Papua New Guinea: the struggle for development.

Papua New Guinea: the struggle for development. Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea(păp`ə, –y : the struggle for development. By John Connell London and New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Routledge 1997 Pp. xiv + 354. Price: [pound]52.50. This volume has been published, somewhat ironically, in a seriesentitled 'Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia'.Perhaps the series was discontinued after this volume was published inOctober 1997. But even before the Onset of the 'Asian crisis',one might well have wondered whether Papua New Guinea (PNG (Portable Network Graphics) A bitmapped graphics file format endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium. It is expected to eventually replace the GIF format, because there are lingering legal problems with GIFs. ) qualifiedfor membership of the relevant club. Most Papua New Guineans PoliticsDame Josephine Abaijah Sir Peter Barter Sir Julius Chan Ted Diro Sir John Guise Chris Haiveta Leo Hannett Joseph Kabui Sir John Kaputin Sir Albert Maori Kiki Sir Paulias Matane John Momis Jeffrey Nape do notthink that their country counts as part of 'Asia', and theevidence presented in this book suggests that it has not counted as a'growth economy' either, except for a few short historicalmoments when the gross national product has been suddenly inflated bythe start of a new mining or petroleum project. Indeed, any reader whostruggles to the end of this rather dismal record of economic, socialand political failure might be forgiven for concluding that the subtitle sub��ti��tle?n.1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work.2. A printed translation of the dialogue of a foreign-language film shown at the bottom of the screen.tr.v. ought to have been 'the struggle against development'. At anyrate, we may be reassured that most Papua New Guineans will notexperience the pain of reac hing this conclusion, because the price ofthis book (which is apparently only published in a hardback edition)will put it well beyond the reach of nearly all potential customersresident in PNG, now that their economy has 'grown' to thepoint where the Kina is worth about twenty British pence, and a localcustomer would therefore have to shell out about K300 to purchase acopy. Those copies which find their way onto the shelves of universitylibraries in other countries will prove to be a useful point ofreference for students who still take courses in subjects asunfashionable as 'The Political Economy of Melanesia' or even'The Sociology of Development'. The bibliography alone runs toforty pages, which is proof of the author's efforts to leave nosubstantial published stone unturned or uncited in his survey of thevery large body of literature which pertains to PNG's'development experience'. Indeed, his attempt to accommodatesuch a diverse range of facts, observations, anecdotes and opinionsseems, if anything, to detract from detract fromverb 1. lessen, reduce, diminish, lower, take away from, derogate, devaluate verb 2. both the theoretical coherence andstylistic elegance of this work. It is far less readable, and in manyways less insightful, than Sean Dorney's Papua New Guinea, or evenMark Turner's Papua New Guinea, both of which were published in1990. Although Connell makes plentiful use of material gleaned from aclose reading of PNG's national newspapers over a period of severalyears, there is no evidence to suggest that he actually visited thecountry during the period when he was writing this book, which mighthelp to explain why it so obviously lacks the feel of familiarity, andeven empathy, which was present in Dorney's more journalisticaccount of the country's 'progress' since Independence. Connell's book is organised in a manner which is fairlytypical of such country studies, with separate chapters devoted to thecolonial legacy, the subsistence subsistence,n the state of being supported or remaining alive with a minimum of essentials. sector, the major branches of theformer economy (agriculture, forestry and fisheries, mining andpetroleum), population and migration, urbanisation, and unevendevelopment. The strongest chapters are those which deal with topics onwhich Connell has already established his authority in previouspublications, such as agricultural development, migration andurbanisation. On the other hand, in fields with which he is obviouslyless familiar, such as forestry matters, simple factual errors cast ashadow over the quality of his analysis. For example, he attributes therecent reform of national forest policy to a 1993 amendment to theForestry Act (p. 109), without appearing to grasp the fact that this wasonly a minor amendment to a radically new Forestry Act passed two yearspreviously, which he does not even bother to mention. The discerning reader can pick a number of comparable errorsscattered throughout the text. It is not true, for example, that [m]ostbetel nut vendors in Port Moresby Port Moresby(môrz`bē), town (1990 pop. 193,242), capital of Papua New Guinea, on New Guinea island and on the Gulf of Papua. Rubber, gold, and copra are exported. Port Moresby was founded by Capt. John Moresby, who landed there in 1873. are Meken' (p. 71). Most of thenuts may come from Meken trees, but most of the vendors are'middle-men' (or rather middle-women) from other parts of thecountry, especially the Highlands. Local shoppers would also know thatBurns Philp was no longer one of the 'big four' players inPNG's commercial sector by 1996 (p. 198). And some shoppers couldonly wish that it were true, as Connell maintains, that the 'slushfunds' of national MPs were abolished at the end of 1995, underpressure from the World Bank and university students (p. 278). Even theBank has not yet managed to achieve this miraculous outcome. Such errors might have been avoided by a more perspicacious per��spi��ca��cious?adj.Having or showing penetrating mental discernment; clear-sighted. See Synonyms at shrewd.[From Latin perspic processof peer review, if not by the author's recognition of the need tospend some more time in the country whose destiny he was intent ondescribing. But neither of these devices would necessarily have savedhim from making generalisations which sometimes border on the realm oftheoretical emptiness. For example, feminists might care to grind theirteeth on this one: 'Gender relations have worsened and women havefailed to secure development' (p. 269). In the last two chapters,Connell begins to sound like an old-fashioned Marxist, but there islittle sign that this (or any other theoretical perspective) has guidedthe construction of the book's central argument. Which is partlybecause the book does not seem to have one, except perhaps the argumentthat PNG as a whole (and not just the female of the species) has'failed to secure development'. Which makes it a belahouredstatement of the obvious. Colin Filer National Research Institute Papua New Guinea