Police and power in the pre-war Papua New Guinea highlands

Abstract

In public life Europeans are occupation oriented, which has meant that colonial officials then and European researchers since have tended to think of indigenous servants in terms of their occupations of a catechist as a Christian missionary, for example, or a man in a police uniform as a policeman. Papua New Guineans are clan or village oriented. In taking European jobs, how far did they change worlds? This article argues that indigenous policemen did acquire new allegiances in police service, making the police almost a clan, but that traditional imperatives and objectives remained key motivations. For space reasons the paper focuses on the period of 'influence', of early contact and administration, rather than the succeeding period, of 'control'. For good discussions of both see Kituai, 'Innovation', 156-66, and 'My gun'. Show more