Beyond Globalisation and Localisation: Denominational Pluralism in a Papua New Guinean Village

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in 1990–1 and 1995–6 in Pairundu (Papua New Guinea), the paper examines local Christianity as a form of local modernity which results from processes of mutual influence between the global and the local. So far, scholars have stressed opposed, but complementary aspects of such processes (the disappearance of cultural differences versus their increase, people attempting to break with tradition versus people acting in continuity with it) while seeing local modernity or local Christianity as overly homogenous. Yet, the example of Pairundu shows that men and women, older and younger generations as well as big men and ‘ordinary’ men have been competing with each other by adopting Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist forms of Christianity. While ‘intra-cultural’ differences, tensions and antagonisms may be particularly obvious in such a situation of denominational pluralism, there is no reason to believe that they must be absent where one denomination enjoys a religious monopoly.

Keywords:

• Christianity
• Globalisation
• Localisation
• Denominational Pluralism
• Fundamentalism
• Pairundu
• Papua New Guinea

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on fieldwork in Pairundu (Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea). My first stay (1990–1) was supported by the Free University of Berlin and the German Academic Exchange Service, while my second stay (1995–6) formed part of the project Constructions of ‘Cargo’: on coping with cultural otherness in selected parts of Papua New Guinea, generously sponsored by the Volkswagen-Stiftung. This article is a revised version of presentations at L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (5 April 2007), the conference of the European Society for Oceanists in St. Andrews (6 July 2010) and the Institute of Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt (12 July 2010). The first of these presentations became an article published in German (Jebens 2009). I wish to thank John Barker and Joel Robbins for fruitful discussions and the relevant institutions in Papua New Guinea for research permits. Most of all, however, I am indebted to the people of Pairundu for their co-operation, hospitality and friendship: ora pi.

Notes

1. Cf. Barker (2008), Bialecki, Haynes and Robbins (2008), Cannell (2006), Engelke and Tomlinson (2006), Garriott and O'Neil (2008), Hann (2007), Lampe (2010), Robbins (2003a, 2007) and Scott (2005).

2. Cf. Douglas (2001), Jebens (2005, pp. xii–iii).

3. Cf. Barker (2001, p. 112), Eves (2008, pp. 2–3), Gibbs (2005, p. 2) and Jorgensen (2005, p. 448).

4. Cf. Goddard and van Heekeren (2003), McDougall (2008, 2009a, 2009b) and Westermarck (1998).

5. I did fieldwork in Pairundu between 1990 and 1996. My first stay lasted from December 1990 to October 1991, my second from December 1995 to March 1996. Cf. Jebens (1991, 1997a, 1997b, 2000, 2005).

6. Cf. Robbins (1995, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, 2002, 2004a). Bronwen Douglas regards Robbins as a ‘major example’ of her category of ‘“cleanskin” anthropologists’ (2001, p. 620), for whom ‘millennial, charismatic, or pentecostal Christianity has been a normal condition of ethnographic fieldwork’ (2001, p. 626), while Michael W. Scott calls Robbins and John Barker ‘two agenda setters in the anthropology of Christianity’ (2005, p. 101).

7. Robbins has worked with the Urapmin between 1991 and 1993. For a concise summary of his main ideas, see Rumsey (2004).

8. Rumsey points out that the Urapmin have not encountered ‘the culture of Christianity tout court but rather a historically and relatively limited set of foreign people, ideas and practices’ and that ‘“Urapmin culture” has never been sharply circumscribed, but a more-or-less ephemeral precipitate’ (2004, p. 591; italics in the original). Robbins’ representation of Christianity in particular became the object of a critique by Michael W. Scott (2005) which, in turn, has been taken up by Hirsch (2008) and McDougall (2009a). As it is becoming obvious from the context of his analysis, Scott refers to Robbins when he notices ‘a rush to formulate debatable universalising theses about Christianity that quickly turn into a priori assumptions’ (2005, p. 104; italics in the original) and when he stresses that one should ‘not force the data into predetermined hermeneutical dichotomies and frameworks’ (2005, p. 118).

9. McDougall writes that ‘both collectivity and individualism are valued in “traditional” Melanesian societies’ (2009a, p. 14) and that ‘[b]oth individuality and collectivity are implicated by some of the basic tenets of Christianity’ (2009a, pp. 14–5). Hirsch sees the opposition set up by Robbins as resulting from a process of transference when he argues that ‘the claim that some Melanesian Christians are caught between cultures: between a Melanesian “relationalism” and a Christian “individualism” […] attributes Western knowledge conventions and dilemmas […] to Melanesians’ (2008, p. 141).

10. A certain uneasiness with this dichotomy might well have motivated Mark Mosko's recent and widely discussed contribution to the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2010). Corresponding to McDougall's point about inter-cultural commonalities (s. previous endnote), yet without mentioning her, Mosko postulates ‘heretofore unrecognized analogies between indigenous dividualism and Christian “individualism”’ (2010, p. 215) because of which religious change would merely consist ‘in conversions from one dividual mode of sociality into another’ and not necessarily entail ‘the deep ruptures that have sometimes been posited’ (2010, p. 232). For a cogent critique of Mosko's tendency to universalise conceptions of the so-called ‘New Melanesian Ethnography’ at the expense of cultural specificity, however, see Robbins (2010).

11. Bruce Knauft mentions the paradox ‘that people in different world areas increasingly share aspirations, material standards, and social institutions at the same time that their local definition of and engagement with these initiatives fuels cultural distinctiveness’ (2002, p. 22). For the replacement of ‘modernity’ by ‘modernities’, referred to as an ‘academic industry’ by Knauft (2002, pp. 18–9), and the coupling of the plural with the adjectives mentioned, see Donham (2002), Friedmann (2002) and Kelly (2002).

12. Cf. Foster (2005, p. 173) and Jolly (2005, p. 138).

13. In this paper, all terms in brackets and set in italics come from the neo-Melanesian Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea's main lingua franca (cf. Verhaar 1995, Wurm & Mühlhäusler 1986).

14. Cf. Franklin (1965, 1967, 1971), K. Franklin and J. Franklin (1978), Josephides (1983, 1985, 2008), LeRoy (1975, 1979a, 1979b, 1981, 1985a, 1985b), MacDonald (1984a, 1984b, 1984c, 1984d, 1985, 1991).

15. Interview with Ari (2 May 1991), informal conversation with Walaya (10 June 1991).

16. Some of these members participate in regular SDA activities but live in neighbouring villages.

17. Informal conversation with Fr. Jonathan (1 February 1996).

18. Interview with Kenneth Wama (5 March 1996).

19. Informal conversations with Pogola (17 January 1996) and Ata (23 January 1996).

20. On the origins of North American Protestant Fundamentalism, see Birnbaum (1989), Papenthin (1989) and Riesebrodt (1990).

21. For definitions of and problems connected with the term ‘fundamentalism’, see Jebens (2005, pp. 227–9).

22. Cf. Barr (1981, pp. 24–5) and Keesing (1982, p. 232).

23. Englund and Leach see Pentecostalism as ‘an apparent example of Protestant fundamentalism’ (2000, p. 233); Robbins wants to separate Pentecostalism from fundamentalism (2004b, pp. 122–3).

24. Pastor Koya, one of the leading SDA functionaries in the Pairundu area, explained this disapproval by stating that ‘the good spirit’ was no longer sent out today, since, unlike in the time of the Apostles, God's message had already reached everyone. Therefore, Pastor Koya continued, there were only ‘evil spirits’ left that could be contacted (interview, 1 July 1991).

25. Muya, the man who had founded the SDA congregation of Pairundu, told me that if he did not plant anything he would not harvest anything and in exactly the same way God would not let anyone into heaven for nothing (interview, 8 September 1991).

26. Cf. Iannaccone (1994, p. 1180), who argues from a sociological perspective that ‘[s]trictness makes organizations stronger’.

27. Similarly, revival or charismatic movements within the ‘mainline’ churches could be interpreted as an attempt of the latter to counter the activities of Pentecostal organisations.

28. Similarly, McDougall (2009b) sees parallels between the initial adoption of Christianity and subsequent conversion to Islam in the Solomon Islands.

29. I noticed another example of religious affiliation receding into the background when men from several different villages competed for the administrative position of the councillor and when nearly all the member of the SDA congregation from Pairundu voted for the candidate from Pairundu although he was the Catholic catechist and was known for speaking against the Adventists in his sermons (cf. Jebens 2005, pp. 143–4).

30. Jorgensen (2001, p. 635). Cf. Douglas (2001, p. 628).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Holger Jebens

Holger Jebens is Senior Research Fellow at the Frobenius Institute and Managing Editor of Paideuma. He has done fieldwork in Highland and Seaboard Papua New Guinea since 1990. His publications include Cargo, cult and culture critique (Hawai'i University Press 2004) and After the cult (Berghahn 2010)