Dispossession and the Environment

Dispossession and the Environment

Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea

When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating their dispossession. Paige West's searing study reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today's globalized world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for constant regeneration.
  • Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Map of the Island of New Guinea
  • Introduction
  • 1. “Such a Site for Play, This Edge”: Tourism and Modernist Fantasy
  • 2. “We Are Here to Build Your Capacity”: Development as a Vehicle for Accumulation and Dispossession
  • 3. Discovering the Already Known: Tree Kangaroos, Explorer Imaginings, and Indigenous Articulations
  • 4. Indigenous Theories of Accumulation, Dispossession, Possession, and Sovereignty
  • Afterword. Birdsongs: In Memory of Neil Smith (1954–2012)
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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