Social Stratification, Cultural Identities, and Politics of Leadership: The Consolidation of a National Culture at a Papua New Guinean University

This thesis explores how students and staff at a university in Papua New Guinea (PNG) experience processes of social stratification and differentiation. In particular, I describe and analyse how students and staff reflect on and enact reciprocal obligations to their kin, how different cultural identities are forged and strengthened at university, and how contemporary politics of leadership become manifest in student strikes. The thesis draws on eighteen months of fieldwork, centred at the University of Goroka in the PNG highlands, including stints at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, and visits to homes of students and staff in different provinces of the country. Archival research was also conducted in the Pacific Research Archives at the Australian National University and the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego. Through participant observation, life histories, interviews, and discourse analysis, in this thesis I explore how subjectivities shape and are shaped through experiences of social stratification and differentiation inherent to higher education, institutional politics and contests over styles of leadership, and how they link to broader aspects of a consolidating national culture in PNG today. Following introductory chapters that situate the thesis within concerns of regional anthropological scholarship and contextualise the history of higher education in PNG generally, and in Goroka in particular, ethnographic chapters are organised in two sections. The first section starts with the introduction of a number of life histories of students and staff at the university. I subsequently analyse the reflections and experiences of interlocutors through two different lenses. I first foreground putatively different sensibilities surrounding reciprocity and exchange across the PNG highlands, and then shift focus to analyse these articulations as emergent normative reifications of distinct cultural identities. The second ethnographic section provides a detailed account of a student strike, which I also analyse from two distinct vantage points. First, I focus on the strike as a deliberate harnessing of dynamics of emergent collectivities at the hand of strike leaders to advance their own political ambitions. In a second step, I foreground the perceived lack of recognition of students within the institutional hierarchy of the university, which from the perspective of students leaves few alternatives to the strike for making their grievances heard. In both ethnographic sections I thus follow a specific structure and analytical strategy of first foregrounding one angle of analysis that I subsequently seem to undermine through another angle of analysis. Through this analytical strategy, I wish to present these perspectives as complementary rather than mutually exclusive frames of understanding, as which they often tend to become mobilised in public debate. I thus enact an analytical strategy that mimics the reality of appropriate relating to kin and in institutional hierarchies that is the subject of this thesis: what are appropriate forms of action and relating depends on the perspective through which these are presented or enacted, yet these perspectives, in turn, are subject to challenge and negotiation through the ways specific actions are framed

Social Stratification, Cultural Identities, and Politics of Leadership: The Consolidation of a National Culture at a Papua New Guinean University

This thesis explores how students and staff at a university in Papua New Guinea (PNG) experience processes of social stratification and differentiation. In particular, I describe and analyse how students and staff reflect on and enact reciprocal obligations to their kin, how different cultural identities are forged and strengthened at university, and how contemporary politics of leadership become manifest in student strikes. The thesis draws on eighteen months of fieldwork, centred at the University of Goroka in the PNG highlands, including stints at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, and visits to homes of students and staff in different provinces of the country. Archival research was also conducted in the Pacific Research Archives at the Australian National University and the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego. Through participant observation, life histories, interviews, and discourse analysis, in this thesis I explore how subjectivities shape and are shaped through experiences of social stratification and differentiation inherent to higher education, institutional politics and contests over styles of leadership, and how they link to broader aspects of a consolidating national culture in PNG today. Following introductory chapters that situate the thesis within concerns of regional anthropological scholarship and contextualise the history of higher education in PNG generally, and in Goroka in particular, ethnographic chapters are organised in two sections. The first section starts with the introduction of a number of life histories of students and staff at the university. I subsequently analyse the reflections and experiences of interlocutors through two different lenses. I first foreground putatively different sensibilities surrounding reciprocity and exchange across the PNG highlands, and then shift focus to analyse these articulations as emergent normative reifications of distinct cultural identities. The second ethnographic section provides a detailed account of a student strike, which I also analyse from two distinct vantage points. First, I focus on the strike as a deliberate harnessing of dynamics of emergent collectivities at the hand of strike leaders to advance their own political ambitions. In a second step, I foreground the perceived lack of recognition of students within the institutional hierarchy of the university, which from the perspective of students leaves few alternatives to the strike for making their grievances heard. In both ethnographic sections I thus follow a specific structure and analytical strategy of first foregrounding one angle of analysis that I subsequently seem to undermine through another angle of analysis. Through this analytical strategy, I wish to present these perspectives as complementary rather than mutually exclusive frames of understanding, as which they often tend to become mobilised in public debate. I thus enact an analytical strategy that mimics the reality of appropriate relating to kin and in institutional hierarchies that is the subject of this thesis: what are appropriate forms of action and relating depends on the perspective through which these are presented or enacted, yet these perspectives, in turn, are subject to challenge and negotiation through the ways specific actions are framed

From men's houses to leader courts

Land use systems in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea have been subject to accelerated change since their initial interrelation with state systems, missionaries and the monetary economy less than a century ago. This thesis explores the governance of land use in the area of Dirima in Simbu Province and discusses processes of transformation that the governance of land use is subject to between 1945 and present times. Emphasis is given to questions of how the governance of land use is socially organized, how land is accessed and managed for agricultural production, and how the governance of land use interrelates with, and draws on, institutions of government. Results of this study are based on three months of ethnographic field work, with participant observation as sole method in the field, and complemented by the review of secondary sources. The governance of land use in the area of Dirima is embedded in a social structure of hierarchically segmented groups, while the functions and significance of different group segments for the governance of land use have changed over the last decades. Strategies of land use are increasingly based on decisions taken within nuclear families, rather than coordinated within larger groups. In the past, men's houses have constituted a significant institution for the governance of land use, while nowadays adopted court systems play a greater role. While this thesis explores change specifically in relation to the governance and social organization of land use, it suggests that a more comprehensive understanding of changes in land use systems may be gained by analyzing social change in more inclusive terms

Identifying economic and financial drivers of industrial livestock production - the case of the global chicken industry

This report articulates the asymmetries of power and policies that give rise to corporate concentration in livestock industries, in particular poultry.Another aim of this report is to provide an analytical framework on how to research economic and global finance drivers of corporate expansion and concentration of industrialized livestock production systems in low- and middle-income countries. It explains how to map the economic organization of livestock industries from the local to global level. For example: What are the spheres of influence? How is market power concentrated in corporations? What are the firm ownership structures? What are the investment portfolios of public development banks?The framework is followed by an analysis of the economic organization of the global poultry genetics industry. Lastly, the report presents a case of how global finance and corporate consolidation is linked to the Indian poultry industry, examining how corporate concentration and public policies have shaped the Indian poultry industry into vertically integrated broiler production systems.This report helps front-line persons and policy-makers understand the pathways and power-sharing practices between international and domestic private and public capital that support industrial livestock production systems and their negative externalities. It provides evidence that they can use to identify and address power imbalance in a financialized livestock industry, characterized by spheres of influences and political clientelism between IFIs, LMICs governments, multinational firms and domestic agribusinesses.

Introduction: Higher education reform in the ‘periphery’

In recent years, an increasing body of work has addressed the ‘corporatisation’ and ‘commodification’ of universities, as well as higher education sector reforms more broadly. This work refers mostly to the traditional core hubs of higher education, such as the Anglo-American research university. In the emerging anthropology of higher education policy, accounts of the implementation and negotiation of reforms in more ‘peripheral’ contexts often remain absent. This collection of articles addresses this absence by focusing on the interplay between narratives of global policy reform and the processes of their implementation and negotiation in different contexts in the academic ‘periphery’. Bringing together work from a range of settings and through different lenses, the special issue provides insights into the common processes of reform that are underway and how decisions to implement certain reforms reaffirm rather than challenge peripheral positions in higher education

Social Stratification, Cultural Identities, and Politics of Leadership: The Consolidation of a National Culture at a Papua New Guinean University

This thesis explores how students and staff at a university in Papua New Guinea (PNG) experience processes of social stratification and differentiation. In particular, I describe and analyse how students and staff reflect on and enact reciprocal obligations to their kin, how different cultural identities are forged and strengthened at university, and how contemporary politics of leadership become manifest in student strikes. The thesis draws on eighteen months of fieldwork, centred at the University of Goroka in the PNG highlands, including stints at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, and visits to homes of students and staff in different provinces of the country. Archival research was also conducted in the Pacific Research Archives at the Australian National University and the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego. Through participant observation, life histories, interviews, and discourse analysis, in this thesis I explore how subjectivities shape and are shaped through experiences of social stratification and differentiation inherent to higher education, institutional politics and contests over styles of leadership, and how they link to broader aspects of a consolidating national culture in PNG today. Following introductory chapters that situate the thesis within concerns of regional anthropological scholarship and contextualise the history of higher education in PNG generally, and in Goroka in particular, ethnographic chapters are organised in two sections. The first section starts with the introduction of a number of life histories of students and staff at the university. I subsequently analyse the reflections and experiences of interlocutors through two different lenses. I first foreground putatively different sensibilities surrounding reciprocity and exchange across the PNG highlands, and then shift focus to analyse these articulations as emergent normative reifications of distinct cultural identities. The second ethnographic section provides a detailed account of a student strike, which I also analyse from two distinct vantage points. First, I focus on the strike as a deliberate harnessing of dynamics of emergent collectivities at the hand of strike leaders to advance their own political ambitions. In a second step, I foreground the perceived lack of recognition of students within the institutional hierarchy of the university, which from the perspective of students leaves few alternatives to the strike for making their grievances heard. In both ethnographic sections I thus follow a specific structure and analytical strategy of first foregrounding one angle of analysis that I subsequently seem to undermine through another angle of analysis. Through this analytical strategy, I wish to present these perspectives as complementary rather than mutually exclusive frames of understanding, as which they often tend to become mobilised in public debate. I thus enact an analytical strategy that mimics the reality of appropriate relating to kin and in institutional hierarchies that is the subject of this thesis: what are appropriate forms of action and relating depends on the perspective through which these are presented or enacted, yet these perspectives, in turn, are subject to challenge and negotiation through the ways specific actions are framed

Social Stratification, Cultural Identities, and Politics of Leadership: The Consolidation of a National Culture at a Papua New Guinean University

This thesis explores how students and staff at a university in Papua New Guinea (PNG) experience processes of social stratification and differentiation. In particular, I describe and analyse how students and staff reflect on and enact reciprocal obligations to their kin, how different cultural identities are forged and strengthened at university, and how contemporary politics of leadership become manifest in student strikes. The thesis draws on eighteen months of fieldwork, centred at the University of Goroka in the PNG highlands, including stints at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, and visits to homes of students and staff in different provinces of the country. Archival research was also conducted in the Pacific Research Archives at the Australian National University and the Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology at the University of California San Diego. Through participant observation, life histories, interviews, and discourse analysis, in this thesis I explore how subjectivities shape and are shaped through experiences of social stratification and differentiation inherent to higher education, institutional politics and contests over styles of leadership, and how they link to broader aspects of a consolidating national culture in PNG today. Following introductory chapters that situate the thesis within concerns of regional anthropological scholarship and contextualise the history of higher education in PNG generally, and in Goroka in particular, ethnographic chapters are organised in two sections. The first section starts with the introduction of a number of life histories of students and staff at the university. I subsequently analyse the reflections and experiences of interlocutors through two different lenses. I first foreground putatively different sensibilities surrounding reciprocity and exchange across the PNG highlands, and then shift focus to analyse these articulations as emergent normative reifications of distinct cultural identities. The second ethnographic section provides a detailed account of a student strike, which I also analyse from two distinct vantage points. First, I focus on the strike as a deliberate harnessing of dynamics of emergent collectivities at the hand of strike leaders to advance their own political ambitions. In a second step, I foreground the perceived lack of recognition of students within the institutional hierarchy of the university, which from the perspective of students leaves few alternatives to the strike for making their grievances heard. In both ethnographic sections I thus follow a specific structure and analytical strategy of first foregrounding one angle of analysis that I subsequently seem to undermine through another angle of analysis. Through this analytical strategy, I wish to present these perspectives as complementary rather than mutually exclusive frames of understanding, as which they often tend to become mobilised in public debate. I thus enact an analytical strategy that mimics the reality of appropriate relating to kin and in institutional hierarchies that is the subject of this thesis: what are appropriate forms of action and relating depends on the perspective through which these are presented or enacted, yet these perspectives, in turn, are subject to challenge and negotiation through the ways specific actions are framed

Procesos de transformación en la gestión de la tierra, el territorio y la producción agropecuaria : el caso del ayllu Majasaya Mujlli, provincia Tapacarí, departamento Cochabamba-Bolivia

El presente libro tiene la gran virtud de sintetizar, de forma magistral, los informes de tesis, los análisis y reflexiones entre comunarios e investigadores, destacando, los procesos de transformación en la gestión del territorio, las cuales están relacionadas a las actividades más importantes que realizan los comunarios del ayllu Majasaya Mujlli de la Provincia Tapacarí, (Cochabamba-Bolivia) como son: la agricultura, la ganadería y la artesanía. Sin perder de vista la importancia que ha revestido en los últimos años la migración temporal y permanente. La presente publicación también destaca el rol que juega la organización social y las transformaciones ocurridas en el tiempo, desde la forma de organización ancestral como el ayllu, hasta la constitución y el fortalecimiento de los sindicatos, que dan un viraje a la visión de vida de los comunarios y por ende influyen en los cambios producidos en la agricultura, la ganadería y la artesanía