Introduction: enacting modernity in the Pacific?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1. This special issue was intended to include a valuable paper on the relationships between migrants, landowners, governments and the company at one particular Pacific mine site, which would not only have given a better balance to the collection but emphasised the challenges to policy formation in rapidly changing circumstances. Unfortunately at the very last minute the paper was withdrawn because the mining company involved perceived these relationships to be too sensitive to be even reported and sensibly discussed. While the editors of this issue and the author of the paper regard it as a classic form of corporate myopia and paranoia it well reflects the acute sensitivities, frictions and tensions that mark sites of rapid change.