Pan‐Africanism in the Pacific: Race and the international construction of West Papuan identity

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the discourse of racial difference in the arena of global decolonization, examining the case of the Indonesian territory which is today known as Papua and until 1962 was a Dutch colony. Papuans formed a ‘nation‐of‐intent’ around the idea of ‘race’ and racial difference, initially the invention of colonial anthropologists and explorers. Papuan nationalists seized on the colonial power's declaration of racial difference, declaring themselves ‘the negroids of the Pacific’ and locating themselves within the wave of African decolonization. The paper discusses the way Papuan non‐state diplomats deployed ideas of race to claim a new Pan‐African identity, far from Africa. I draw on Papuan nationalist publications, United Nations and government documents, and oral testimonies to discuss how diplomatic imperatives led to the formation of a Papuan nationalist identity partly within the territory and partly in exile. Finally, I consider how the Papuan diaspora has continued to foster this nation‐of‐intent from exile since Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua in the 1960s.