Oliver Kortendick:
Knowledge Transmission and Political Communication
The anatomy of a village in North-West Papua New Guinea
With few exceptions all variables were checked for any existing relationship. 63 more or less strong relations (which made sense) could be found. They make some basic problems of the village setting clear, and deliver some answers on how the social and economic situation of the people in the research area might be improved. Gender, age, income and education are the core variables in this context. But even where no relationships can be found, one may draw valuable conclusions. Few variables were omitted (40-41 for example) for later analysis.
Women are deprived in many aspects: They are less formal educated. Fewer women know their exact age than men do. Their networks of social support (large sum of money, spending the night) are smaller. They know less political influencing people in the village. They have less access to certain items (out of the list "tools and appliances"): They have fewer coleman lamps, fewer bank accounts. They think slightly different about important issues in their life: Religion is more important to them than to the men, having friends is not mentioned. Earning money and having influence is important to them: both sexes emphasize a peaceful community, however. Regarding the marital status one finds more single men than women and more men marry outside the village than women do. Far more men than women could be interviewed without other people around.
Income is connected to age: the few people who have income are at least 27, the large amount of people who don't have any income is devastating. Income is clearly connected with education. No or little education means no income for the villagers. The educational situation is improving. The younger people are the higher the chance to get at least a middle to high degree in the local school system. People with income have larger networks of loose contacts, can talk about their sorrows with more people and know more people to discuss politics with. People with better access to costly goods (for example a diesel generator or a shared car) are politically more interested, have larger networks of people to discuss politics with. The same is true if one compares the last variables to people with a larger yearly income.
Age determines the size of support networks: Networks of people where ego could spend the night and networks of people who would support ego during illness. But also expressive networks grow by time: Old people have more loose contacts and know more people to talk about their sorrows.
The level of education determines the extent of loose contacts. People
with formal education have more coleman lamps, radios, bank accounts, bicycles,
generators, sewing machines and kerosene stoves. Also, they tend to marry
outside the village more than people without formal education. These "outside"
orientated people also could imagine to live in another village inside
the research area. They have larger expressive networks - can talk with
more people about personal problems and sorrows. Likewise they know more
people to discuss politics. People who import plants (outward orientation)
have more loose contacts and have better inside and access to the most
important people and can better evaluate who is part of that and who not.
The more outside or open orientated (village appreciation) the more
differentiated people think about the village reputation (decline in ethnocentrism),
however, they personally feel worse than the others.
Knowledge of important persons leads to a de-personalized political attitude (the smaller one's network of important persons, the more people choose a party instead of a parties candidate). The more people to discuss politics about, the worse ego regards the village reputation.
The less people cultivate superficial contacts within the neighborhood, the more concrete is the most important issue in life they have: they openly call it "earning money", "no fights", "no sickness". The others reduce it to "religion". These people name as second most important issue in life "helping other people" and "earning a lot of money". One finds the same tendency between more intense neighboring contacts (longer conversation) and important issues - with the only difference that active people name as second most important issue "no sickness", "no fights" and "helping other people". The naming of important issues is not influenced by a collective norm: there is not much difference between the answers of people who were interviewed alone and in a group. Strange enough, altruistic moments are emphasized in a single isolated interview situation.
In general ego's village reputation is consistent with his/her perceived village reputation, although one finds exceptions. The protestants name a worse reputation, likewise do married people and people who don't feel very well at the moment. People who visit each other frequently also engage in longer conversations. Activeness (frequent visits and frequent longer conversations) and perceived reputation correlate. Only lineage number 8 has a differentiated view upon the village reputation. The protestants, however, don't engage too much in superficial neighboring contacts (frequent visits) but prefer the intensive (longer conversation). Protestants have smaller households and preferred a single interview situation.
People who experience that there are less animals in the forest are strictly against the selling of forest.
Oliver Kortendick, Knowledge Transmission and Political Communication - The anatomy of a village in North-West Papua New Guinea, http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Sonja/Oliver/Papuafrequencies/deckblatt.htm, Canterbury 1998
Copyright: Oliver Kortendick 1998. You may not use or cite this work without written permission by the author (oliver.kortendick@epost.de).
This research was partially financed by the European Commission/DGVIII.