Fasu Solidarity: A Case Study of Kin Networks, Land Tenure, and Oil Extraction in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In the Fasu region of Papua New Guinea's fringe highlands, the oil extraction industry has imposed development values and the identification of corporate groups as beneficiary landowners. In response, Fasu males have tightened the boundaries of their agnatic descent groups to become exclusive patriunits. Cash royalties are incorporated into sociopolitical exchange, so the formation of exclusive kin groups allows males to expand social networks to other regions, whilst ensuring continuing wealth for future generations. Consequently, males are becoming isolated from pre–oil exchange networks, and females are becoming isolated within villages. In this article, I map the transition of Fasu kin networks from an ideology of descent to a dogma of descent and patrilineal solidarity, locating the transition in the symbolic codes that inform kin categories. I aim to highlight some consequences of “development” and to advance knowledge on the link between kinship and descent in a postcolonial, industry‐dominated Papua New Guinea.

The extractive industries and development: The resource curse at the micro, meso and macro levels

“…The complexities and dynamics of social organization and interaction at all levels contribute to the resource curse; be this in a so-called 'developing' country, such as Papua New Guinea (e.g. Golub, 2014;Gilberthorpe, 2007) Regardless of scale, nuanced sociocultural factors of kinship, descent and exchange have a critical influence on local responses to mineral-based development, but still remain absent from policy planning (Banks, 2008;Gilberthorpe and Banks, 2012).…”

Global land governance: from territory to flow?

“…For example, research on the benefit-sharing agreements commonly employed by transnational mining companies shows that they can cause unintended cultural changes, such as the monetization of indigenous economies and individualization of property rights previously held in common [65]. Certification schemes have problems accommodating local forms of resources management even if they are designed to promote sustainable production [66].…”

Community development in Ok Tedi, Papua New Guinea: the role of anthropology in the extractive industries

“…The 1974 LGIA (discussed above) was designed to achieve this goal, by ensuring that customary groups could participate in the NRRE path to development insisted upon by the World Bank. Kalinoe (2003), however, has gone so far as to suggest that the Act (along with its successors) has become a tool for creating supposedly customary Incorporated Land Groups or 'clans,' rather than a means by which Melanesian social groups can enter the global economy on traditional terms (Filer 2007:161;Gilberthorpe 2007;Weiner and Glaskin 2007). There is thus a need to question what appears customary in Melanesia (Carrier 1996), and understand how visible modes of kinship organisation might be responses to incorporation into the state and encounters with NRRE.…”

“…Ferguson 2005) must involve identifying (or inventing) bounded kinship groups, largely coterminous with bounded village territories, to whom royalties and compensation can be paid. Formerly flexible cognatic kinship structures have become more tightly policed and unilineal around Ok Tedi, as is the case elsewhere in PNG where NRRE has taken place (Gilberthorpe 2007;Gilberthorpe and Sillitoe 2009). In local usage, the 'landowner' category is, however, morally ambiguous.…”