Virtuous sociality and other fantasies: pursuing mining, capital and cultural continuity in Lihir, Papua New Guinea

Deposited with permission of the author. © 2006 Nicholas Alexander Bainton.This thesis is concerned with the cultural shifts that have occurred in Lihir, Papua New Guinea, as Lihirians were drawn into greater engagement with the capitalist system, initially through the colonial labour trade and more recently through large-scale resource extraction. This research draws upon 15 months of fieldwork in the Lihir Islands from 2003 to 2004. This thesis is intended as a critical dialogue with world system theorists.World systems arguments are constructive for understanding how Lihirians have remained economically marginal.However, I reject the assertion commonly propounded in these approaches that the world capitalist system inevitably destroys ‘traditional’ cultures and remakes them to its own specifications. Working from Sahlins’ (1985, 1992) premise that there is always continuity in change, I have sought to illustrate those enduring structures and received cultural values that have shaped Lihirian engagement with the capitalist system. My concern iswith articulation rather than penetration; to capture the dialectic of global structural inequalities and Lihirian selective appropriation. This approach allows me to emphasise the heterogeneity of Lihirian culture, notonly prior to sustained European contact, or even mining activities, but specifically at the height of their engagement with the capitalist system. (For complete abstract open document