Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

Visualising the Subject of Development

1950S Government Film-making in the Territories of Papua and New Guinea

Bibliographic Data

ID9074698
AuthorsJane Landman (corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume45
Issue1
Pages71-88
Publication date2010-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Pacific History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3344 • E-ISSN: 1469-9605
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00223344.2010.484171
OpenAlexW1563894815
LanguageEN
Citations received6

This paper examines a significant body of government documentaries made in Papua and New Guinea, focusing on those works produced in the late 1950s and 1960s that visually report on those policies and practices of development that were part of Australia's trust responsibilities. It traces the political, institutional and administrative negotiations that determined the semantics and rhetoric of the visual and aural modes deployed to represent the Australian work of development of the Territories and its peoples. While these films were instrumental public relations projects, those involved in their production carefully negotiated the field of their representations and the interrelations between ‘actuality’ and policy, a caution bred, at least in part, in view of their envisaged status as part of PNG's history. These flawed and compromised projects provide visible evidence of the interrelated stylistic and political challenges of attempting to visualise development positively during a time when the Trust discourse on racial relations was entangled in broader Cold War contestation about freedom, directed self-determination and the path towards capitalist modernity in the decolonising Asia/Pacific region

Government (linguistics) · Linguistics · Modernity · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Australian History and Society · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law

  • Circulations

    Courtney Handman•Circulations•2025

  • The making of Canberra as captured on film (1900–1945)

    Lauren Pikó, Hannah Lewi•Planning Perspectives•2022

  • At home with our colonial work

    Jane Landman•Continuum•2010

  • Making neighbours of the natives

    Simon Sigley•Studies In Australasian Cinema•2018

  • Conclusion

    Open Access•Courtney Handman•Circulations•2025

  • The Maslyn Williams Network

    Ross Gibson, Deane Williams•Critical Arts•2017

Unique citing works6
Citations per year0.38
Citation span2010 - 2025 (16)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 6

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae