This volume gives a vital and unique insight into the effects of mining and other forms of resource extraction upon the indigenous peoples of Australia and Papua New Guinea. Based on extensive fieldwork, it offers a comparative focus on indigenous cosmologies and their articulation or disjunction with the forces of 'development'.
A central dimension of contrast is that Australia as a 'settled' continent has had wholesale dispossession of Aboriginal land, while in Papua New Guinea more than 95% of the land surface remains unalienated from customary ownership. Less obviously, there are also important similarities owing to:
- a shared form of land title in which the state retains ownership of underground resources;
- the manner in which Western law has been used in both countries to define and codify customary land tenure;
- an emphasis on the reproductive imagery of minerals, petroleum and extraction processes employed by Aborigines and Papua New Guineans;
- and some surprising parallels in the ways that social identities on either side of the Arafura Sea have traditionally been grounded in landscape
These studies are essential reading for all scholars involved in assessing the effects of resource extraction in Third World and Fourth World settings. They contribute penetrating studies of the forms of indigenous socio-cultural response to multinational companies and Western forms of governance and law.
ADVANCE PRAISE
'The writing is new and interesting. The essays mark out new ideas in seemingly effortless abundance. . . In sum - buy it, read it, I think you'll agree that its one of the really interesting books of the year.' Deborah Rose, Senior Fellow, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU.
Alan Rumsey is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Anthropology and James Weiner a Visiting Fellow in the Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, both in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
