The state of contemporary intergroup conflict in the Papua New Guinea Highlands
| Date | 15 November 2024 |
| Pages | 19-38 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-09-2024-0938 |
| Published date | 15 November 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Aggression,conflict & peace,Sociology,Gender studies,Gender violence,Political sociology,policy & social change,Social conflicts,War/peace |
| Author | Miranda Forsyth |
The state of contemporary intergroup
conflict in the Papua New Guinea Highlands
Miranda Forsyth
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to discuss the scholarshipover the past 30 years on what used to be called
Melanesianwarfare or ‘‘tribal fighting’’ and is termedin this paper ‘‘intergroup conflict’’in the Highlands of
Papua New Guinea.The paper categorises the drivers of intergroup conflictthat make up the landscape
for conflict in the Highlands.It starts with cultural factors and the understandingsabout conflict that have
long been used to explain such violence, then adds newer factors. It argues that while the individual
existence of each driveris important, far more important is the way in which they interact with each other
in reinforcingfeedback loops that propel the actorsinvolved towards violence.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper is based on a thoroughreview of the scholarly and grey
literature on thetopic, drawing from the fields of anthropology, criminology,political science, law, justice
and peacebuilding.
Findings –The overall finding of the paper is that the nature of intergroup conflict, its scale and
dynamics,has changed considerably over the past 30 years,most prominently in the entanglement of the
state with local-level conflicts. This has significantly affected the nature of intergroup conflict today,
deepening the attractorstowards violence and conflict, while weakening the ability of existing state and
non-state systems to preventit. The picture that emerges is one in which the interconnectivityof factors
promotingviolence has intensified, the rateof change is accelerating and levelsof violence are amplified.
Originality/value –This paper is an originalwork.
Keywords Intergroup conflict, Peacebuilding, Melanesia, Complexity, Tribal fighting, Conflict,Culture,
Intergroup fighting
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
In 1990, Bruce Knauft, a well-seasoned anthropologist of Papua New Guinea (PNG),
produced a comprehensive theoretical overview of the history of what he referred to as
Melanesian warfare (Knauft, 1990). Knauft identified multiple contradictory narratives
seeking to explain the causes of both precolonial, colonial-era and post-Independence
warfare: ruthless and violent indigenous culture; innocent Melanesians defending
themselves from exploitation by European traders and labour recruiters; use of warfare as a
rational and functional way of maintaining order in the context of resource constraints; and
Melanesians translating the indignities and violence perpetuated by the colonial
government into collective violence. His account emphasised how these different narratives
were as much shaped by the prevailing social, academic and political influences on the
scholars themselves, as by the factors shaping the societies they were describing
(cf. Muke, 1993, p. 6). Returning to this question of what drives such violence has become
increasingly imperative over the past few years, as warfare continues to erupt in seemingly
increasingly destructiveways.
Based on existing scholarship, this article discusses what has changed in the 30 years
since Knauft’s account, and what remains the same, in both the nature of warfare and the
theoretical framings and political motivations of scholars considering it. Certainly, the
Miranda Forsyth is based at
the Australian National
University, Canberra,
Australia.
Received 5 September 2024
Revised 13 October 2024
Accepted 13 October 2024
Funding: This study has
received funding from
Australian Research Council
FT230100612.
DOI 10.1108/JACPR-09-2024-0938 VOL. 17 NO. 1 2025, pp. 19-38, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599 jJOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH jPAGE 19
context differs vastly. When Knauft wrote, PNG was 15years old; now it is approaching its
50th anniversary of Independence without having achieved many of the development
milestones confidently anticipated even as recently as the 1990s [1]. Since then, the
population has grown exponentially [2]; health, education and justice services –indeed,
government services across the board –have eroded; new Pentecostal churches have
proliferated and increasingly compete for followers with each other and the mainline
churches; climate change is impacting food security and forcing internal migration;
transnational crime networks are penetrating the nation; and social media and mobile
phones now connect people in much wider networks than previously, upending traditional
rural-urban divides. Geo-economic forces are increasingly restructuring the Pacific region
and PNG’s relationship withits neighbours. In short, the world is very different.
The article argues that the nature of intergroup conflict, its scale and dynamics, has
changed considerably over the past 30years, most prominently in the entanglement of the
state with local-level conflicts.This complex interplay is captured by the article title’s double
entendre. This entanglement, together with the increasingly contested and incoherent
nature of the PNG state, makes belief in earlier strategies, such as pacification by superior
state military power (Helbling and Schwoerer, 2021), increasingly unrealistic. In contrast to
conflict, peacemaking remains dependent upon highly contingent local groupings of actors
without sufficient state entanglement, increasingly testing their resilience. The opportunities
and challenges for peacemaking areaddressed in an accompanying Part Two of this article
(Forsyth, 2024a).
Conditions for studying PNG have also changed significantly over the past three decades.
While the difficulties for researchers caused by the rugged geography have continued,
security concerns around fieldwork have increased; university tolerance for risks in fieldwork
has decreased;funding, interest and opportunityfor long-term ethnographic studies seem to
have all but dried up; and in Australia at least, political pressures, shifting regional
geopolitics and government and other donor policy priorities, all affect the type of research
that is funded and written about. Additionally, the degradation of PNG’s tertiary sector over
the past three decades has severely hampered the development of vibrant domestic
scholarship. To illustrate: the last volume of the proudly local Melanesian Law Journal was
published in 2005[3]. As a result, our gaps in knowledge are large and troubling.
Whereas Knauft referred to “Melanesian warfare”, defined as “collective armed conflict
between putatively autonomous political groups” (Knauft, 1990 , p. 251), this article prefers the
term “intergroup conflict”. The key distinguishing factor of this form of collective violence is that
group identity is a strong motivating and organising dynamic in the viole nce, and that it occurs
between members of different groups. While these groups are often defined along tr aditional
kinship lines termed, for example, sub-clans, clans or tribes, inter group conflict also includes
fighting between groups from different parts of PNG who live together in urban areas.
Intergroup conflict reflects the wider range of this fo rm of violence as it exists today, and the
involvement of the state in this form of violence means that (Knauft’s , 1990, p. 251) definition of
“putatively autonomous political groups” is no longer so helpful. Moreove r, “intergroup conflict”
avoids the “othering” associated with the commonly used term “tribal fight ing”, which can
imply a primitive form of violence conducted by those outside the nation’s mora l and legal
codes. This belies the strong entwinement between such violence and the mod ern PNG state.
This article seeks to update Knauft’s summary of the state of knowledge around intergroup
conflict, discussing what knowledge has been produced since, what elements of consensus
have emerged and what needs further attention. While it is largely a literature review, it also
draws upon some original materials, largely in the form of newspaper articles. As a long-term
socio-legal scholar of Melanesia, I seek to weave together the insights of many different
disciplines, including from conflict and peacemaking scholars, criminologists, anthropologists,
development scholars and legal scholars. Where possible, I privilege the voice of authors with
lived experience, and I am informed by my own experiences drawn from over a decade of
PAGE 20 jJOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH jVOL. 17 NO. 1 2025
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting