Informal Session: Land Reform in Papua New Guinea: “What’s new?”
Organizers: Ira Bashkow and Ryan Schram

We met this year for the first time as an informal session in Alexandria with 12 people attending. Our topic was the changes in land laws that were passed last year by the PNG Parliament (although reportedly they are not yet gazette). We discussed the background of these changes in the history of PNG land law, where they fit in the overall arc of PNG politics and what might be their implications for Papua New Guineans living in rural areas. We also discussed the relationship of the reforms to those proposed for other area nations, a matter closely bound up with the role of AusAID and the World Bank. There is a wealth of relevant scholarship on the registration of customary land and landowning groups, especially in contexts of resource exploitation and registration of customary land and landowning groups, especially in contexts of resource exploitation and conservation. Given that past attempts at reform of customary land laws in PNG were abandoned in the face of widespread and dramatic, indeed, sometimes violent, popular opposition, the general absence of such opposition to the current reforms appears to reflect profound changes in PNG society, culture, and politics.

We are committed to continuing the session and discussed various possibilities for doing so, including some non-traditional options such as meeting repeatedly as an informal session in order to draw the attention of other researchers to this issue, perhaps leading eventually to studies of the effects of the reform in different Pacific localities from a long-term perspective. We plan on reconvening in some form in 2011. In the meantime we have already been sharing information and documents by email, and plan to continue doing so by posting documents, other research materials, and commentaries on the blog, The Melanesian, at http://themelanesian.org/. This online venue will of course be open to all who are interested and will be announced on ASAOnet.

The session organizers would like to thank those who took the time to come discuss this important topic in Alexandria, including: Barbara Andersen, Joshua Bell, Terry Brown, Dan Jorgensen, Ian Keen, Mike Rynkiewich, Michael French Smith, Rupert Stasch, Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi, Toon van Meijl, David Wakefield, and Jean Zorn. We would also like to thank those others who would have liked to attend the meeting but were unable to do so, and/or who have been participating in the continued in the continued discussions by email, including Colin Filer, Andrew Moutu, Justin Shaffner, and Christine Stewart.

Although the main focus of discussion this year was PNG, we welcome perspectives from other parts of the Pacific. We would very much like to welcome more participants to join in! If you are interested in joining or learning more, please drop a note to the session organizers Ira Bashkow and Ryan Schram.

Ira Bashkow, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400120, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4120, USA; tel. 434-924-7059 or 434-924-7044; <bashkow@virginia.edu>

Ryan Schram, Center of Excellence for Global Governance Research, University of Helsinki, P. O. Box 4, 00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND; tel. +358 09-191-23482, fax +358 09-191-24039; <ryan.schram@helsinki.fi>