John Burton, BA (Hons)(Sheffield), MSc (York), PhD (ANU)
Fellow, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program

Email: john.burton[at]anu.edu.au

Biographical Statement

After an introductory year of social anthropology, John switched universities and studied prehistory for his BA degree, acquiring field experience in England, France, Germany and Norway. He did a masters degree in 'biological computation'. He came to the ANU as a Commonwealth Scholar in 1980 to study with Jack Golson on a topic in pre-contact (c1920-1933) mining and trade networks in Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.

In 1985, he moved to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Papua New Guinea, where he taught courses in human origins, research methods, cultural ecology and economic anthropology. He developed research interests in customary land studies, comparative ethnography, and census, and developed social mapping techniques on secondment to the Western Highlands Province government in 1987, and on consultancy research for the University of Papua New Guinea in 1990-91.

In 1991, he returned to Canberra and worked as a consultant until 2001, specialising in social mapping and the social impacts of mining at Ok Tedi, Kutubu, Lihir and Hidden Valley; development assessments in Papua New Guinea; and was a Visiting Fellow at ANU, contributing to the Coombsweb-ANU Asian Studies WWW Server from 1996.

In 2001-2003, he worked as an anthropologist for the Torres Strait Regional Authority.

He came to RMAP in 2004, where recent projects have included native title work for the Babaram, Jirrbal and Muluridji people, North Queensland, and social mapping for renewed landowner resettlement at the Porgera gold mine, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea.

Research Interests

Social mapping and land ownership in Melanesia; social impacts of mining; governance and traditional politics in Papua New Guinea; Native Title research in Torres Strait and among rainforest Aboriginal groups in North Queensland; genealogy in Australia and Melanesia.

Key Publications

• Mining and maladministration in Papua New Guinea. In P. Larmour (ed.) Governance and Reform in the South Pacific. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, 1998.
• Terra Nugax and the Discovery Paradigm: how Ok Tedi was shaped by the way it was found and how the rise of political process in the North Fly took the company by surprise. In G. Banks and C. Ballard (eds) The Ok Tedi settlement: issues, outcomes and implications. Canberra: Australian National University, National Centre for Development Studies and Resource Management in Asia-Pacific. Pacific Policy Paper 27: 27-55, 1997.
• Evidence of the 'new competencies'. In C. Filer, S. Bonnell and G. Banks (eds) Dilemmas of development. The social and economic impact of the Porgera gold mine 1989-94 Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 1999.
• Fratricide and inequality: things fall apart in eastern New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania 38: 208-216, 2003.
• The People Remember and the Government Forgets: the last 100 years of land disputes at Mer, Torres Strait Native Title, Decision-Making and Conflict Management Seminar Series, Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2005.
• The anthropology of personal identity: intellectual property rights issues in Papua New Guinea, West Papua and Australia. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 18(1): 40-55, 2007.
• Determinacy of groups and the 'owned commons' in Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait. In J. Weiner and K. Glaskin (eds), Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Indigenous Australia and Papua New Guinea Canberra: Asia-Pacific Environment Monographs, ANU E Press, 2007.

Career Highlights

Fellow, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, since 2004; Senior Anthropologist, Native Title Office, Torres Strait Regional Authority, Thursday Island, 2001-2003; Lecturer, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Papua New Guinea, 1985-1991.