Constructing Hegemony: Colonial Rule and Colonial Legitimacy in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Europeans first entered the highlands of Papua New Guinea during the 1930s, but only rudimentary attempts were made by the Australian state to pacify and develop the area. In the postwar years, the administration provided health, education, and agricultural services to highlands New Guineans as part of the colonial trade-off: acceptance of centralized administration for peace and economic development. From a Gramscian perspective, the induction of New Guineans into modernity involved both coercion at the hands of the colonial state and a popular acceptance of new ways. Peace and expanded economic opportunity transformed the lives of the peoples of the eastern highlands, and similar processes in other districts positioned the colonial state as a central actor in creating the new capitalist economy. Securing hegemony meant the population became active in the construction of the new good sense, and this laid the foundations for the future independent state to rule with a degree of legitimacy and to engage with the world capitalist market.