Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'New Guinea Highland'

This thesis explores the part gambling plays in an urban setting in Highland Papua New Guinea. Gambling did not exist in (what is now) Goroka Town before European contact, nor Papua New Guinea more broadly, but when I conducted fieldwork in 2009-2010 it was an inescapable part of everyday life. One card game proliferated into a multitude of games for different situations and participants, and was supplemented with slot machines, sports betting, darts, and bingo and lottery games. One could well imagine gambling becoming popular in societies new to it, especially coming on the back of money, wage-work and towns. Yet the popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists because the peoples now so enamoured by gambling are famous for their love of competitively giving things away, not competing for them. Gambling spread while gifting remained a central part of the way people did transactions. This thesis resists juxtaposing gifting and selfish acquisition. It shows how their opposition is false; that gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating the value of gifts and acquisitions alike, through the medium of money. Too often gambling takes a familiar form in analyses: as the sharp end of capitalism, or the benign, chance-led redistributor of wealth in egalitarian societies. The thesis builds an ethnographic understanding of gambling, and uses it to interrogate theories of gambling, money, and Melanesian anthropology. In so doing, the thesis speaks to a trend in Melanesian anthropology to debate whether monetisation and urbanisation has brought about a radical split in peoples' understandings of the world. Dealing with some of the most starkly ‘modern' material I find a process of inclusive indigenous materialism that consumes the old and the new alike, turning them into a model for action in a dynamic money-led world.

On 14th March 1993, Papua New Guinea's then Prime Minster, Mr Wingti announced the formation of a National Law, Order and Justice Council. Replacing all existing law and order committees, the new council was to be the sole coordinator of law and order issues. Mr Wingti noted that in the past there had been 'too many committees and too little action on the law and order question' (Post-Courier, 15 March, 1993). His predecessor, Mr Namaliu, instructed a previous Crime Summit, 'To come up with constructive and even radical solutions to the crime problems which are crippling the country ... crime is like a cancer, eating away at the very heart and lifeblood of our society ... a threat to economic stability and progress' (Post-Courier, 12 February, 1991). Numerous state enquiries have been instigated in response to a law and order situation that is perceived to interfere with the development of the country and the quality of life of its people. Problems have been restated, recommendations remade and sometimes draconian measures proposed. Yet in both official and informal circles it is believed that the situation is deteriorating. Scholarly journals and government reports, editorial comment and letters to the editor, frequently express concern about the 'break-down' of law and order.

The study examined the impact of trainings on coffee farmers in PNG looking at needs, processes and outcomes. One hundred smallholder farmers were randomly selected from six groups. The training programs were found to be suitable in facilitating acquisition of required knowledge; however, training needs analysis and follow-up exercises were not necessary as farmers were able to learn without them. The key impediment to innovation adoption was lack of price incentives for quality.

This thesis is concerned with the causes and consequences of the market failure that is generated by the social subordination of women in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is argued that the development impasse in PNG, noted by a number of observers, has its principle antecedents in the extreme economic and social discrimination facing women. Gender based discrimination occurs within the context of dualistic modes of social relations of production: (1) the pre- incorporation social order, which was patriarchal; (2) capitalist market exchange relations which followed the widespread introduction of cash cropping. These two modes combine to alter the price signals determined by the world market, and domestic pricing policy, at an intrahousehold level. That is individual incentives are not determined by world markets but by household power structures, in particular the pervasive nature of patriarchy; this provides the basis for gendered market failure in the Highlands of PNG. Market failure in the Highlands takes the form of the underallocation of labour and land to coffee production. This is a direct result of the poor labour returns that women receive; they receive around one-third of those of men. Women's returns are so low that their labour returns are higher in food production and they act as rational economic beings and apply more of their labour to this endeavour. Whilst behaving in a rational manner to the incentives they face, this must necessarily reduce household income levels because labour returns from food production are much lower than those associated with cof fee cultivation. Patriarchy creates an uneven pattern of intrahousehold distribution of coffee income, which generates perverse (non-efficient) individual incentives which lead to market failure. Additionally, the intrahousehold distribution of tasks is so uneven that many households face a 'female' labour constraint, particularly during the peak coffee harvesting period (flush). This reduces the ability of the household to respond to changing incentives, such as increased coffee prices. Poor economic incentives for women and socially determined labour constraints combine to create a vicious gendered circle of underdevelopment in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

The research aim was to gain a more detailed understanding of the operation of different key segments for fresh produce supply chains originating in the Highlands Provinces in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The research investigates a number of supply chain dimensions of effectiveness which include, value creation and integration of processes, logistics, quality, information, relationship/vertical integration and overall effectiveness. These were linked together in SC framework. Two potato chains were investigated, one formal, the other informal. The informal potato chain involves small holder farmers, input suppliers and local markets including kai bars and the urban market. The chain originates and ends within the Western Highlands Province. The formal potato chain has farmers, input suppliers, wholesaler/marker, transport companies (trucking and coastal shipping agents), supermarkets, hotels and kai bars. This chain originates in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands Province and ends in Port Moresby, National Capital District. The effectiveness of both the formal and informal chains was identified, and comparisons were made to see how each chain differed. The informal chain was found to have different problems to the formal chains. However, participants to both chains demonstrate a high entrepreneurial behavior. A key finding of the study was that the chains spread their risk by operating in multiple market segments and this can help to solve issues with variable quality. The marketers in each chain position themselves in these different market segments. It was clear from this work that focusing on functions and not the whole chain can lead to a distorted view of chain performance. For example, for the informal chain, a focus on logistics issues, particularly poor roads and problems with availability of seeds, can misrepresent the effectiveness of this chain. Therefore, it was concluded that it is important to look at the overall performance of each chain rather than looking specifically at particular chain functions in isolation.

This first clinical linguistic study in Papua New Guinea supports emerging speech-language pathology services. It examines Tok Pisin consonant acquisition in 80 multilingual Highlands children, aged three to six. Children's consonant phonetic and phonological inventories and use of developmental processes were studied. Results showed higher mean percentage consonants correct and fewer processes with age, featuring variation within and between age groups. The influence of both substrate language and creolisation were evident in consonant use.

Inclusive education is a recent phenomenon in the education system in Papua New Guinea. It is about giving equal educational opportunities to all children, whether with disabilities or not in the regular school or classroom. Schools are considered as social institutions that should endeavour to enhance all children's lives through appropriate teaching and learning practices. However, the school culture, which is generally defined as 'how things are done here' is vital for the promotion of inclusive practices. The main aim of this study was to identify the school cultural features and practices that influenced or did not influence inclusive education, and the impact on inclusion. Teachers and school administrators appeared to play a vital role in enhancing inclusive practices through their practices. The study was based on an interpretive/naturalistic research paradigm, the qualitative research approach and the case study methodology. Four schools were studied and categorised as rural and urban settings. The main purpose of categorisation was to identify some similarities and differences in terms of how inclusion was promoted in these schools. Teachers and school administrators were chosen as the main participants. The primary source of data collection was semi-structured interviews. Interview questions were developed for both teachers and school administrators respectively. A non-participant observation method was used as a support instrument to collect more data from selected research participants based on the preliminary interview data. The results suggested the existence of four broad school cultural features and practices. These included staff understanding of special and inclusive education concepts, leadership and organisation, school cultural features/practices and implications for staff, and policies. Teachers and school administrators appeared to have limited knowledge and understanding about what constitutes special and inclusive education practices. However, the school leadership, collaboration and inspection practices minimally influenced inclusive practices. At the same time other school cultural features such as the outcomes-based education curriculum and ecological assessment seemed to have the potential to influence the outcomes of the process of inclusion. The results suggest the value of Callan Services as a school support service agency to influence inclusive education in the Southern Highlands Province. It was noted that children with disabilities were already part of the education system. Though the teachers and school administrators claimed this to be inclusive education, according to the literature this was a manifestation of functional mainstreaming practices. The teachers and school administrators and the Department of Education at the provincial and national levels appeared to take less responsibility in disseminating information pertaining to inclusive practices. The teachers and school administrators received limited support and information from the national and provincial Departments of Education. Therefore, the special education policies developed at the national level had not trickled down to the school level. This situation created a gap between inclusive education policy and practice. One of the major channels of communication and connection was through the inspectors and their inspection practices, but this appeared to have been under-utilised.

The thesis examines the socio-economic factors influencing household farm investment decisions and land mobilisation of coffee smallholder farmers in Eastern Highland Province, Papua New Guinea. Through the prism of coffee production and the adoption of large-scale commercial production of pineapple and broccoli, the thesis documents and explains the reasons for the dramatic changes in land use, land tenure, labour and gender relations over the last two decades.

This research focussed on Fair Trade (FT) coffee supply chains in Papua New Guinea. Three research questions were asked. First, do small holders in the FT chains receive higher returns than the smallholders in the conventional chains? Secondly, if smallholders in the FT coffee chains receive higher returns from their coffee than the smallholders in the conventional chains, what are the sources of these higher returns? Finally, if smallholders in the FT chains don't receive higher returns than in the conventional chains, what are the constraints to smallholders receiving higher returns from the FT coffee chains than the conventional chains? A conceptual framework for agribusiness supply chain was developed that was used to guide the field work. A comparative case study methodology was selcted as an appropriate method for eliciting the required information. Four case study chains were selected. A paired FT and conventional coffee chains from Okapa and another paired FT and conventional chains from Kainantu districts, Eastern Highlands Province were selected for the study. The research found that smallholders in the FT chains and vonventional chains receive very similar prices for their coffee (parchment price equivalent). Hence, there was no evidence that smallholders in the FT chains received higher prices or returns from their coffee production than smallholders in conventional chains. This study also found that there was no evidence of FLO certification improving returns to smallholders in the FT chains over those returns received in the conventional chains, but the community that the FT smallholder producers come from did benefit. The sources of these community benefits lies in the shorter FT chains and the distributions of the margin that would have been otherwise made by processors to producers, exporters and the community. In addition, this study found that constraints associated with value creation are similar in all the four chains studies. However, there are some added hurdles for the FT chains in adhering to FT and organic coffee standards. Moreover, FT co-oeratives lacked capacity to trade and their only functions were to help with FLO certification and distribute the FT premium to the community. The findings of this research support some aspects of the literature, but not others. The research contribution is the finding that in this period of high conventional coffee prices, returns to smallholders from FT chains were no bettter than the returns gained in conventional chains, which leads to oppotunism and lack of loyalty by smallholders in the FT chains. The other contribution of this research is in identifying a particular type of free rider who is not a member of the FT co-operative but has right to the community benefits generated by the FT chain.

Nombe rockshelter was excavated by M-J. Mountain between 1971 and 1980. Human activity is first documented at the site at about 25,000 bp and continues through to the present. Four extinct Pleistocene herbivores, Protemnodon nombe,Protemnodon tumbuna,Dendrolagus noibano and a diprotodontid,occur in late Pleistocene strata together with human artefacts. Large quantities of animal bone were recovered and the analysis of these supplies the major data for the research. Three main issues are addressed: 1. The nature of the relationship between the early humans and their environment through the period that covers the late glacial maximum at about 18,000 bp. 2. The relationship between humans and the extinct species, including the thylacine, Thylacinus cynocephalus, which was a major predator at the site, contributing bone to the deposits during the Pleistocene. 3.The use of faunal evidence as an indicator of economic and subsistence activities as well as local environmental changes. The data show that the human activity during the late Pleistocene at Nombe was sporadic over the period from about 25,000 bp to about 15,000 bp. Hunters were probably targeting the large herbivores living in high altitude forest and other species adapted to high altitude cold environments. Humans and large herbivores coexisted for about 10,000 years before the animals disappeared from the record. This coexistence does not suggest a rapid demise through human overkill. Palynological evidence suggests that people were deliberately firing small patches of highland forest as early as 30,000 bp. Such clearing could have been used to promote forest-edge plants especially Pandanus, which has rich oily nuts. These small clearings could also have been used as an aid to hunting. By the end of the Pleistocene, human hunting had switched to emphasise medium and smaller forest animals, especially fruitbats, macropodids, phalangers and possums. Bat hunting was especially important at Nombe, which is in a limestone area with many caves. In the early Holocene the temperatures rose and sub-alpine grasslands were greatly reduced as forest spread to higher altitudes. The archaeological evidence shows that more sites were occupied by 10,000 bp than before and the faunal data at Nombe indicate a steep rise in the grassland wallaby, Thylogale brunii. This species adapts easily to forest disturbance and may indicate that forest clearance was increasing in the locality. The early Holocene was the period of intense human settlement of the site. The faunal analysis employed in this study is designed to test the broad questions about human:...environment relationships rather than to supply detailed information about the size and sex representation in the species present. Species are often dealt with as a group and no individual bone measurements have been taken. The computer database has been designed to produce a flexible data set that can easily be adapted to taxonomic change. The success of the approach suggests that faunal evidence can be a sensitive indicator of environmental change and can be used to examine human predation strategies and changes in economic subsistence.

This study examines the interaction between the politics of a Papua New Guinea Highlands society, the Simbu, and the colonially introduced state. It does so by analysing patterns of political competition in a study of dynamic change in four major stages, the precolonial, the colonial, decolonizing and post-colonial periods. In order to analyse this interaction, it seeks to answer the basic questions about politics - how people gain power and become politicians, how they maintain power once they have it, and whether the answers to these questions have differed in these time periods. In particular, it examines the extent to which indigenous social structures, ideologies and political techniques are used in the new state structures, and thus the degree to which the introduced institutions have been adapted by the Simbu. The interaction between indigenous, precolonial institutions and the state and its conventions are revealed by a study of the ideologies used in the Simbu political world. In the different political arenas which existed in the different time periods quite distinct talents have been displayed and appeals made. The Simbu ideologies of the solidarity of clans which have strong, hereditary leaders are used selectively according to the context. The aggressive battlefield leader of precolonial times was not appropriate in the enforced peace of the colonial era, but was revived in the insecure period of decolonization. Ideologies of the manipulation of wealth being the basis for prestige, power and influence were expanded upon in the colonial context, and have been further adapted in the post-colonial context to justify the use of massive financial and other resources in attempting to build personalised followings on a large scale. The ideology of the leader as a man of knowledge is also claimed by some. All these claims have at different times had some appeal and contributed to the search for bases of power, but no single model of Simbu leadership and society is applicable. The elements of this variety of political models can be found in the adaptivity of Simbu tradition. Simbu ideologies of solidarity are regularly expressed in bloc voting patterns by clans, tribes and sometimes whole language groups, and in the clan warfare which resumed in the late colonial period. The techniques and strategies of precolonial leadership, of the leader using resources from one sphere in another and gaining prestige from this interstitial role, are reinvented in many contexts in the contemporary state of PNG. These processes are demonstrated in numerous case studies of the transitional politics from precolonial Simbu to the contemporary period, with particular focus on the decade straddling the Independence of Papua New Guinea, and the creation of an elected provincial government. Political competition and voter responses are analysed in the context of three national and one provincial election, and the struggles for control of the area's coffee industry. Despite the different scale of the political arenas explored in different time periods, and the rapid increases in the political resources available, the political techniques and stategies of Simbu remained essentially the same* There are also continuities in political beliefs and the range of concepts found within Simbu's variegated political models. Despite the political changes, there has been continuity in Simbu's political culture. Simbu values have been used within the introduced state, just as resources from the state have been used within indigenous structures competition and conflicts. The process is thus one of interpenetration, with the state co-opted into Simbu political competition.

This thesis draws upon existing bodies of work on 'culture change', 'exchange' and 'person' in Melanesia but brings them together in a new way. In the anthropological debate, culture change has often been discussed in relation to understandings of 'development' involving the reproduction and transformation of cultural categories according to an indigenous understanding of exchange and agency. My research suggests that culture change as it is taking place in Bena, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, can best be understood when the model of agentive culture change, first proposed by Sahlins, is conjoined with the theoretical approach of the 'new Melanesian ethnography', especially with Marilyn Strathern's work on agency and personhood. Here, agency is understood in terms of dividuality, partible personhood, composite persons and the decomposition or deconception of persons in exchange. In Bena, the partibility of person is reflected in the perception that every exchange involves personal de- and attachments of an 'essence' called 'nogoya'a' (nurturance). Phillip Newman who worked among a neighbouring group, the Gururumba, found a strikingly similar concept. Unfortunately, his findings have so far been neglected in anthropological literature on Melanesia. This thesis attempts to fill this gap. It reveals how Newman's ethnographic data on 'vital essence' in Gururumba help to clarify the Bena idea of personal partibility expressed in the concept of exchanging personal parts of 'nogoya'a'. In doing so, it provides an insight into the way in which the particular notion of interpersonal exchange in Bena ties in with agentive forms of culture change and explains how the process of merging (or rejecting) elements from other cultures is shaped by the specific Bena understanding of exchange and person. This thesis suggests that culture change in Bena can best be understood as culture ex-change, with exchange being grasped in Bena terms as an ideally reciprocal, nurturing and strengthening flow of vital essence between partible exchange partners.

This thesis is the first detailed geographic and ethnographic study of Papua New Guinea's thriving betel nut trade. It tells the story of the trade of betel nut into the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and examines the daily lives and interactions of the diverse collection of participants involved in the trade - the 'betel people' - and how they have contributed to the making of a flourishing, contemporary and indigenous market. Betel nut is a stimulant that has long been produced, exchanged and consumed throughout lowland PNG, but was absent from the pre-colonial highlands. Since the 1960s increasing numbers of highlanders have started chewing betel nut which has given rise to a long-distance wholesale trade that connects rural lowland producers to the highland consumers. Betel nut is now the country's most important domestic cash crop, and its sale and resale is a prominent, and potentially lucrative, livelihood activity for rural and urban people in both the lowlands and the highlands. This thesis is based on thirteen months nomadic ethnographic fieldwork in which betel nut, and the actors that shape its trajectory, was followed from the lowland production areas into the highland marketplaces and beyond. I document the considerable scale and complexity of the trade, the efflorescence of intermediaries within it, and the high level of specialisation amongst its actors. 'Following' betel nut and betel people also foregrounds the importance of social relationships, and the associated processes of inclusion and exclusion, to shaping the structure and the dynamics of the trade. The highly competitive and opportunistic nature of the trade leads betel people to transact in the same places and often with the same people, and it encourages them to cultivate and nurture those relationships which provide security and enable access in new places. Betel people trade to make money, but I suggest that trade relationships regularly overflow the marketplace. Further, the transactions within the trade are routinely conceptualised as more than simple commodity transfers. I also seek to frame the trade in relation to the power asymmetries between different actors, and emphasise the diverse manifestations of cooperation and competition in trade negot1at1ons. Drawing on the growing literature within geography and anthropology concerned with the social embeddedness of 'economic' activity, this research emphasises that the making of markets is a dynamic and contested process, one that is always spatial, grounded in particular places. In doing so it contributes to better understanding marketplaces, livelihoods, and the creation of alternative modernities in contemporary PNG. The betel nut trade is full of contradictions and tensions, but also the aspirations of a great number of 'grassroot' Papua New Guineans.

This research seeks to understand the causes of variation in subsistence food supply in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, particularly the reasons for shortages of sweet potato, the staple food. The study is regional, but the most intensive observations and data are from two provinces and from one community in each of these provinces. Two main indices of subsistence food supply are used: firstly, survey data from food markets and secondly, statements made by villagers about food supply, as documented by outside observers. Particular emphasis is given to long data runs on food availability. Food shortages have an impact on people’s wellbeing. Prior to the colonial period, they resulted in an increased death rate. Body weights of both adults and children are influenced by variation in subsistence food supply. The impact of food shortages is likely to be muted when people have access to cash which they use to buy imported food when subsistence food is scarce. Evidence is brought forward which demonstrates that the frequency of food supply problems has not altered since colonial contact in the 1930s. Activities associated with cash cropping, labour migration or harvesting of a pandanus nut, which are commonly put forward as explanations for food shortages, are eliminated as causal factors. Disruptions associated with pig killing ceremonies and tribal fighting may be contributing factors at times, but their impact is limited. The food production systems in the highlands are sufficiently flexible to absorb short term fluctuations in planting rate and crop yield. Long run rainfall records, market price series and crop planting data are used to demonstrate that the major causes of variation in supply are climatic extremes, particularly extended wet periods and frost, and variation in the crop planting rate. Only the most severe droughts cause food shortages, unless a drought is preceded by an extended wet period. In the latter situation, droughts may become a contributing factor. Wet periods appear to be most damaging when the sweet potato tubers are being initiated and droughts reduce yield during the rapid bulking phase. Frost damage sometimes results in food shortages at high altitude locations, but this is uncommon below 2200 m. Villagers vary their planting rates according to the current supply of sweet potato. They plant larger areas when sweet potato is scarce, and a higher proportion of plantings is then made in fallow land. This behaviour initiates a cycle in planting, similar to the well known "hog price cycle", and this may eventually result in another food shortage, particularly if lower planting rates coincide with a climatic extreme. A model is presented that combines these elements to calculate the supply of sweet potato over a five year period in two locations. The calculated food supply is in good agreement with indices of food availability for the same period.

It has been assumed in this thesis that there are gaps in the various spaces of meaning, understanding, treatment and theorisation of internal migration in Papua New Guinea, at different scales, to have resulted in the contestation of its nature, experience, outcomes and explanations in Papua New Guinea. Internal migration is the most contested aspect of the process of development change and progress in the country because while migration follows the rural-urban path according to conventional expectations, the bulk of experiences and outcomes are of poverty and issues. Yet its relevance and pivotal role in the development process renders it an important issue that requires proper understanding and explanation. This research proposes to fill the spatial knowledge gaps about internal migration at both the micro-level of individuals and households and the macro-level of the economy and society, and at the methodological and theoretical levels. These gaps are rooted in the absence of a holistic explanation of internal migration that properly answers simultaneously the questions of 'what is migration?' and 'who is the migrant?' Thus, it is important that the role and response of both migrants and migration to changes, including social and economic progress, are incorporated in that integrated and holistic explanation. The lack of clarification of the meaning of internal migration has arisen mainly from the ambiguity in the nature of treatment, understanding, and explanation of migration at the societal, methodological and disciplinary levels. At the practical level, migrants are stigmatised as criminals and are considered as not belonging in their places of residence, where they have moved and settled. The unfavourable public view on migrants and migration have influenced State and Provincial Government reactions and planning against migrants and migration. Media reports that blame criminal activities on migrants have contributed to an escalation ofboth emotional and physical reactions against them. However, the National Constitution stipulates that all citizens can move anywhere in the country for the purpose of participating in economic activities, so that internal migration is acceptable and legalised in that sense. The reaction of the society to migration reflects a literary divergence and a philosophical chasm that is rooted in disciplinary traditions of the social sciences. Disciplinary traditions have differentiated between the micro-level study of migrants and macro-level study of migration as mutually exclusive. The freedom of movement guaranteed in the National Constitution reflected the contemporary thinking of the time when the Constitution was written, that migration was necessary for distributing labour to places of industry, employment and high wages. This is the opposite of migration that arises from the conditions found in less economically developed places, and of migrants as poor, unemployed, uneducated and a problem for development and progress. Such explanations highlight the need for an integrated perspective that informs, improves understanding and explains internal migration and that which fill in the knowledge gaps already identified. In turn, this holistic understanding and explanation requires a proper contextualisation of the benefits and costs of migration to society. This thesis argues that the proper context for researching, understanding and explaining internal migration is Papua New Guinea's hybrid socio-economy (Curry 2003), in which there are no clear boundaries between socio-cultural and economic processes of meaning, valuing, experience and practice. It further argues that the integrated methodology is a mixed methods approach that can guide the formulation and implementation of the research design, methodology and research outcome. The ambiguities referred to above imply the need to provide operational definitions of internal migration, migration, and migrant. 'Internal migration' refers to voluntary or involuntary (see 6.4.1) movements of people between different places within the country leading to semi-permanent or permanent residence. This term will be used interchangeably with 'migration'. The term 'migrant' refers to individuals or groups of people who, for a variety of reasons, including economic and social, undertake voluntary and or, involuntary movements between places, leading to semi-permanent or permanent residence. The central focus of this thesis is on 'in-migrants', which may refer to voluntary or involuntary migrants (see Chapter 6), who for a variety of reasons, move into places including rural, urban and peri-urban locations. The economy will be discussed in terms of the national, provincial, district, LLG, village, household and individual levels. 'National' refers to the country as a whole. Province, district, LLG and village refer to the administrative units of governance from largest to the smallest. Household refers to a core nuclear family but may include relatives and non-relatives living with them. The operational definitions provided of internal migration, migration and migrant expose the partiality of exclusive explanations and treatment of internal migration within macro or quantitative and micro or qualitative approaches. At the same time, realisation is made of the need to combine the approaches in terms of a mixed methods research so as to order to capture the effects of the dual economy, which comprises a large subsistence, dominated by social institutions, and a small cash economy. A mixed methods approach, which included both quantitative and qualitative data, was employed in this research (see Chapters 3 and 4) in order to reflect the hybrid socio-economic context in which migration occurs and is experienced. Quantitative methods of data collection used were the 2000 National Census and field surveys of migrant families. A country-wide picture of migration was obtained from an analysis of the National Population Census of 2000, of 5,190,786 individual cases (the total population). These data were transformed into SPSS tables for analyses. Independent variables of age and sex were cross-tabulated against dependent variables of relation to household, highest level of education completed, duration in years of residence, and occupation to determine the relationship between migrant characteristics and economic outcomes for migrants from their migration. In Chapter 3, cross-tabulations are performed of migration data at the level of the province for the whole country. Chapter 4 reports on migration data of the same variables in two case study provinces of Morobe and the Eastern Highlands, down to the level of District, in each province. Survey questionnaires administered during the field work to collect household data on migration and socio-economic variables in the provinces of Morobe and the Eastern Highlands were aimed at clarifying the patterns of the role of families in migration and livelihood outcomes arising from migration. A migrant survey questionnaire (Appendix 1.4.1) was conducted on 50 migrant households with 25 questionnaires in each province, and 50 non-migrant households also with 25 in each province. Migrant households were sampled according to province of origin, age ofhead ofhousehold, occupation and marital status. Only five households composed of either migrant and or non-migrant households were selected in five peri-urban and ten rural villages. These data were analysed in Excel. The results are reported in Chapters 5 and 6. Qualitative methods used to capture the patterns of migrant experiences and livelihood outcomes from migration were observation and participant observation, a travel diary, field notes and in-depth life migration history interviews with individual migrants selected from each of the surveyed households. Observations were conducted at the same time as the administration of the survey questionnaires and in-depth life migration history interviews. A travel diary was kept daily. Field notes also were kept of interesting or unusual anecdotal evidence and experiences of migrants and their livelihood outcomes. Traditional expectations that migration IS the key to accessing social services and economic opportunities are implicated from the study of quantitative data but qualitative data reveal that these expected outcomes from migration are the ideal but the general outcome from migration for the majority of migrants is poverty which includes access and affordability issues (see Chapter 1). Yet, migrants are making intentional decisions and as active participants and agents of change they are the beneficiaries of the social and economic outcomes that result from migration. 'Migration' between locations that results in semi-permanent or permanent change of residence continues to occur and is here to stay. 'Migrants,' who are individuals or groups, including the household, participate both as actors and agents of that change in the process ofmigration to places perceived to offer better economic opportunities and social services. Specific analysis of the quantitative data from the 2000 Census shows that the impact of the economy on migration to rural and peri-urban places is unequal. These sectors of the hybrid or dual economy are dominated by the social institutions which outweigh the impact of the small cash economy. At the urban, peri-urban and roadside places to which migrants move, and which they perceive as offering high levels of employment opportunities, they do not realise the expected social and economic outcomes that might have motivated them to move there. At the macro-level of the national or provincial economies therefore, the majority of migrants tend to have rural social and economic characteristics including no education, a subsistence occupation, a short-term duration of residence, and extended family households. These characteristics are those of poverty (see Chapter 1). Qualitative data collected during fieldwork acquired experiential and livelihood data of migrants arising from the migration experience that have assisted to explain in the Chapters 5 and 6 the causes, effects, outcomes, and behaviour, and the multiple Iuoves of migrants that are an integral aspect of the internal migration experience in PNG. Life histories, household surveys, field notes and observations conducted on rural and peri-urban migrants yielded data that support the important role and relevance of internal migration as a cause and an effect of development change and migrants as active agents of that process and as livelihood participants and beneficiaries in the outcomes. The experience patterns of individual and migrant household provided complementary insights about the relationship between internal, migration and the development process in the country. As a development process, migrants move to access services, sources of cash incoine such as markets, employment in urban and peri-urban locations because these are not generally to be found in their poor rural places of origin. The motivations or causes for the majority of movements are social, representing sponsorship of migration for poor rural migrants as opposed to perceptions that all movements are voluntary. Contrary to conventional perspectives, internal migration follows a step-wise direction to destination hence it occurs in a process where a variety of social and economic negotiations continue to be made between migrant and sponsors or carers, between places to ascertain the next move and a destination. The evidence that a migration is completed are migrant owns a house, garden and a regular source of cash income generation activities. Migrants can continue to participate in travels referred to as hevi for participation in life cycle events including births, deaths, initiations, marriages and events of family and friends and events requiring heavy financial engagements including compensations, house constructions, and school fees, because migrants attempt to rescue their rural households from these burdens. A finding also was that remittances are used for hevi-related travels (see Chapters 5 and 6) and not necessarily on improving the livelihood platform of rural origin households. Outcomes of their fulfilment of socio-cultural obligations and relationships are more important outcomes for migrants than economic investments of cash generated at destination. These research insights have also demonstrated the usefulness of the mixed methods research approach to yield information on internal migration that have clarified the differences and interrelations sought between quantitative or macro-and qualitative or micro-level approaches. The research has also demonstrated that both quantitative methods which provide data on migration patterns and migrant characteristics and qualitative methods which provide data on the socio-cultural meanings, understandings and outcomes of migration and migrant experiences, have an important complementary role and relevance for migration research. The research has also highlighted that these clarifications can correct misunderstandings and explanations of internal migration at the practical, societal, methodological and theoretical levels. The research has also demonstrated that half a century of attempts to bridge the gap between macro-explanations of migration and micro-explanations of migrants is enabled through the combined application of both quantitative and qualitative methods, techniques of data analyses and data. Quantitative data identifies the patterns of influence of the cash economy on migration and its impact on migrants in terms of the characteristics of those who move. Qualitative data provides insights into the migrant experience and information on these patterns and their influences. This exercise has been informed by considerations of migration from the various disciplines of the social sciences including economics, sociology, anthropology and geography. As a geographical research, it has rightly evoked the traditional claims about the synthesising nature of geography in terms that its essence of spatial linkages bridges both the quantitative or macro-and qualitative or micro-level explanations about internal migration in Papua New Guinea. There is promise and urgent need for developing a mixed methods explanation of internal migration in the context of the widespread poverty outcomes from migration, instead of economic prosperity that was envisaged in the National Constitution in 1975. In terms of its practical relevance to PNG, although this research did not focus on Port Moresby which is the capital city and largest recipient of peri-urban in-migrants, it studied focuses on two urbanising provinces of Morobe and the Eastern Highlands and not on the largest urban centre of the national capital. Morobe is also the largest province in the country. Finally, in the hybrid and dual economy, the rural poor utilise migration as their strategy for accessing, benefiting and transferring the benefits and wealth of progress to those poorer than themselves, who remain at their rural origins. The crime-related allegations about internal migration suggest that just like any other development program, internal migration requires a wise management plan and a greater focus on integrated rural development as part of the development plan.

The relationship between environmental conditions and the decisions and actions of historical agents is the central issue of this thesis. In a brief review of the role that social and environmental factors have played in archaeological explanation, I describe the scope for a form of archaeological ethnography in which particular attention is paid to the contrast between the different worlds of meaning in and through which historical agents address their environments. In the context of a debate over the impact of sweet potato upon society and environment in the New Guinea Highlands, the history of wetland use emerges as a focus for competing positions on the nature of explanation for relationships between societies and their environments. My study addresses this debate through consideration of the recent history of Huli-speaking communities of the Tari region, in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Part B sets out an ethnographic model of the relationship between Huli people and their environment. External and Huli perceptions of landscape, society and agricultural production are presented in order to permit explanations for change that encompass both the intention of the Huli agents of the recent historical past, and the broader social environmental processes of which those historical individuals cannot have been aware. The roles of cosmology and ritual in the relationship between Huli and their environment are singled out for the contrast they evince between an external, Western concept of historical progress and a Huli notion of continuous, entropic decline in the world and in society. The history of a particular landscape, The Haeapugua basin, is addressed in Part C. Detailed oral historical accounts of land tenure and wetlands use set a context for the archaeological investigation of the Haeapugua wetlands and wetlands margins. On the basis of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence, it is possible to demonstrate the significance of environmental change in placing broad limits on the possibility of wetland reclamation; this leaves unanswered, however, the more complex issue of human agency and decision-making in the processes and actual timing of wetland reclamation and abandonment. Through reference to the role of ritual in the relationship between Huli and their environment, as set out in Part B, Part D attempts an explanation for wetland reclamation at Haeapugua. The oral history of migration from the central Huli basins is shown to reflect an increase in population consequent upon the local adoption of sweet potato. While acknowledging the importance of population pressure on dryland resources, I suggest that the more significant imperative for the Huli who undertook the reclamation of the Haeapugua wetlands was the increased demand for fodder with which to augment the production of pigs. Pressure on dryland resources, decline in soil quality and increases social conflict were all interpreted by Huli as tokens of entropic decline, of the death of the land. Within the framework of Huli cosmology, the appropriate response to these changes was the innovation and elaboration of ritual and it was greater requirements of pigs for sacrifice and for exchange in ritual contexts that provided the immediate impetus for wetland reclamation.

The diverse sign languages (SLs) between established deaf community SLs and homesign have been called the “grey area” of SL linguistics, by virtue of their resistance to classification and the fact that they are understudied (Nyst, 2010, p. 416). This thesis investigates the languages of 12 deaf people living in the Nebilyer/Kaugel region of the rural Papua New Guinea highlands, with the view to situating them within the extant sociodemographic typology of SLs. I do this by considering sociodemographic data of deaf individuals, comparison of sign bases to determine lexical consistency, and emic perspectives of users. As a result of these analyses, I find that the diverse but interrelated languages of these 12 deaf people are not well classified within the existing sociodemographic taxonomy of SLs. In order to expand that taxonomy, I first present the concept of a sign network, which is a network of strong and weak sign ties, with strength defined as the presence of fluent, regular signed communication between individuals, irrespective of deaf/hearing status. I offer the new category of a nucleated network SL, the sign network of which is characterised by a central deaf individual with multiple strong sign ties to other individuals, who prototypically are all hearing. This is differentiated, I argue, from a canonical homesign language such as David’s (Goldin-Meadow, 2003), which is characterised by only weak sign ties to other individuals, either deaf or hearing. As such, I advocate for the extension of Horton’s (in press) typological category of “individual homesign” to account for regular contact not only with deaf signers, but hearing ones as well. In determining the degree of lexical consistency between SLs, I present the metric of sign base comparison, predicated on the idea that even in iconic signs, there is a measure of arbitrariness underlying which aspect of a referent is selected (cf. Planer & Kalkman, 2019). This is a useful tool for work with SLs whose users exhibit a high degree of intra-signer variation in form, and thus cannot be well compared using the standard model of sublexical parameter comparison (cf. McKee & Kennedy, 2000; Guerra Currie, Meier, & Walters, 2002). I account for the high level of lexical consistency between Nebilyer/Kaugel SLs with the notion of a regional sign network, which is a sign network characterised by an abundance of weak sign ties between individuals in a larger region. I propose that signs diffuse along these weak sign ties, which accounts for lexical consistency between the languages of largely unconnected deaf people and their networks. The regional sign network model provides an explanation for similarly reported degrees of lexical consistency in other rural SL situations, where this cannot be explained wholly in terms of independent invention or recruitment of majority community gesture (e.g. Osugi, Supalla, & Webb, 1999). This research enriches the sociodemographic typology of SLs, filling in missing links in the “grey area”, and offering tools to continue to do so (Nyst, 2010, p. 416). More broadly, it also contributes to our understanding of how patterns of human sociality condition language shape.

Various aromatic and medicinal plant species from the New Guinea highlands and North Queensland were investigated to discover and characterise new molecular entities with useful pharmacological properties, which could potentially become lead compounds for the development of new drug products. A new optically active diterpene ester was isolated from the plant species Stylosanthes hamata and its structure determined using spectroscopic technique (1H, 13C, HSQC, HMBC and COSY). It is the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutarate ester of cativol, a diterpene previously reported from Halimium viscosum. Some components of crude essential oil samples were identified without the need for separation of their mixture by the use of gradient selective NMR techniques. A total of twenty-six known compounds were identified by either this method or by separating and analysing the essential oils of various species from the New Guinea highlands and North Queensland. They included; monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, acetate-derived metabolites such as the acetogenins/polyketides methyl salicylate and gibbilimbols, and shikimic acid-derived metabolites such as dillapiole and trans-anethole. Some of the minor components detected in one species were the same as major components in other essential oil samples and it is suspected that cross contamination may have occurred during the essential oil distillation in PNG. This problem will make publications of results difficult unless uncontaminated samples are available for comparison. Cytotoxic and antimicrobial assays were performed on all essential oils and extracts. Although some essential oil samples displayed cytotoxicity, the levels were considered too low to warrant further investigation. The antimicrobial assays employed included the use of six gram positive and six gram negative bacteria as well as one yeast and five fungi. The major components of the distillates that produced a large zone of inhibition in the initial screening were selected and retested against the microbes. All of the metabolites tested showed lower activity than the crude extracts. This may be due the presence of minor components in the distillates that have much greater activity or synergistic effects from other oil components.