Journal de la Société des Océanistes 138-139 | 2014 Les mises en récit de la mine dans le Pacifique Mining narratives, the revival of «clans» and other changes in Wampar social imaginaries: A case study from Papua New Guinea Doris Bacalzo, Bettina Beer and Tobias Schwoerer Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7128 DOI: 10.4000/jso.7128 ISSN: 1760-7256 Publisher Société des océanistes Printed version Date of publication: 15 December 2014 Number of pages: 63-76 ISBN: 978-2-85430-118-2 ISSN: 0300-953x Electronic reference Doris Bacalzo, Bettina Beer and Tobias Schwoerer, « Mining narratives, the revival of «clans» and other changes in Wampar social imaginaries: A case study from Papua New Guinea », Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 138-139 | 2014, Online since 15 December 2017, connection on 30 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/jso/7128 ; DOI : 10.4000/jso.7128 © Tous droits réservés Mining narratives, the revival of «clans» and other changes in Wampar social imaginaries: A case study from Papua New Guinea1 by Doris BACALZO, Bettina BEER and Tobias SCHWOERER* ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ he prospect of mineral resource exploitation, in the context La perspective de l’exploitation minière, dans un contexte of legal-political pressures on local communities to comply des pressions politico-juridiques sur les communautés locales with the bureaucratic visions of mining compa nies and the pour qu’elles s’alignent sur les visions bureaucratiques des state, and the narrative construction of community futures, compagnies minières et de l’État, et les mises en récit sur les invariably sets in motion processes of social boundary- avenirs des communautés, génèrent des processus de redéi- making. Outcomes are driven not only by discourses nition des frontières sociales. Les changements ne résultent originating in the state or the mining companies, but also pas seulement des discours émanant de l’État ou des irmes, in local and national narratives about the inancial beneits mais aussi des mises en récits locales et nationales portant sur from mining for legally recognised «landowners». Among les bénéices de l’exploitation minière pour les «propriétaires the Wampar of Papua New Guinea, circulating narratives terriens» reconnus. Parmi les Wampar de PNG les récits qui about mining interplay with and are informed by local circulent interagissent avec les spéciicités locales et l’avenir social speciicities to produce imagined futures that involve envisagé passe ainsi par la résurrection des groupes inclu- the revival of encompassing groups called sagaseg as a basis sifs nommés sagaseg comme base des Incorporated Land for Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs). Yet, the creation of ILGs Groups (ILG). Cependant, la constitution des ILG s’est révélée is sensitive to the particularities of kin relations, including sensible aux particularités des relations de parenté, incluant those emerging out of interethnic marriages, thus preserving des liens issus de mariages interethniques, ce qui a permis la the long-standing Wampar emphasis on inclusive sociality. préservation d’une socialité mise en avant par les Wampar. Keywords: mining, circulation of narratives, re- Mots-clés : mines, circulation des récits, reconi- conigurations of sociality, boundary-making, guration de la socialité, délimitation des frontières Incorporated Land Group (ilg), Papua New Guinea sociales, Incorporated Land Group (ilg), png A dominant theme in the anthropology of local communities with the advent of mineral mining in Papua New Guinea remains the exploration and extraction. Wherever the analysis of transformations in conceptions of prospect of resource extraction arises, resource kinship and land tenure, and ultimately the developers and the state demand the identiication reconigurations in sociality that take place in of landowners who can negotiate over access to 1. he three co-authors have equally contributed to this article with ieldwork data and analysis and are listed in alphabet- ical order. We would also like to thank Don Gardner for helpful discussions and comments on earlier versions of this article. * Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Lucerne, Switzerland, [email protected], bettina. [email protected], [email protected], Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 138-139, année 2014 64 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES Map 1. – Localization of Wampar area and map of the Markham Valley showing Wampar villages and mining sites the land, compensation, royalties and other hereditary kinship to the exclusion of other types beneits (Gilberthorpe and Banks, 2012; Imbun, of social connections among the Fasu under the 2013). As a consequence, local communities impact of the Kutubu oil project (Gilberthorpe, come under strong pressure to present themselves 2013). he opposite tendency, that people operate according to concepts understandable by the in an inclusive mode has been observed less state and developers. As representatives of the frequently, and usually only in the initial stages state in Papua New Guinea use a popular version of a mining project, as among the Gende, where of the anthropological idea that unilineal descent Zimmer-Tamakoshi (1997, 2001) observed the groups constitute corporate, landowning entities continuing importance of the reci procal nature (Jorgensen, 2007; Filer, 2007), its citizens are of all «kin» relations (that are not bound by a required to reshape patterns of sociality to biological reckoning of kinship but rather more conform to it: creating unilineal descent groups by its social nature), and the Ipili in Porgera, who where none have existed before, or by rigidifying, have kept their kinship system of cognatic and simplifying and standardizing existing patterns ego-centric personal networks intact in a process of sociality and landownership (Guddemi, 1997; that Golub (2007a) refers to as a «forging of Jorgensen, 1997, 2007; Zimmer-Tamakoshi, landowner identities.» However, even the Ipili, in 1997; Ernst, 1999; Golub, 2007a; Weiner, 2007; their negotiations with government oicials, were Gilberthorpe, 2013). compelled to limit membership so that while the Diverse social processes are concerned with out-marrying women, their husbands and children exclusion and inclusion, as people strive to limit were included, all other aines were not. Among and/or extend membership in newly legalized the Gende, exclusionary mechanisms have grown groups. Sometimes they pursue exclusionary over the course of the last twenty years, from an strategies that produce novel boundaries within initial focus on inclusivity. With the mining existing social ields. his can clearly be seen in the operations of Ramu Nickel, and a second project cases of the Lihir Big Men who limit their once in Yandera getting close to realisation, this has important outside connections (Bainton, 2009); created three distinct localised social networks (the among the Sawiyanoo of the Left May River, that two areas around the mine sites and a third area on reframed land tenure in terms of patrilineal descent the Simbu side of the Bismarck range) grounded within a decade of mining exploration starting in concerns about claims to mining royalties (Guddemi, 1997); or in the strengthening of (Zimmer-Tamakoshi, 2012). MINING, REVIVAL OF CLANS AND WAMPAR SOCIAL IMAGINARIES (PNG) 65 Such processes of representation as landowning his circulation of narratives transforms not groups, however, are not necessarily directly only Wampar social imaginaries, but also sociality instigated by the discourses emanating from the itself. For these narratives inform processes of state and the mining companies. Particularly boundary-making apparent in manifold eforts in the early stages of resource exploration, to enumerate and list group members, which is when a mining project is still in its infancy, the central part of obtaining the legal status of local narratives on the prospects of inancial an Incorporated Land Group (ilg) under the and economic beneits as well as conlicts Land Group Incorporation Act (see Fingleton, about «landownership» and what constitutes a 2007 for an analysis of the act’s history). What is «landowner» take centre stage. hese narratives2 striking is that through these exercises, Wampar often engender proactive and autonomous actively began to negotiate amongst themselves preparations by the local people involved, who with a view to coordinating the creation of ilgs. start formalizing and transforming kinship In the process, they reactivated and reworked the relations long before a resource development Wampar social category of sagaseg, which refers plan even reaches a feasibility stage (Guddemi, to large, encompassing, clan-like groups. Prior 1997; Zimmer-Tamakoshi, 1997). to the discovery of valuable mineral resources When we conducted ieldwork among the nearby, the descendants of a particular person Wampar people in the Markham Valley of Papua (mpan)4 had become the primary organizing New Guinea in 2009, 2010, and 20133 we were framework for economic activities that implicate struck by the preoccupation of the people with land. he signiicance of the sagaseg had declined a copper/gold mine called Wai-Golpu, which because of changing practices concerned with – apart from exploration drilling – so far exists land tenure, kinship and settlement patterns only on paper (and on colorful powerpoint as a result of colonization, missionization, slides or in an animated video on the mining and engagement with market forces. With the