Too Close to Ignore: Australia’s Borderland with Papua New Guinea and Indonesia

Abstract

States are not natural, and the borders between them often separate related peoples. One such case is the Torres Strait where, despite international borders, the Melanesian communities of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Western Province, South Fly district, those of West Papua, and communities in Australia’s Torres Strait Islands region are culturally, economically, and socially linked. These ties have existed for millennia, but more recently they have been complicated by the imposition of state boundaries. PNG is Australia’s nearest neighbour, with just 5 km separating Australia’s northernmost islands, Bogiu and Saibai in the Torres Strait, from the New Guinea mainland. The porous nature of the border has given rise to Australian concerns about arms and drugs finding their way south through the Torres Strait. This fascinating new publication Too Close to Ignore: Australia’s Borderland with Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (MUP 2020) is the product of an Australian Research Council Discovery...