The Look of Rationality and the Bureaucratization of Consciousness in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Taussig (1993), in his Mimesis and Alterity, offers a useful concept for understanding cultural creativity in Pacific region in light of colonial relationships (also see Thomas 1991 and 1993). It is the mimetic faculty; nature that culture uses to create second nature, faculty to copy, imitate, make models, explore difference, yield into and become other (Taussig 1993:xiii). Taussig explains that although this human faculty is universal and ubiquitous, situations of colonialism and neocolonialism afford us particular opportunities for seeing positive and negative effects of mimesis. An anecdote about an informal dinner party that I attended in 1986 while conducting research in town of Kimbe in province of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, nicely illustrates Taussig's concept. Only one of guests at gathering was an indigenous Papua New Guinean, a high school teacher named Thelma. Very early in my research, she had been pointed out as one of most Westernized women in whole province. During dinner conversation, expatriates began to complain about of Papua New Guineans with whom they worked. I was surprised that Thelma showed no objection to a discussion that was little short of racism, but virtually nonplussed when she turned to me and asked: You're an anthropologist. Why are we so backward? Why is it taking Papua New Guineans so long to catch up with rest of world? There was not slightest hint of sarcasm or irony in her voice and she leaned forward to hear my response. In confusion I could only mutter something about societies not moving in a backward or forward manner and to suggest that it was far better to simply think of them as different. This of course did not satisfy anyone at table, Thelma least of all. She pressed me on issue and I realized that I would have to answer in a fashion that made sense in terms of a discourse that all found acceptable. I then said that I assumed they were really talking about a comparison between village life in Papua New Guinea and urban life in Australia. Therefore it would be useful to remember that majority of Papua New Guineans were being asked to deal with massive social changes in course of only one or two generations that had taken Europeans hundreds of years with which to come to terms. Perhaps better question to ask was why it had taken Europeans so long to adjust to an urban and industrial way of life. The answer seemed to be lost on expatriates, but Thelma was deeply satisfied by it. She explained to me later in private that she had been worried that her fellow nationals might be doomed to remain forever behind Westerners. The question was of more than academic concern to her because, although not worried about herself, as a high school teacher she was responsible for education of Papua New Guinean elite. This article explores bureaucratization of consciousness in urban areas of post-colonial Papua New Guinea. It involves trying to figure out why intelligent people such as Thelma, who would never accept idea that Australia should have remained as a colonial power in their country, nonetheless often embrace cultural colonialism that Australia left behind. It is language of European colonialism, for example, that makes sense of notion of social backwardness or forwardness. It is a bureaucratic model of society that makes sense of dividing world into hierarchically arranged sets of organizations in which individual placement seems to depend on abstract criteria rather than social relationships. And, as I shall argue here, it is indigenous teachers who play a fundamental role in implementing a largely externally defined model of rationalism and morality that creates pressures for a bureaucratization of consciousness in urban areas of Papua New Guinea. This is not an uncontested process even among less than 20 per cent of population that live in urban areas of country (for a good example of way bureaucratic forms do not overcome local meanings in a rural area of Solomon Islands, see White 1991), but before presenting some examples it is worthwhile to digress briefly to discuss theoretical basis for what I here call bureaucratization of consciousness. …