From Rolling Thunder to Reggae: Imagining Squatter Settlements in Papua New Guinea
Date
2001
Authors
Contributor
Advisor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Narrator
Transcriber
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Hawai'i Press
Center for Pacific Islands Studies
Center for Pacific Islands Studies
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
As Papua New Guinea’s well-publicized “law and order” problem continues
unabated, calls are often made for the destruction of squatter settlements and the
dispersal of their inhabitants as a solution to urban crime. This article examines
the popular imagery of urban “squatter settlements” in Papua New Guinea,
which represents them as criminogenic habitats of unemployed and impoverished
migrants. The imagery is generally as misleading as that of squatter and
shanty environments elsewhere in the third world—a topic that is familiar in
critical academic literature. But it is argued here that the shared imagery cannot
be submitted to an analysis that simply draws on political-economic generalizations
about housing and marginalization in “developing” nations. The notion of
squatter settlements in the independent nation of Papua New Guinea has a specific
origin in the imagination and attitudes of Europeans in the preceding colonial
period. The historical transformations through which the imagery has been
perpetuated are examined to understand how present-day urban Papua New
Guineans can continue to demonize settlements in the face of lived experience
that contradicts this censorious discourse.
Description
Keywords
crime, housing, poverty, squatter settlements, urbanization, Oceania -- Periodicals.
Citation
Goddard, M. 2001. From Rolling Thunder to Reggae: Imagining Squatter Settlements in Papua New Guinea. The Contemporary Pacific 13 (1): 1-32.
Extent
Format
Geographic Location
Time Period
Related To
Related To (URI)
Table of Contents
Rights
Rights Holder
Local Contexts
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.