How do religious and political elites in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands see the modern state? This thesis addresses this question. The thesis shows that these two countries do not fit with the ideal structure of the modern state provided here. This is despite the state building efforts of Australia as the two countries largest aid donor. It shows that there are a number of ways that the state can be seen by elites. Amongst both groups of elites can the state can be seen by some as something for the security and betterment of the population. It can be seen as a structure to oppose by some religious groups. Other religious leaders see the state as a partner for the development of both countries. Political elites can see keeping the state weak as being beneficial to finance its operations. Some leaders see the state as an item of capture. It finds that though religious leaders have generally good intentions for the state, they are limited in their authority and influence. The thesis also finds that though political elites are much more important than religious elites in shaping the state, their role is limited by and tied to the people. It finds that the two societies are extremely fragmented and competitive with many differing interests. This leads to the state being seen as an item of competition. This competition does not create the conditions that the state as a structure depends on to reach its ideal form. It concludes that for the state to succeed in both countries there needs to be a shift in attitude towards it.

Internet message boards are a medium by which educated Papua New Guineans who are living outside of Papua New Guinea (PNG) maintain ties to one another and to their home country. One of the languages that they use on these message boards is Tok Pisin (TP), an English-based creole spoken in PNG that has changed rapidly in theapproximately 120 years since its creation as a pidgin.Romaine (1992) suggests that decreolization by means of new changes toward English is occurring in the TP language. Smith (2002) disagrees and claims that there is no evidence for decreolization. This study shows that there is evidence in favor of decreolization, in particular a Matrix Language (ML) turnover (Myers-Scotton 2002), in the TP used on seven Internet message boards. This conclusion is also derived through the study of 139 letters to the editor in the TP weekly newspaper Wantok written during 2003 and 2006.In looking for English `late system morphemes,' whose existence in bilingual complementizer phrases that have TP as the ML would indicate the beginning of a ML turnover (Myers-Scotton 2002), this study counts deletion of the TP particle i as a late system morpheme.Results show that on Internet message boards, the particle i only marks the predicate in 33% of the locations where it would occur in Standard TP. In Wantok letters to the editor, i occurs 95% of the time. Internet users are more likely to be influenced by English and have less access to Standard TP. Although TP is still valued by highly educated Papua New Guineans in the English domain of the Internet to discuss personal topics and show solidarity with one another, it is not their first choice of language, and the loss of the particle i shows evidence for a ML turnover having begun in the language. One conclusion that may be drawn from this study is that planning for the future of TP by the leaders of PNG is essential to maintain TP as a community language. / Department of English

New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. There are over 1000 languages found there, reflecting a complex history of migration and interaction. The Upper Sepik is one of New Guinea’s most linguistically heterogeneous areas but because the area has not been marked by the significant population movement and intense and far-reaching exchange systems apparent for some parts of New Guinea, this diversity may be more indicative of processes that maintain rather than lead to linguistic diversity. Accordingly, the region may offer great potential for those investigating population histories. With this potential in mind ethnographers went into the Upper Sepik during the 1960s and 1970s with the intention of making representative material culture collections for the language groups found there. These collections combine to be, arguably, one of the most fine-grained material culture datasets that exist for New Guinea. This thesis describes the manner in which these collections were documented and used to create a dataset to test for relationships between material culture and language. It begins with an overview of the study area including descriptions of the geography, environments, subsistence systems, settlement structures and social patterns, including an appraisal of marriage exchange, ritual, trade and warfare and how these may have facilitated or inhibited the spread of culture. This appraisal leads to an assertion that the sociality and mobility of men and women are affected differentially by such mechanisms, and that material culture belonging to men and women may differentially reflect population histories and the social processes that underpin the evolution of linguistic diversity. The thesis then describes a round of analytical procedures used to test for relationships between language and attributes belonging to string bags and arrows which are respectively and exclusively produced by women and men. Associations between languages, measured in terms of their material culture similarity, are then compared to those determined according to their linguistic family relationship and their relative positions in geographical space. The analysis also tests whether differences in the way that women and men socialise and move through space influence the way in which material culture patterns through space. The thesis concludes that attributes of classes of material culture are distributed differently for objects made by men compared to those made by women, that distance seems to be a stronger factor than language, and that environmental factors are also relevant. This study foreshadows ongoing research involving the dataset. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2009

New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse region in the world. There are over 1000 languages found there, reflecting a complex history of migration and interaction. The Upper Sepik is one of New Guinea’s most linguistically heterogeneous areas but because the area has not been marked by the significant population movement and intense and far-reaching exchange systems apparent for some parts of New Guinea, this diversity may be more indicative of processes that maintain rather than lead to linguistic diversity. Accordingly, the region may offer great potential for those investigating population histories. With this potential in mind ethnographers went into the Upper Sepik during the 1960s and 1970s with the intention of making representative material culture collections for the language groups found there. These collections combine to be, arguably, one of the most fine-grained material culture datasets that exist for New Guinea. This thesis describes the manner in which these collections were documented and used to create a dataset to test for relationships between material culture and language. It begins with an overview of the study area including descriptions of the geography, environments, subsistence systems, settlement structures and social patterns, including an appraisal of marriage exchange, ritual, trade and warfare and how these may have facilitated or inhibited the spread of culture. This appraisal leads to an assertion that the sociality and mobility of men and women are affected differentially by such mechanisms, and that material culture belonging to men and women may differentially reflect population histories and the social processes that underpin the evolution of linguistic diversity. The thesis then describes a round of analytical procedures used to test for relationships between language and attributes belonging to string bags and arrows which are respectively and exclusively produced by women and men. Associations between languages, measured in terms of their material culture similarity, are then compared to those determined according to their linguistic family relationship and their relative positions in geographical space. The analysis also tests whether differences in the way that women and men socialise and move through space influence the way in which material culture patterns through space. The thesis concludes that attributes of classes of material culture are distributed differently for objects made by men compared to those made by women, that distance seems to be a stronger factor than language, and that environmental factors are also relevant. This study foreshadows ongoing research involving the dataset. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2009

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-225). / xiv, 225 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Mitochondrial control region and cytochrome b gene sequence comparisions were used to investigate the molecular systematics of pythons. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Adelaide University, Dept. of Genetics, 2001

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country composed of thousands of tribes, clans, cultures and customs, with well over a hundred languages and totemic groupings spread sparsely across its lands (Bonney 1986: 2) (see Map A). Today the country has a total population of four million people (NSO 1991). Before colonisation, Papua New Guinea’s indigenous settlement patterns and social organisation reflected the fragmented nature of the country’s environment, its isolation from the eastern and western centres of civilisation, and the needs of small-scale subsistence economies. Over thousands of years, Melanesian societies have been too diverse for any particular area or group to typify the country’s culture or to maintain a dominant role within government. Deviance, regulatory mechanisms and methods used by each tribe or cultural group to resolve disputes, varied according to the community’s culture and customs. At the time of colonisation the indigenous people were artificially united in one nation-state. With the introduction of Western social, political, economic and judicial systems, they were forced to live under alien dispute resolution procedures and to accept an imposed Western system of sanctions, which overlaid or supplemented the customary dispute resolution procedures. Since colonisation, a Western legal system of sanctions has been imposed on Papua New Guineans in which the colonialists have overlooked traditional, unwritten customary systems.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Oregon State University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 359-373).

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-75).

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124).

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124).