Place, Time, and Affect: Changing Landscapes around a New Guinea Mining Area

Abstract

In this article, I examine the interconnections about place, time, and affect and how these have changed due to transformations in the political economy of the Porgera Valley, the site of a world-class gold mine. In particular, I am interested in the oscillations between night and day, and how each is perceived along different affective dimensions, and how the terrors of the night parallel concerns with the demise of reciprocity. In the early years of mining, fears of the night were shaped by concerns about the inability to form reciprocal relations with non-human spirits. With the uneven development wrought by mining inequalities, fear of the night has been replaced by concerns over warfare with enemy groups. The article highlights the interconnected aspects of capitalist development, landscape, and affect.