Seminar Series: Abstract

Stepping stones across the Lihir islands: a fieldwork report
Chris Ballard and Kirsty Gillespie - PAH

What role in the future do Melanesian communities envisage for their history and for their cultural heritage more generally? And what part in this future of the past might researchers play? This paper reports briefly on a recent visit to the Lihir Islands of Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland Province, to assist a committee of Lihirians in developing a cultural heritage management plan. We describe the outlines of an emerging collaborative research program on the ways in which knowledge of the past and of landscape is communicated performatively through voice and bodily movement – a program which assembles professional skills in history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, cultural heritage management and linguistics, intimately guided by the research needs of the Lihir community. A preliminary result of this collaboration is a CD of Lihirian songs, recorded in 1908 and 2008, which was launched during our recent visit.