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The people of the Lihir Islands in Papua New Guinea have long held visions of a prosperous new future, often referred to by local leaders as the 'Lihir Destiny'. When large-scale gold mining activities commenced on the main island of Lihir in 1995, many hoped that this new world had finally arrived. The Lihir Destiny provides a nuanced account of the social structural and cultural transformations engendered by large-scale resource extraction. Tracing the history of Lihirian engagement with outside forces, from the colonial period through to recent mining activities, this book brings new light to bear on the bigger question of what 'development' means in contemporary Melanesia. The Lihir Destiny explores how Lihirian leaders devised future plans for a cultural revolution based upon the maximisation of mining activities and the influential philosophies of the Personal Viability movement. However, reaching the 'Lihir Destiny' is no simple affair, and many Lihirians find themselves negotiating divergent formulations of culture, sociality and economic engagement. The Lihir Destiny will appeal to readers interested in the social impacts of large-scale resource development, the processes of cultural continuity and change and the ways in which modernity is configured in local terms.

An absent presence : encountering the state through natural resource extraction in Papua New Guinea and Australia / Nicholas Bainton and Emilia E. Skrzypek -- Categorical dissonance : experiencing Gavman at the Frieda River Project in Papua New Guinea / Emilia E. Skrzypek -- 'Restraint without control" : law and order in Porgera and Enga Privince, 1950-2015 / Alex Golub -- Being like a state : how large-scale mining companies assume government roles in Papua New Guinea / Nicholas Bainton and Martha Macintyre -- Absence as immoral act : the PNG_LNG Project and the impact of an absent state / Michael Main -- In between presence and absence : ambiguous encounters of the state in unconventional gas developments in Queensland, Australia / Martin Espig -- The state's selective absence : extractive capitalism, mining juniors and indigenous interests in the Northern Territory / Sarah Holcombe -- Broken promise men : the malevolent absence of the state at the McArthur River Mine, Northern Territory / Gareth Lewis -- The state's stakes at the Century Mine, 1992-2012 / Jo-Anne Everingham, David Trigger and Julie Keenan -- The state that cannot absent itself: New Caledonia as opposed to Papua New Guinea and Australia / John Burton and Claire Levacher -- Afterforward : States of uncertainty / Nicholas Bainton, John R. Owen and Emilia E. Skrzypek.

Standing on the broken ground of resource extraction settings, the state is sometimes like a chimera: its appearance and intentions are misleading and, for some actors, it is unknowable and incomprehensible. It may be easily mistaken for someone or something else, like a mining company, for example. With rich ethnographic material, this volume tackles critical questions about the nature of contemporary states, studied from the perspective of resource extraction projects in Papua New Guinea, Australia and beyond. It brings together a sustained focus on the unstable and often dialectical relationship between the presence and the absence of the state in the context of resource extraction. Across the chapters, contributors discuss cases of proposed mining ventures, existing large-scale mining operations and the extraction of natural gas. Together, they illustrate how the concept of absent presence can be brought to life and how it can enhance our understanding of the state as well as relations and processes forming in extractive contexts, thus providing a novel contribution to the anthropology of the state and the anthropology of extraction.

As we move further into the twenty-first century, we are witnessing both the global extensification and local intensification of inequality. Unequal Lives deals with the particular dilemmas of inequality in the Western Pacific. The authors focus on four dimensions of inequality: the familiar triad of gender, race and class, and the often-neglected dimension of generation. Grounded in meticulous long-term ethnographic enquiry and deep awareness of the historical contingency of these configurations of inequality, this volume illustrates the multidimensional, multiscale and epistemic nature of contemporary inequality. This collection is a major contribution to academic and political debates about the perverse effects of inequality, which now ranks among the greatest challenges of our time. The inspiration for this volume derives from the breadth and depth of Martha Macintyre's remarkable scholarship. The contributors celebrate Macintyre's groundbreaking work, which exemplifies the explanatory power, ethical force and pragmatism that ensures the relevance of anthropological research to the lives of others and to understanding the global condition.

Mortuary Dialogues presents fresh perspectives on death and mourning across the Pacific Islands. Through a set of rich ethnographies, the book examines how funerals and death rituals give rise to discourse and debate about sustaining moral personhood and community amid modernity and its enormous transformations. The book's key concept, "mortuary dialogue," describes the different genres of talk and expressive culture through which people struggle to restore individual and collective order in the aftermath of death in the contemporary Pacific