Paper short abstract:

For the Wampar in Papua New Guinea, their current engagement with mining and industrial tree plantation is taking place in an increasingly heterogeneous sociocultural context and is influenced by historically-informed moral evaluations of earlier encounters with modernity and capitalism.

Paper long abstract:

The Wampar in Papua New Guinea's Markham Valley have a century-long history of engaging with projects of modernity and capitalism. The planned Wafi-Golpu gold and copper mine and a eucalyptus biomass project for electricity generation are the most recent of these projects that are now becoming part of their social world. The moral choices that the people make and the positions that they take in their engagements with these two large-scale projects are historically informed and shaped by the current sociocultural context.

Based on fieldwork undertaken in 2009, I present some preliminary data on how the engagements with these two large-scale resource extraction projects are informed by negotiated moralities. In the context of substantial economic change and increasing heterogeneity due to intermarriage, in-migration, and denominational pluralism, moral obligations and moral positions are both being challenged and reaffirmed by engaging with the projects on their own terms. An example is the decision whether to include or exclude specific individuals from membership in the Incorporated Land Groups that are being organized in expectations of material benefits flowing from the mine and the timber biomass project.