The Photographic Assemblage: Duration, History and Photography in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

For Biangai speakers of Papua New Guinea, photography and its images first appear during early colonial contact in the 1920s and spread relatively rapidly through the boom of gold mining and expansion of colonial control. For Biangai speakers, agentive qualities are dispersed throughout an active landscape. Thus, flora and fauna can be viewed as active forces, indexing the otherworldly agencies of spiritual beings. Photographs and the photographic practice complicate these agencies as image relations coincide with other object relations. Gell viewed the photographic subjects as a “pure” case of the social agent influencing the image or index; but when the photograph captures another active and coexisting object‐relation in its image, each with its own unique intentionality, agency is further dispersed. This paper will explore this multilayering of social agencies resulting from Biangai photographic practices, consider both historical photos taken of Biangai and contemporary photos taken by Biangai.

Keywords:

• Photographs
• Time
• Agency
• Papua New Guinea

Acknowledgements

The ethnographic material presented here is drawn from fieldwork conducted between November 2000 and March 2002, and in September 2005. Research funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, Cultural Anthropology Program (BCS‐0003927); the Wenner–Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (GR 6724); the Graduate School, Grants for Research Abroad. I am grateful to the National Archives and Public Record Service of Papua New Guinea and the National Archives of Australia for permission to use the photos reproduced herein. Joshua Bell and two anonymous reviewers helpfully commented on earlier drafts. As always, I take responsibility for the work presented here.

Notes

[1] Hidden Valley is a medium‐size gold mine located on land belonging to Winima, Kwembu and Nauti. At the time of fieldwork, the mine was still in its exploration stage of development under the direction of Aurora Gold. At the time of writing, the mine is in operation under a joint venture between Harmony Gold (South Africa) and Newcrest Mining Limited (Australia).

[2] On the Biangai, see also Burton 1996, 2000a, 2000b; Chinnery 1928; Martin & Oullette 1981; Mitio 1981.