The Supreme Sukundimi Declaration - Sacred Water, Moral Ecologies and Ontological Politics in a Mining Encounter in Papua New Guinea

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2145180
AutoresC Falck (0000-0003-2356-2543, University of Göttingen, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume33
Fascículo1
Páginas1-26
Data de publicação2023-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAnthropological Forum (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0066-4677 • E-ISSN: 1469-2902
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00664677.2022.2162847
OpenAlexW4323980333
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas51

I discuss the Supreme Sukundimi Declaration, published as part of a campaign against the Frieda River Copper-Gold Project, in relation to the cosmo-ontological politics of individual and collective actors in a mining encounter in Papua New Guinea. I analyse the mobilisation of the Sepik River as a sacred being and a political actor from a perspective informed by findings from long-term fieldwork with Nyaura communities. In my analysis, I draw on theories from the New Animism that I combine with a political ontology perspective to grasp the political significance of the Sepik River’s connectedness with human and non-human entities in a regional and national context in which spirits are an important part of reality. I suggest that the fight of Sepik people, who align themselves with ancestral forces against the mining project and their national government, can be understood as a fight between different ontologies or ways of being-in-the-world

Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Declaration · Environmental ethics · Ethnology · New guinea · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · History · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Philosophy · Water Governance and Infrastructure