A continuation of warfare by sportive means: settling conflicts through football in the Eastern Highlands of colonial New Guinea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This ethnohistorical study of football games from the mid-1940s to the 1970s in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea explores the potentials and limits of using sport as a conflict-settlement measure. Football was introduced by Australian colonial officers as a peacebuilding exercise, and local communities quickly adapted it to settle conflicts that otherwise could have escalated to war. It was a new mechanism to redress perceived violations and injustices but culturally shaped by pre-existing experiences and understandings. The game, similar to warfare, only came to a conclusion when both sides were exhausted, and the scores considered even. Football thus served a useful purpose to settle conflicts peacefully and efficiently – within limits. Tensions and emotions ran high on the football pitch, resulting in instances where games led to the renewed outbreak of inter-village wars, especially when the underlying ethos of equivalence was breached, and one side dominated the match.