokain, Madang Province; Yat Paol from the Bismarck Group, Madang Province; Joseph Pulayasi, Omarakana, Milne Bay Province; Bing Sawanga, Yalu, ; Alexia Tokau, Kananam, Madang Province; and Naup Waup, Wisini village, Morobe Province. They became our formal research lead- ers in their respective communities. And last, but very important, we thank the communities and individuals of Alepa, Boera, Divinai, Inuma, Kananam, Omarakana, Tokain, Vanagi, Vanapa, Wisini, Yalu, and Yule Island for their generosity and openness in receiving us into their homes. Our hope is that in the years ahead we will remain intimate outsiders to your communities and wantoks in the mutual struggle for develop- ing other pathways to sustainable living. All royalties from this book will go to communities in Papua New Guinea.

The title of the book, Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development: Oth- er Paths for Papua New Guinea, expresses the nature of the project. It points to the broad canvas of the work: exploring the manner in which other development strategies may contribute to community-building and, by implication, to the sus- tainability of communities through a connective process of learning across differ- ent knowledge systems—customary tribal, traditional cosmological, and modern analytical. In this emphasis, processes of development and community sustain- ability are not seen as separate concerns but as interdependent. What we mean by “other paths” has very different rationale and politics from what was proposed by writers in the lineage of Hernando de Soto, whose book The Other Path excited a generation of development economists.4 Though there are points of overlap in our mutual interest in informal economies and informal institutions, instead of advocating the harnessing of the informal sector for market-based and profit-and- preface and acknowledgments xix loss ends in the movement toward a modern integrated national economy, we are interested in the reproduction, intersection, and enhancement of different life- worlds in all their complexity. The concept of “other”—as in “other paths”—is thus used here in a pointed way. Other paths, we argue, need to take into account different ontological formations, including customary relations. Rather than ei- ther assuming or advocating the virtue of modernization as a one-dimensional process of development, or even arguing for “another modernity,” we present a case for negotiation between different constituencies across the formations of social life. The book thus advocates something that those of us immersed in a culture of modern consumption or modern education will experience as other to what we take for granted as the way of the world. Paul James, October 2011

Notes 1. The larger team includes Damian Grenfell, Paul James, Martin Mulligan, Yaso Nadarajah, Peter Phipps, Victoria Stead, Anna Trembath, and Mayra Walsh, all part of the Globalism Research Centre, as well as Supriya Singh and others. 2. We started with the Department for Community Development (DFCD) docu- ment New Policy Direction: Revitalizing Local Communities and the Nation (DFCD, , 2004). The first stage of the research used broad-ranging techniques includ- ing social profiling, a well-being questionnaire, photo-narratives, and strategic inter- views to elucidate issues of economic and cultural development. The Department for Community Development was the executing agency, and the research and policy de- velopment stage was conducted under the auspices of the Employment-Oriented Skills Development Project backed by the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Asian Development Bank. The research team for the first stage was drawn from the Global- ism Institute (now the Globalism Research Centre) and the Department for Commu- nity Development. In the current stage, as we move from taking findings back to local communities for further rounds of discussion and on to the implementation stage, the Globalism Research Centre continues to work closely with members of the Depart- ment for Community Development and to engage with the communities themselves. 3. There have in the past been a number of remarkable community consultation and social mapping projects. For example, the Social Feasibility Study of the Bismarck- Ramu Conservation and Development Project is a case in point (see Flip Van Helden, Between Cash and Conviction: The Social Context of the Bismarck-Ramu Integrated Con- servation and Development Project, National Research Institute, Boroko, 1998). How- ever, as extensive as it was, that report was based on one area and not directly tied into national policy development. 4. Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World, Harper and Row, New York, 1989.