Nayahamui Rooney - Fifty Years of Sovereignty in Indigeneity and Statehood

Papua New Guinea’s Constitutional Planning Committee espoused a suite of aspirations, including integral human development, liberation and fulfilment; equality and participation; national sovereignty and self-reliance; natural resources and the environment; and Papua New Guinean ways. These aspirations are reflected in the Constitution, legally protecting the rights of Papua New Guinean citizens. Commemorating 50 years of statehood in 2025, sovereignty is a blend, often a contest, between different value systems. Papua New Guineans today navigate and express indigeneity and indigenous knowledge in diverse ways while participating as citizens in state centric processes of development that are shaped by international norms of human rights, gender equality, democracy, economic development, and other contemporary processes.

In this seminar, Nayahamui will reflect on these Independence era aspirations through two different case studies in her current research:

• the unprecedented levels of mass evictions of informal settlements from state land in urban areas
• low levels of women’s political participation at the national level.

These two cases arise from different contexts, research questions, and methodological approaches. Presented together, it is hoped that they will provide different insights into the contemporary intersections between Indigenous self-expressions of Papua New Guinean ways and Papua New Guinean statehood.

Nayahamui Rooney, Senior Lecturer in Culture, History, and Language at Australian National University

Free and open to the public; registration required. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

Hosted by the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University. Co-sponsored by the Museum Anthropology Program at Columbia University.

Host or Publisher The Center for Science and Society