M Demian
Biographic Data
| ID | 27626 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Demian |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Demian |
| SIGNATURE | DEMIAN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1215-0239 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
We don’t mix with those married women”: Widowhood as an emergent gender for development projects in urban Papua New Guinea
(ENGLISH)Life histories of research participants on applied development projects can bring into view unanticipated social forms. This is particularly true for the way such projects frame gender. We document development-focused research in two cities in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that elicited accounts of widowhood, wherein participants called our attention to the implications of this kinship category for the urban context of our work. Widowhood in PN…
Housing, Precarity and Polylegality in Urban Papua New Guinea
The cities and towns of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are characterised by formal urban centres surrounded by informal settlements occupying land held under customary tenure. Housing in the city centres is expensive and excessively formalised, reproducing colonial-era legal regimes of exclusion; most urbanites consequently live in the settlements. They do so under a variety of extra-legal leasehold agreements with customary landowners who may initiate o…
Will the real 'fragile state' please stand up
This article considers the rapid rise and fall of an international development project in Papua New Guinea (PNG) funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). USIP was tasked with identifying local peace-building initiatives to support under the Global Fragility Act 2019, a US law that sought to change how international interventions were chosen and designed. The USIP-funded project in PNG collapsed when USIP itself was dismantled by the…
Pseudolaw, failure, and alternative temporality
The Problem of the Semi-Alienable Anthropologist
The Problem of the Semi‐Alienable Anthropologist
One sweltering afternoon in the small office of a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Lae, the second city and economic engine room of Papua New Guinea (PNG), the discussion had turned from the NGO's activities to more philosophical issues of why urban women faced so many obstacles, including family violence, and how difficult it was for women to find a satisfactory means of redress for it-my topic of research from 2016 to 2017
The States of Law in Papua New Guinea
This article employs a consideration of Peter Fitzpatrick’s early work in Papua New Guinea to reflect on legal and social developments in the country since his residence there during the independence period. In particular, Fitzpatrick’s concerns about the emergence of a Papua New Guinean bourgeois legality that would shape the postcolony are shown to have been prescient in some respects, and also to have had other outcomes unanticipated by the Ma…
Making Women in the City: Notes from a Port Moresby Boarding House
This article takes up the postcolonial feminization of Papua New Guinea’s capital city, Port Moresby, through an analysis of a City Mission boarding house. Haus Ruth is a place designed to resolve the “problem” of two types of women living in Port Moresby: unmarried professional women and married women fleeing domestic violence. The “problem” of Port Moresby’s female population stems from the colonial history of the city, a city that was not orig…
Court in Between: The Spaces of Relational Justice in Papua New Guinea
This article considers local-level disputing in Papua New Guinea by bringing two theories into play: spatial justice, borrowed from the ‘geographical’ turn in legal theory, and relational justice, from the anthropology of law. Disputes negotiated by means of the country’s village courts system are sometimes characterised by metropolitans as institutions that dispense peace instead of justice. I argue, through a comparison of contemporary and hist…
Dislocating Custom
This article approaches the relationship between the categories of custom and law by means of an experiment with cartographic metaphors of scale and location. In Papua New Guinea, the relationship of custom to law is configured by the canonization of custom (the concept as it is known in studies of legal pluralism) in the Constitution of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea and in the Underlying Law Act 2000. However, the status of this univ…
Introduction: Internationalizing Custom and Localizing Law
On the Repugnance of Customary Law
The Constitution of Papua New Guinea (PNG) features a peculiar artifact of colonial-era law known as a repugnancy clause. This type of clause, used elsewhere as a neutral mechanism to identify conflicts between legal provisions, has in PNG become a tool for the moral-aesthetic evaluation of 'customary law.' In this article, I follow the history of the PNG repugnancy clause from its colonial origins and through the relevant case law since the coun…
Community’ at the expense of ‘kinship’ in British courts
In February 2009, a complex and difficult case was brought before the civil division of the senior Court of Appeal in London. The appellant in this case, AM v Local Authority, The Children's Guardian, B-M (Children) ([2009] EWCA Civ 205), was the father of three children who had been removed from his and his wife's household by the local authority, and placed with foster carers. The foster carers had additionally moved house several times until t…
Nameless Relations: Anonymity, Melanesia and Reproductive Gift Exchange between British Ova Donors and Recipients by Monica Konrad
"Fictions of Intention in the "Cultural Defense
The "cultural defense" in criminal law presents anthropologists with an instance of culture being used as a particular sort of tool, in this case, a tool for revealing the intentions of a defendant. In deploying culture instrumentally, courts in the United States and the United Kingdom constitute their other instruments and indeed their own environments as noncultural. By comparison, courts in Papua New Guinea do not use culture as a means of dis…
The kinning of foreigners: Transnational adoption in a global perspective - By Signe Howell
Reflecting on Loss in Papua New Guinea
This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the col…
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. David Graeber. New York: Palgrave, 2001. vii. 337 pp., notes, references, index
Custom In The Courtroom, Law In The Village: Legal Transformations In Papua New Guinea
After more than twenty-five years on the legal landscape of Papua New Guinea, 'customary law' is ripe for reassessment, particularly as it appears to be an ideal mechanism with which the Papua New Guinean state can meet some of its obligations to a burgeoning body of international law. This article addresses the need to understand customary law in the context of its varying usage across different legal domains in an archetypally pluralistic state…
Longing for Completion: Toward an Aesthetics of Work in Suau
Aesthetics is a relatively recent 'discovery' for anthropologists, and on the whole has been limited to analyses of art and other forms of material culture. This article asks whether aesthetics might not also be applied to 'cultural images', or the forms in which people imagine their relationships to be made manifest. I take as my example gendered working relationships in the Suau region of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. In Suau the work o…
"Fictions of Intention in the "Cultural Defense
The "cultural defense" in criminal law presents anthropologists with an instance of culture being used as a particular sort of tool, in this case, a tool for revealing the intentions of a defendant. In deploying culture instrumentally, courts in the United States and the United Kingdom constitute their other instruments and indeed their own environments as noncultural. By comparison, courts in Papua New Guinea do not use culture as a means of dis…
Custom In The Courtroom, Law In The Village: Legal Transformations In Papua New Guinea
After more than twenty-five years on the legal landscape of Papua New Guinea, 'customary law' is ripe for reassessment, particularly as it appears to be an ideal mechanism with which the Papua New Guinean state can meet some of its obligations to a burgeoning body of international law. This article addresses the need to understand customary law in the context of its varying usage across different legal domains in an archetypally pluralistic state…
Dislocating Custom
This article approaches the relationship between the categories of custom and law by means of an experiment with cartographic metaphors of scale and location. In Papua New Guinea, the relationship of custom to law is configured by the canonization of custom (the concept as it is known in studies of legal pluralism) in the Constitution of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea and in the Underlying Law Act 2000. However, the status of this univ…
Longing for Completion: Toward an Aesthetics of Work in Suau
Aesthetics is a relatively recent 'discovery' for anthropologists, and on the whole has been limited to analyses of art and other forms of material culture. This article asks whether aesthetics might not also be applied to 'cultural images', or the forms in which people imagine their relationships to be made manifest. I take as my example gendered working relationships in the Suau region of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. In Suau the work o…
Reflecting on Loss in Papua New Guinea
This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the col…
On the Repugnance of Customary Law
The Constitution of Papua New Guinea (PNG) features a peculiar artifact of colonial-era law known as a repugnancy clause. This type of clause, used elsewhere as a neutral mechanism to identify conflicts between legal provisions, has in PNG become a tool for the moral-aesthetic evaluation of 'customary law.' In this article, I follow the history of the PNG repugnancy clause from its colonial origins and through the relevant case law since the coun…
Introduction: Internationalizing Custom and Localizing Law
Court in Between: The Spaces of Relational Justice in Papua New Guinea
This article considers local-level disputing in Papua New Guinea by bringing two theories into play: spatial justice, borrowed from the ‘geographical’ turn in legal theory, and relational justice, from the anthropology of law. Disputes negotiated by means of the country’s village courts system are sometimes characterised by metropolitans as institutions that dispense peace instead of justice. I argue, through a comparison of contemporary and hist…
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. David Graeber. New York: Palgrave, 2001. vii. 337 pp., notes, references, index
Community’ at the expense of ‘kinship’ in British courts
In February 2009, a complex and difficult case was brought before the civil division of the senior Court of Appeal in London. The appellant in this case, AM v Local Authority, The Children's Guardian, B-M (Children) ([2009] EWCA Civ 205), was the father of three children who had been removed from his and his wife's household by the local authority, and placed with foster carers. The foster carers had additionally moved house several times until t…
Longing for Completion: Toward an Aesthetics of Work in Suau
Aesthetics is a relatively recent 'discovery' for anthropologists, and on the whole has been limited to analyses of art and other forms of material culture. This article asks whether aesthetics might not also be applied to 'cultural images', or the forms in which people imagine their relationships to be made manifest. I take as my example gendered working relationships in the Suau region of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. In Suau the work o…
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams
Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. David Graeber. New York: Palgrave, 2001. vii. 337 pp., notes, references, index
Custom In The Courtroom, Law In The Village: Legal Transformations In Papua New Guinea
After more than twenty-five years on the legal landscape of Papua New Guinea, 'customary law' is ripe for reassessment, particularly as it appears to be an ideal mechanism with which the Papua New Guinean state can meet some of its obligations to a burgeoning body of international law. This article addresses the need to understand customary law in the context of its varying usage across different legal domains in an archetypally pluralistic state…
Reflecting on Loss in Papua New Guinea
This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the col…
The kinning of foreigners: Transnational adoption in a global perspective - By Signe Howell
Nameless Relations: Anonymity, Melanesia and Reproductive Gift Exchange between British Ova Donors and Recipients by Monica Konrad
"Fictions of Intention in the "Cultural Defense
The "cultural defense" in criminal law presents anthropologists with an instance of culture being used as a particular sort of tool, in this case, a tool for revealing the intentions of a defendant. In deploying culture instrumentally, courts in the United States and the United Kingdom constitute their other instruments and indeed their own environments as noncultural. By comparison, courts in Papua New Guinea do not use culture as a means of dis…
Community’ at the expense of ‘kinship’ in British courts
In February 2009, a complex and difficult case was brought before the civil division of the senior Court of Appeal in London. The appellant in this case, AM v Local Authority, The Children's Guardian, B-M (Children) ([2009] EWCA Civ 205), was the father of three children who had been removed from his and his wife's household by the local authority, and placed with foster carers. The foster carers had additionally moved house several times until t…
On the Repugnance of Customary Law
The Constitution of Papua New Guinea (PNG) features a peculiar artifact of colonial-era law known as a repugnancy clause. This type of clause, used elsewhere as a neutral mechanism to identify conflicts between legal provisions, has in PNG become a tool for the moral-aesthetic evaluation of 'customary law.' In this article, I follow the history of the PNG repugnancy clause from its colonial origins and through the relevant case law since the coun…
Dislocating Custom
This article approaches the relationship between the categories of custom and law by means of an experiment with cartographic metaphors of scale and location. In Papua New Guinea, the relationship of custom to law is configured by the canonization of custom (the concept as it is known in studies of legal pluralism) in the Constitution of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea and in the Underlying Law Act 2000. However, the status of this univ…
Introduction: Internationalizing Custom and Localizing Law
Court in Between: The Spaces of Relational Justice in Papua New Guinea
This article considers local-level disputing in Papua New Guinea by bringing two theories into play: spatial justice, borrowed from the ‘geographical’ turn in legal theory, and relational justice, from the anthropology of law. Disputes negotiated by means of the country’s village courts system are sometimes characterised by metropolitans as institutions that dispense peace instead of justice. I argue, through a comparison of contemporary and hist…
Making Women in the City: Notes from a Port Moresby Boarding House
This article takes up the postcolonial feminization of Papua New Guinea’s capital city, Port Moresby, through an analysis of a City Mission boarding house. Haus Ruth is a place designed to resolve the “problem” of two types of women living in Port Moresby: unmarried professional women and married women fleeing domestic violence. The “problem” of Port Moresby’s female population stems from the colonial history of the city, a city that was not orig…
The Problem of the Semi-Alienable Anthropologist
The Problem of the Semi‐Alienable Anthropologist
One sweltering afternoon in the small office of a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Lae, the second city and economic engine room of Papua New Guinea (PNG), the discussion had turned from the NGO's activities to more philosophical issues of why urban women faced so many obstacles, including family violence, and how difficult it was for women to find a satisfactory means of redress for it-my topic of research from 2016 to 2017
The States of Law in Papua New Guinea
This article employs a consideration of Peter Fitzpatrick’s early work in Papua New Guinea to reflect on legal and social developments in the country since his residence there during the independence period. In particular, Fitzpatrick’s concerns about the emergence of a Papua New Guinean bourgeois legality that would shape the postcolony are shown to have been prescient in some respects, and also to have had other outcomes unanticipated by the Ma…
Housing, Precarity and Polylegality in Urban Papua New Guinea
The cities and towns of Papua New Guinea (PNG) are characterised by formal urban centres surrounded by informal settlements occupying land held under customary tenure. Housing in the city centres is expensive and excessively formalised, reproducing colonial-era legal regimes of exclusion; most urbanites consequently live in the settlements. They do so under a variety of extra-legal leasehold agreements with customary landowners who may initiate o…
Will the real 'fragile state' please stand up
This article considers the rapid rise and fall of an international development project in Papua New Guinea (PNG) funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). USIP was tasked with identifying local peace-building initiatives to support under the Global Fragility Act 2019, a US law that sought to change how international interventions were chosen and designed. The USIP-funded project in PNG collapsed when USIP itself was dismantled by the…
Pseudolaw, failure, and alternative temporality
We don’t mix with those married women”: Widowhood as an emergent gender for development projects in urban Papua New Guinea
(ENGLISH)Life histories of research participants on applied development projects can bring into view unanticipated social forms. This is particularly true for the way such projects frame gender. We document development-focused research in two cities in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that elicited accounts of widowhood, wherein participants called our attention to the implications of this kinship category for the urban context of our work. Widowhood in PN…
Anthropological Studies and Insights (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · New guinea (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · History (7 works) · Ethnology (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Asian Studies and History (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)