Ethnomusicology and the Mining Industry: A Case Study from Lihir, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This article presents an ethnomusicologist’s engagement with The University of Queensland’s Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (Sustainable Minerals Institute), Newcrest Mining Limited, and the people of Lihir, Papua New Guinea, whose lands are currently being mined for gold. In an age where large-scale resource development has become essential to many economies within Australasia, this article considers how multiple stakeholders with differing agendas can recognize and prioritize intangible cultural heritage for the people on whose lands mining takes place. It is also an example of applied ethnomusicology working at the interface between industry and community.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Nicholas Bainton, John Owen, and Grace Koch for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I thank the Lihir people for having welcomed me in their islands and in particular members of LKEA for their help and co-operation. Thanks as well to the Cultural Awareness section of Newcrest Mining Ltd on Lihir who have facilitated much of the logistics surrounding local travel and events for LKEA and for my own research.

Notes

¹ This figure does not include the approximately 6000 non-Lihirian migrants nor the mining fly-in/fly-out workforce.

² One should note however that research conducted on the topic of population growth and employment highlights the problem that the current Lihir economy, despite this growth in opportunity, is not able to provide employment prospects for the majority of this growing demographic of young people between fifteen and twenty-four years of age. This, the research suggests, could make it ‘the most volatile and potentially disruptive demographic’ of Lihir society (MacIntyre and Foale 2003, 20), something that should be of concern to those in charge of mining operations.

³ In a previous publication on the music of the Duna people of Papua New Guinea I argue for the use of the term ‘ancestral’ over the term ‘traditional’. The latter terms is a more common label for music practice prior to colonization; however, the former term is more appropriate because introduced musical styles are fast becoming ‘tradition’ in themselves (Gillespie 2010, 7–10). That argument can also be applied here in relation to Lihir music.

⁴ A documentary film on this canoe-building project is being made by the Australian film company Rebel Films. This film is also part of the Plan, and was funded through Newcrest Mining Ltd and the Lihir Sustainable Development Plan.

⁵ Tok Pisin is one of the national languages of Papua New Guinea, an English-based form of pidgin that is now largely a creole, and a language that is used by many speakers of the 800-plus indigenous languages to communicate with each other.

⁶ As the workshop that generated the plan was conducted predominantly in Tok Pisin, this is the language used in the original plan. This was considered appropriate for the Lihir audience. An English version was created primarily to assist non-Tok Pisin speakers. No doubt the lack of a Lihir version is in part due to the variance in dialects of the island group and the lack of a standard orthography.

⁷ Küchler suggests that landscape in this area of the world is not only, as understood in the western context, ‘an inscribed surface which can be measured, described and depicted’ (Küchler 1994, 85), but is rather something more ‘dynamic’ (Küchler 1994, 104). Oral literature of Lihir makes reference to places that no longer exist, incorporating these places into stories as if they are still there. This suggests that places may continue to exist through memory even though they can no longer be seen.

⁸ It should also be noted that the International Finance Corporation also have a performance standard relating to cultural heritage (Performance Standard 8), (www.ifc.org/performancestandards; accessed 6 December 2011).

⁹ Recent efforts by the mining industry to engage with cultural heritage issues include Rio Tinto’s publication Why Cultural Heritage Matters: A Resource Guide for Integrating Cultural Heritage Management into Communities work at Rio Tinto (Bradshaw et al, 2011).

¹⁰ This may in part be due to the complexity of the terms ‘culture’ and ‘nature’; in Williams’ estimation, ‘culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’ while ‘nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language’ (1976 [1983], 87 and 219). Ultimately, perhaps these terms are so complicated and so complex—particularly when applied in the cross-cultural realm—because they attempt to express in English things that are experienced across many more languages and contexts. There is a wealth of literature concerned with examining ‘culture’ both as a term and as a phenomenon (see, for example, the writings of Clifford Geertz). ‘Nature’ has similarly been deconstructed (and of course, debates on ‘nature versus culture’ are numerous). However, as relevant as the discussion would be here, it is not the intention of this article to take this theoretical turn.

¹¹ Here too I acknowledge the literature that exists on the Melanesian concept of ‘kastom’/‘kastam’, which can be considered to have the same or similar function as the term ‘kalsa’ as it is used here (see, for example, Jolly and Thomas 1992). The recent publication by Dalsgaard and Otto (2011) is of particular relevance here as it argues the difference between ‘kalsa’ and ‘kastam’ as the terms are used in Manus Province, Papua New Guinea—a particular distinction worth exploring across other language groups. The reader should note that as these terms are broad Melanesian concepts they are expressed by Lihirians in the language of Tok Pisin rather than in the Lihir language.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirsty Gillespie

Kirsty Gillespie received her PhD from The Australian National University in 2008 for her research into the music and culture of the Duna people of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. She is the author of the book Steep slopes: Music and change in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (ANU E Press). Kirsty is currently a Research Fellow at the CSRM, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, and continues to work with the local Lihir people on their cultural heritage programme. Email: [email protected]