Colin Filer

"The main purpose of this volume is to publish, and thus to publicise, the factual material contained in a series of consultancy reports commissioned by the Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) between 1992 and 1994 (Banks 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c; Bonne1l1994). These reports dealt with the social and economic impact of the Porgera gold mine on the population of the Porgera Valley during the period which had elapsed since the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) signed a Mining Development Contract with the PJV in April 1989. They were commissioned as part of what became known as the Porgera Social Monitoring Programme, which was itself intended to satisfy some of the conditions which the PNG Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) had attached to its approval of the company's Environmental Plan (NSR 1988) and Environmental Management and Monitoring Programme(PJV 1991). The substance of these reports has been revised and edited to form Chapters 2-7 of the present volume. The last two chapters have been specially commissioned from two other social scientists who have studied the social impact of the mining project, and who were asked to provide their own comments on the design, management and output of the Porgera Social Monitoring Programme."--Introduction.

The Social and Economic Impact of the Porgera Gold Mine, 1989-1994

Dilemmas of Development

Matthew Allen

Siobhan McDonnell

The relationship between customary land tenure and ‘modern’ forms of landed property has been a major political issue in the ‘Spearhead’ states of Melanesia since the late colonial period, and is even more pressing today, as the region is subject to its own version of what is described in the international literature as a new ‘land rush’ or ‘land grab’ in developing countries. This volume aims to test the application of one particular theoretical framework to the Melanesian version of this phenomenon, which is the framework put forward by Derek Hall, Philip Hirsch and Tania Murray Li in their 2011 book, Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Since that framework emerged from studies of the agrarian transition in Southeast Asia, the key question addressed in this volume is whether ‘land transformations’ in Melanesia are proceeding in a similar direction, or whether they take a somewhat different form because of the particular nature of Melanesian political economies or social institutions. The contributors to this volume all deal with this question from the point of view of their own direct engagement with different aspects of the land policy process in particular countries. Aside from discussion of the agrarian transition in Melanesia, particular attention is also paid to the growing problem of land access in urban areas and the gendered nature of landed property relations in this region.

Colin Filer

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