In Colonial New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives (review)

The scale of subdisciplinary culture being what it is, I must begin this review by acknowledging that its subject belongs to a series of monographs published under the auspices of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) of which I am intermittent member. Although many of the writers in this volume are longtime colleagues, my challenge must nevertheless remain to try to appreciate the book evenhandedly. I would venture that, by most standards, this is a useful and handsome collection.

It has been shaped by three projects. The first was to contribute to the burgeoning field of colonial studies a series of ethnographically informed articles about experiences of colonialism from a part of the insular Pacific. The second was to apply anthropological concepts and methods to this topic rather than those of literary or discourse studies. And the third was to represent colonial relationships from the bottom-up, rather than only from the standpoint of colonial powers. That is, the third project of this book is to portray colonialism through the agency of multiple eyes and voices, both official and unofficial in order to offer a plurality of perceptions of it. On all of these counts, this anthology must be seen as a great success, which must be a credit to Naomi McPerson, its editor.

The editor’s overly lengthy, summary introduction, is followed by nine chapters which are then concluded by an insightful, kind of long suffering voice in the wilderness, afterward by Eugene Ogan. Each of the chapters presents substantial ethnographic and historical material. Perhaps the one shortcoming of the collection as a whole is that it shortchanges the dual influences of missions and commerce upon the colonial process in New Guinea.

The first five chapters represent perspectives of the colonizers. Paula Brown traces the history of English, German, and Australian interests in New Guinea, making clear as she does the distinctiveness of this history as compared to others, e.g., it was short lived, New Guinea was never economically exploited, it was not a settler colony and the Australian colonials in the territory were themselves a colonized people. Jaarsma then addresses the relationship of New Guinea colonialism to the production of ethnographic knowledge in the region, arguing that each phase of the contact process created different kinds of research questions, which became increasingly sophisticated over the course of time. Westermark goes on to probe the influence of anthropology upon colonial administration, and analyzes patrol reports written by field officers from 1945–13. Foster assesses documentary films made by an Australian filmmaker on behalf of the administration in order to raise political goodwill for its policies among Australians. The documentaries, interestingly enough, represented Australian identity, in themes of taming nature, masculinity, and mateship, as much as they did the New Guineans themselves. In a mini-biography, McPherson describes the different broker-roles played by a patrol officer who worked in the area in which she much later did her own fieldwork.

The next three chapters provide examples of several different local voices in the colonial process. Jill Nash’s brilliant paper reflects upon the paternalism and power differentials in the attitudes about a local-level leader, who was viewed as backward because he did not cooperate with the administration. Richard Scaglion offers an unofficial history of the colonial era through the voice of an Abelam big man who engaged ‘the white man’ from the vantage point of a bearer, a laborer, and a domestic. Maria Lepowsky then attends to a different kind of unofficial voice, namely, that of a white woman plantation owner and trader. By focusing on this woman’s agency, a minority voice among ‘the mates,’ she sheds light on the masculine frontier. Lastly, we hear from a Summer Institute of Linguistics Bible translator, arguing, unconvincingly in my view, upon the complementary relationship of anthropology and missionary work during the 12 years he spent among a group of people in the Southern Highlands.

Ogan’s afterward consists of a brief, but very effective, survey of the history of the...