Israeli Technicians and the Post‐Colonial Racial Triangle in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Papua New Guinean imaginings of Israel as a potential development partner draw on 'development' and 'morality' but to lack 'culture'. 'Asians' are thought to have 'development' and 'culture' but to lack (Christian) morality. Taking this moral framing of race into account, Israel emerges as a possible aid donor with the credentials to reconcile these three positions as it is seen to be the possessor of 'development', 'culture', and 'morality'.

Inequalities of Aspiration: Class, Cargo and the Moral Economy of Development in Papua New Guinea

“…Some, such as the Bougainvillean fraud U-Vistract and the Papalain scam from Morobe Province, have had a remarkable 'long tail' and, more than 20 years later, continue to operate, albeit largely within their core regional constituencies, rather than among the national middle-class (Cox, 2018(Cox, , 2019. In the heyday of the fast money schemes, the scale of participation and money contributed was driven by middle-class investors who were drawn not only by the promise of 100 per cent monthly returns on their money, but also by a heady cocktail of (unfulfilled) promises: being able to realise national development, embodying entrepreneurial dispositions, finding favour with God and bridging what Burridge called the 'moral equivalence' with the cosmopolitan world of the global middle-class, imagined largely through the lens of white Australia (Cox, 2015).…”

Unequal Lives in the Western Pacific

“…Melanesians of all class status can be found reproducing the racist discourse of colonialism with respect to Asian migrants. In PNG, Asians are frequently imagined as possessing a rapacious culture and an absence of morality, which is then rhetorically contrasted with Melanesian sociality and Christian virtues (Cox, 2015). While many Melanesians enter into advantageous arrangements with Asian migrants, and many people draw a distinction between 'old' and 'new' Asians (Crocombe, 2007), there remains a deep suspicion and resentment towards Asian residents who are accused of buying their way into the region and taking up the few economic opportunities open to poor islanders (Smith, 2013).…”

Sorcery, Christianity and the Decline of Medical Services

“…However, rather than sik bilong marasin implying a biomedical understanding of illness and its treatment, Street argues that this term denotes a racialised cultural domain (cf. Bashkow 2006;Cox 2015) wherein 'white' medicine can cure 'white' sickness but only Papua New Guinean cures can heal Papua New Guinean illnesses (Street 2010).…”