Recognition and Strangeness in Marine Environmental Encounters on New Guinea’s Far Western Coast

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Marine

This thesis examines a dispute over environmental conservation projects between people living in Kaimana District of West Papua, Indonesia and environmental non-governmental organizations. It investigates social dynamics of environmentalism through analyzing a dispute over a speedboat that was seized by community members on behalf of Kaimana’s hereditary merchant raja of Namatota. Through doing so, the thesis seeks to contribute to anthropological
studies of peoples’ relations to the environment and natural resources as well as to their relations with wider socio-political networks. I first draw insights from conversations and written reports of a former Conservation International communications employee. I then trace a history of trade relations from Seram Island in the Moluccas to New Guinea that emphasizes the role of aristocratic clans to claims over natural resources. I argue that the recent implementation ofmarine conservation programs in the region has led to a crisis of social recognition. The capture of a conservation organization’s watercraft put into motion demands for greater participation in marine management and eco-tourism projects. I show how these demands were not merely satisfied through material exchanges of money, but also by identifying the social importance of the Raja of Namatota – and by extension the Melanesian communities of the Bird’s Head and Onin Peninsulas – as persons desiring of respect.