Working Paper 1997/11
 

Changing relations of production  in  the creation of the Ok  Tedi mining enclave in Papua New Guinea

David Hyndman
 
University of Queensland
Paper presented in the Mining in Melanesia Seminar Series
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
7 June 1995
  

 

Abstract

The interplay of mining, miners and indigenous peoples increasingly threatens the interdependence of cultural and biological diversity in Papua New Guinea. The mode of production concept provides anthropology with a useful theoretical tool for examining the survival of communities based on subsistence and simple reproduction. Mining characteristically transforms the cultural appropriation of nature and social relations of production among indigenous peoples.  The survival of a community and their environment in the face of a mining project is conditioned by its production logic combined with relevant cultural and ecological particularities. The analytical significance of the mode of production concept is illustrated with a case study of Wopkaimin and their changing relations of production during the creation of the Ok Tedi mining project in the 1980’s.
  

Changing relations of production  in  the creation of the Ok  Tedi 
mining enclave in Papua New Guinea

 

Mode of production: concept and analytical significance

Marx's writings on the concept of mode of production have been distinguished according to at least three uses of the phrase: (1) a descriptive usage, as in agricultural mode of production; (2) an epochal usage, to differentiate dominant modes of production according to historical periods; and (3) as a secondary modes of production reference, which were never dominant in historical periods, but characterised certain aspects of those periods (Roseberry 1989:155-156).  The mode of production concept here is deployed in its descriptive, but not ahistorical,  usage and is used here to refer to a partial system or a localised segment, but not necessarily isolated in some static existence.  The place-based peoples of bioculturally diverse Papua New Guinea have historically specific systems of subsistence production with structures and dynamics in their own right and should not be situated within the epochal trap of evolution or transition of modes of production. This was a theoretical pitfall that has characterised authors within this tradition who have been, by and large, influenced by the orthodoxy of French structural Marxism (Wolf 1982).   Despite conceptual shortcomings, which can be attributable greatly to Marx's captivity in the societal realities of his own time, mode of production does provide a seminal concept from which a powerful analysis of contemporary production systems of any society can be developed.
Marx gave the mode of production concept a reified structural property, thus overlooking the fundamental fact of human agency in the transformation of nature (Roseberry 1989:155-156).        Communities have cultural and locality-specific strategies for survival, but they historically stand in definite relations to a superordinate structure, which in Melanesia typically involved an elaborate gender-based division of labour and access to land guaranteed by the operation of some combination of locality, residence, descent, ego-oriented kinship or  gift exchange (Wesley-Smith 1989; Strathern 1982).  There is a wide range and diversity of systems of subsistence production across the different regions of Papua New Guinea that reflect both cultural and ecological particularities.  The expansion of the mining frontier and other capitalist forms of organisation of production threaten these systems of subsistence production.  Behind this articulation are varying histories within an enduring mode of production. It is within this context that Wopkaimin changing relations of production during the creation of the Ok tedi mining project in the 1980’s is analysed.
 

Subsistence mode of production vs capitalist mode of production

The concept of subsistence production was not discussed in any elaborate detail by Marx, other than acknowledging it as an intrinsic and essential element of the production process of every human society (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1982:247).  It is to an anthropologically informed political economy that a rigorous cross-cultural concept of subsistence production can be credited. In particular, Godelier (1979:17) distinguishes between 'a mode of subsistence and a mode of production'. Accordingly, a mode of subsistence is the forms of the appropriation of territory and natural and human-altered resources employed by a specific human population in a specific historical period. A mode of production is characterised by the cultural appropriation of nature and the social relations which determine the forms of access to resources and the means of production, organises the labour processes and determines the distribution and circulation of the products of social labour (Godelier 1979:17). The notion of subsistence production, then, combines the analysis of both the mode of subsistence and modes of production.
    Subsistence production underlies every mode of production. It is part of the general process of the reproduction of human life, considering that social reproduction is the process through which human life and vital capacity are continuously produced and reproduced (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1982:242). Its theoretical significance can be best appreciated when contrasted with the capitalist mode of production. This juxtaposition is useful and necessary because of the way that it points to the "markedly different implications the two forms of organisation have in terms of the human appropriation of the natural environment" (Schmink and Wood 1987:40).  In Papua New Guinea, Gregory (1982) has referred to this as the juxtaposition between gifts and commodities.
    Capitalist production is composed of two specific areas of social reproduction: extended reproduction or accumulation and subsistence production. However, by its very nature, the predominant goal of production is the realisation of surplus and the private accumulation of this surplus. Propped by a class structural system and a generalised commodity exchange, subsistence products (and the forces and means) in a capitalist mode of production are expropriated from the direct producers by the socioeconomically privileged sector of the society. In some cases, the situation of extreme separation of production and consumption has evolved, in association with urbanisation and industrialisation. As a consequence, the direct producers tend to lose the autonomy and control of their livelihood.
     Under subsistence production, by contrast,  peoples usually do not produce any significant market surplus. They evolved strategies that usually combined efficient, although not necessarily simple, appropriation of the different aspects of their natural environment. A highly diversified environment allows opportunities for the division of productive activities such as forest resource extraction, horticulture, hunting and fishing. The manner of exploiting the natural environment is usually small-scale because the fundamental goal is simple reproduction of the household and not production of surplus for the market. This mode of production, therefore, has a strong ecological rationale. With such a level of resource exploitation, long-term sustainability of production is better assured, although it is considered underproductive from the standpoint of capitalist relations of production.
    Division of labour under subsistence production in Papua New Guinea is usually defined by kinship, age and gender that are legitimated by the local culture. Kinship practically underlies the social organisation of work and the distribution and circulation of the products of social labour. Subsistence producers measure their product in terms of use-values, they do not calculate the exchange-value of their products in advance (Bennholdt-Thomsen 1982:245). Any surplus realised in production is usually appropriated in reciprocal exchanges through feasting, gift-giving, and other communal rituals.  Underpinned by the value of reciprocity and social obligation, the kinship network and community rituals constitute levelling mechanisms that facilitate redistribution of goods and products among the members of the community.  Simple reproduction in subsistence production covers not only the fundamental reproduction of the household but also, significantly, the reproduction of community social relations.   This system whereby  subsistence production is social production, and social production is subsistence production has been referred to by Scott (1976:26-29) as the sociology of subsistence ethics.
 

Ok Tedi: at the vulgar fringe  of  the  mining  resource frontier in Papua New Guinea

Capitalist relations of production represented by the Ok Tedi Mining Limited (OTML) project have always been uncritically  regarded by the Australian colonial administration and the Papua New Guinea (PNG) National government  as the standard of  modernity and a goal for the Wopkaimin and other peoples of the Fly River  socio-ecological  region (Fig.1).  From the outset of the Ok Tedi open-cut gold and copper mining project started in 1981,  Barth  and Wikan (1982:8-9) countered that "a construction camp, or a mining operation, in fact, provides no model or blueprint for the social and  cultural  institutions  of  a  whole  population.  What  is demonstrated  in  Tabubil  cannot  be  exemplary  for  settlement patterns, social life, family organisation, or even major sectors of household economies."  Mining ushered  in a clash  between  kinship and capitalist relations of  production  and thereby,  posed  a  threat  to  Wopkaimin  social  and  cultural reproduction which will be discussed in the context of the cultural appropriation of nature, the mobilisation of social labour and the distribution and circulation of the products of social labour.  As this vulgar fringe of the modern world system became  the only  image  and  model  of new relations of production for the Wopkaimin,  community  schooling, instruction from outsiders in training centres and employment  experience  at  the  mine failed to provide the organisation and lifeways necessary for transformation to capitalist relations of production.
 

Cultural appropriation of nature

The  majority of the Wopkaimin  initially  lived  away  from  the  Kennecott prospectors who first arrived in the late 1960s (Hyndman 1994a) and maintained subsistence production autonomy in  their  ancestral  rain forests.  When the Kennecott prospectors invaded, the Wopkaimin surrendered small  portions  of  communally-owned  land  in  expectation  of receiving  money  for the first time.  Kennecott and the Ok  Tedi  Development  Company had initiated free room and board co-educational schooling  for  the Wopkaimin in the 1970's,  but this ended under OTML in the 1980's.  The  Wopkaimin  community school  was  destroyed in 1981 when Tabubil was converted into  a  mining town  and  for  a  long  time  there  was  only  an  exclusive international school catering to children of expatriate staff.  Eventually, a co-educational  community  school  was built  on  the  fringe  of Tabubil  without free room and board.  Schooling from  the  first grade  was in English, which was totally alien to the  children  and relating  the  curriculum to their routine  life  experiences  was unresolved (Barth and Wikan 1982:29).  Initial positive attitudes towards  schooling  and training were a poor measure  of  the depth of internalising the Western world view and capitalist relations of production.
     About a dozen Wopkaimin workers and their families lived for several  years in Tabubil until 1981 when the OTML consortium was created to start the gold and copper mining project.  The transnational construction giant Bechtel was contracted to convert the entire Tabubil plateau into an instant  township to house over 5000 outsiders. As white executives and their families moved into Tabubil, all Wopkaimin workers with  their  families  were forced out.   Tabubil, the operational and residential centre of the Ok Tedi project, is a highly stratified township with a  few  family houses provided for the wealthy, mostly  expatriate,  elite employees.  The thousands  of single male, mostly  outsider  PNG nationals are housed in crowded dormitory accommodation.  Colonial  invasion started with single male patrol officers and was followed by  single male prospectors.  Today there are still very few women represented in the mining enclave of Tabubil.  The nearly all-male Ok Tedi mining operation exaggerates the importance of male technical-productive activities over other values.
     Employment  for Wopkaimin men, rather  than  lease  payments,  was initially perceived  as the main source of benefits to be derived from  the mining  project  (Barth and Wikan 1982:24).  Schooling  and  job-training  to  enhance  skills  and  experience  for  personal participation in the mining project capitalist relations of production were,  therefore, valued.  They perceived promised  wage earning, education  and  health facilities as beneficial but they  had  no clear idea of the land requirements of the Ok Tedi project or of the  substantial socio-ecological impact it was to have on  their way of life.
      By the time of stage one gold production in 1984 almost all Wopkaimin had relocated from their ancestral rain forest hamlets to Woktemwanin and Finalbin (Fig.2), locations previously  used as temporary base camps for sago processing  and hunting  and  fishing  expeditions.  First expanded into small hamlets and then into new roadside villages,   Finalbin and Woktemwanin became extremely  congested by Wopkaimin standards and by 1985 they each accommodated over 350  residents.   Although residents were predominantly Wopkaimin, other Mountain Ok  from the  Sepik Source Basin had moved in as well. Non-Wopkaimin were  permitted  to reside  in  the roadside villages but not to hunt or garden,  so the migrants were totally  dependent  on  trade  store  commodities  for subsistence.       Traditional houses were oval in shape with a  central hearth and were constructed of  Pandanus with sago leaf  thatching.   Houses  in the roadside villages were a bricolage of packing crates salvaged from  the Tabubil  rubbish tip.  They were erected in a rectangular shape with several interior rooms  and doors were fitted with tradestore Chinese padlocks.  Cooking  over wood  fire was external to the house, usually on  cut-down  60 litre  metal drums located on the veranda.  These  "monuments  to the petty accumulation of cash and commodities by individuals and households"  financed from wage labour at the mine have also sprung up among the Fegolmin  and elsewhere in the adjacent socio-ecological region (Polier 1990).
      Social class was conspicuously absent in Wopkaimin subsistence  production.  Land  was  used for  production and symbolic purposes.  Membership in cognatic  descent  groups  (kinumits) were the essential basis for claiming use rights to land.  There was no sense of rights to alienate or lease land  and each kinumit was linked to certain tracts of  ancestral rain  forest.  Community membership formed the basis  for production and embraced the right to build houses and hamlets and fostered  an  awareness  of  shared rights  for  all  within  the homeland.  Purchase or compensation for  usufruct  to Wopkaimin land was not extended to non-Wopkaimin in the  roadside villages, and was granted without precedent for OTML  operations.  However,  their ancestral rain forests were also endowed  with  a sacred geography and certain sites were associated with recurrent ritual  activity.  It  was  also  recognised  that  mythical significance  could be bestowed on the same cultural  landscape  by different  and competing Mountain Ok peoples and this formed  the basis  for  permitting non-Wopkaimin to reside  in  the  roadside villages.
    Coffee, cattle and bisnis (Melanesian Tok Pisin for economic ventures  leading  to  involvement  with  the  cash  economy  in virtually  any  capacity  other  than  as  wage  earner)  have extensively  monetised  kinship relations of  production  across  the Highlands, often creating an efflorescence of gift exchange (Gregory 1982) .  These activities were absent among the  Wopkaimin  and  other Mountain Ok peoples in the socio-ecological region.  The previous lack  of  cash-earning activities relegated the Wopkaimin  to  a peripheral,  unskilled wage-earner role in the Ok  Tedi  project.  Over  half  of the Wopkaimin men worked at the  mine  during  the Bechtel  construction  phase of the project  (Jackson  and  Ilave 1983:26)  because  they wanted to fully participate  in  the  new capitalist relations of production.  The job of preference was  heavy machine operator or big truck driver, but only a few men attained the  qualifications.
 

Mobilisation of social labour

Men  and women maintained highly distinctive lives  socially and  spatially under Wopkaimin subsistence production.  Men monopolised  public life and formal religious activity but  women participated in decision making on matters other than the  secret male  cult.   There was little difference in  authority  in  the family  unit  of production and husband and  wife  normally  made decisions by consensus.  However, gender so permeated relations of production, distribution and consumption (Hyndman 1995a) that men  and women  could  exercise  similar sanctions  of  withdrawing  into  temporary self-sufficiency and isolation. Wopkaimin  social  and  cultural reproduction emphasised distinctive gender-based spheres of production with a roughly equal possibility of men and women to influence one another.  Gender relations altered dramatically  in  the  roadside villages.
     Wopkaimin roadside villagers used the term 'corners' to refer to  the aggregate of disparate neighbourhoods formed around  their previous residential and descent group affiliations.  Established patterns of domesticity and  sociality were  significantly modified.  Nuclear families resided together  in co-resident commensality.  Men did not have a men's house in  which to  congregate at the expense of conjugal ties, but they tended  to maintain  bedrooms separate from the wife and children.  With household  sovereignty  in  consumption, food  was no  longer segregated by gender and food prohibitions were abandoned.  This reversed male-directed sharing of meat from the men's house, a pattern which had previously denied household autonomy and  separated the sexes.
       The  overt emergence of nuclear families appeared modern  and was  encouraged by the state and OTML.  What seemed like  loss  of gender distinction with co-residence in family dwellings actually did little to initially further equality between the sexes.  Such co-residence without a men's house precluded male cult activities but  it  introduced  a sharp discontinuity  between  mothers  and daughters  who were formally very close and a  created a loss of one of  the wife's counterweights to her husbands influence (Barth and  Wikan 1982:15).
A pattern of great man-based gender relations (see Godelier 1986; Jorgensen 1991) continued with a separate realm of male production in the roadside villages.  Only men were wage earners and they were far more exposed  to   capitalist  relations of  production.   Initially women's  work  virtually  disappeared in the roadside villages because  of  non-participation  in  capitalist relations of  production  and  the abandonment  of  subsistence gardening.  This led to a reduction  of  women's social  status  and a stronger identification and  dependence  of wives  on  husbands.
     A   process  of  household nucleation  and  privitisation of consumption in capitalist relations of production swept  through  the roadside  villages.  Each corner in the roadside villages had a trade  store  and rice and tinned meat and fish  became  dietary  staples and commodities to be sold  rather  than shared  reciprocally,  even  among  neighbourhood  residents. In the 1970's the Wopkaimin still practiced subsistence production and were dietarily  self-sufficient.  By the 1980's the  Wopkaimin had become increasingly dependent on  a  diet with  fewer  and fewer subsistence resources; especially  of  the staple Colocasia taro.  As Colocasia taro dropped out of the Wopkaimin  diet, sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) became the new subsistence staple, while store-bought and imported Western foods continued to be the main sources of energy and protein for those families with income from wage earning (Ulijaszek, Hyndman and Lourie 1987).
     The ancient  Wopkaimin taro monoculture (Morren and Hyndman 1987) all but  disappeared during  the  Bechtel construction phase of  the  mining  project.  By the time OTML started gold mining operations in 1984 wage earning opportunities for the Wopkaimin  men had  dropped-off drastically.  The  women again  turned  to subsistence production and gardening was shifted  from the  Lower  Montane  Rain Forest  heartland  of  Colocasia  taro cultivation in the Kam Basin to the lower altitude Foothill Rain Forest located near the roadside  villages.  The area around the confluence of the  Ok Kam  and  Ok Tedi Rivers was extensively cleared and  Bombakan  hunting shelter grew into a full-sized hamlet.
    The  new  gardens were planted to sweet  potato,  banana and Xanthosoma taro in the cultivation pattern of "fell the trees  on top  of  the crop" described by Schieffelin (1975)  for  post-colonial Papuan Plateau peoples.  Men felled the trees but the  new sweet  potato  gardens were planted, maintained and  harvested  by women.  They yielded in about half the time of the  high  altitude Colocasia taro gardens but were exhausted after a single  harvest, which  placed pressure on Foothill Rain Forest near the  roadside villages.
    By  the  time  OTML started gold mining operations  the  Wopkaimin  had shifted to roadside villages with women in subsistence  gardening and  men  participating  as  wage  labourers  in  a  transnational economic  enclave.  Gender  distinctions in labour  continued to be  rather strict  with men selling their labour for a wage and women  taking on  a  greater share of subsistence production, a  pattern  which spread  among  the southern Mountain Ok of  the  socio-ecological region.  Wopkaimin women  were not  smallscale commodity producers,  unlike Fegolmin women (Polier  1990).  They did  not produce  market  vegetables for sale to OTML, nor  did they  sell portions  of  their  garden production at  the  Saturday  Tabubil market.  Rather, it was the Wopkaimin who purchased the subsistence crops  and fresh pork sold by the Ningerum and other southern  Mountain  Ok producers at the Tabubil market.
 

Distribution of the products of social labour

In Wopkaimin subsistence production  daily  reciprocities between  husband  and  wife were  powerfully  symbolised  in  the imagery  of men's hunted  game from the  ancestral  rain  forests  for women's harvested  and  baked taro.  This in turn was  mirrored  in  male sacrifice of game to the ancestors in return for taro  fertility.  With  capitalist relations of production in  the  roadside villages, the gender imagery of game for taro was  replaced  with sweet potato produced by  women and tinned meat  or fish purchased by men.
     A significant feature of distribution and consumption in Wopkaimin subsistence production was the limited degree to which  rate of  production  and form of consumption were  linked  (Barth  and Wikan  1982:36).   The ecological  basis  and means  of  production  created  a  system of subsistence production without storage.  Taro, slaughtered domestic pigs and hunted game all had to be consumed quickly.  There was no saving and accumulation, only programming the relations of  producing, harvesting and sharing.  Sharing based on the men's house directed the  allocation  of meat and  insured  extensive redistribution  because of the obligations of gender  and  taboo present  in every act of consumption (Hyndman 1994b).
     Capital accumulation and management had no precedent in subsistence production.  During  the  early  Bechtel construction  phase, capitalist relations of production  in  the roadside  villages were  characterised by plenty on the  cash  side and  shortage on the supply side (Barth and Wikan  1982:37).  Wopkaimin wage earners were not permitted to purchase  in the Tabubil commissary at that time because it was restricted to  executive  (mostly white)  employees.  Instead the Wopkaimin had to  confine  their purchases  to an inferior and irregular supply of goods from  the town tradestore.  Opportunities for purchase were scarce and  the only new prestige commodity available to the Wopkaimin was  beer.  Wages were used for family consumption of rice and tinned fish or meat and for male consumption of beer.
     Wopkaimin  wage earners worked long, difficult 60  hour  work weeks  and  it was years before they were  granted  annual  leave enjoyed by outside PNG nationals and expatriates.  With beer  the only new luxury  to buy and little time to exercise  the  option  of consuming extras, accumulated money tended to be hoarded in pass-book  savings.   When OTML finally started  operations  a  large general  merchandise  and food store was opened  to  anyone  with money  wanting to make purchases.  Ironically, by this  time  far fewer Wopkaimin men were employed and women were actively involved in subsistence production again.
      The process of proletarianisation initiated by the Bechtel construction phase was far from complete by the time gold mining started in the mid-1980's.  Wopkaimin bisnis in the roadside villages was virtually absent, earning a  wage  remained the preferred participation in  the  new capitalist relations of production.    A few men opened  tradestores and  fewer  still  black-marketed the sale of  beer  and  sold the services  of prostitutes, but they lacked prestige in the  eyes  of the  community.  Certain corners based around previous  residence and descent affiliations formed the basis of limited male bisnis  groups in  the roadside villages.  They used accumulated wages  and compensation  money  for the purchase of  4-wheel  drive  trucks, which were offered for passenger hire to Tabubil or Kiunga.  Most of  the  vehicles have gone off the road  and  are  irretrievable wrecks along the steep slopes.
     Wopkaimin  men  began economically manipulating  the  marriage system  as  a  form of bisnis. Money entered prestations  at marriage.  Barth and Wikan (1982:35) noted that at the outset  of the  mining project in January 1982 fathers were demanding up  to K300 for their daughters. By 1985 one Woktemwanin man had paid K3500 for a second Wopkaimin wife and another had paid K9000 for  a  wife  from Central Province. Women became ranked according  to  inflated money prestations at  marriage.  Marriage manipulation  as a form of bisnis devalued women in the  eyes  of their  men and themselves, a situation that also  occurred  after mining  started  on  Bougainville  (Nash  1981).  Adultery  and prostitution  became  easier as women's sexuality  was  alienated from themselves and controlled by men.
        A major social problem spawned in the new roadside  villages was the introduction of alcohol, which had  previously been absent  in the  Wopkaimin  diet. Initially when the Tabubil  commissary  was only open to higher paid workers residing in company houses, Wopkaimin men focused  on beer as the only  new  prestige  commodity available  to them. Gender restrictions excluded women  from  beer drinking.  During the construction phase of the project in  1982, as  the Wopkaimin first started drinking, 62 percent of men  over 15 used beer compared to only 10 percent among women of the same  age. By  1986 beer drinking became institutionalised as a male domain, with  an increase in consumption  to 70 percent among men over 15 and a drop to only  one percent  among women over 15 (Lourie 1987).  Aggressive  drunken behaviour, black-marketing, fighting and adultery associated  with heavy  beer  drinking in the roadside villages threatened family life.
     The Wopkaimin used the Melanesian Tok Pisin term spakman  not only  to  refer to excessive beer drinkers but also  to  contrast those  who  moved  into  the  new  roadside  villages  from  those who continued to reside in the former mountain hamlets. On my last visit an old friend who had already made the spakman transition to Woktemwanin was  proud to tell me that "my older brother is a  spakman  now."  He  meant  he  was  pleased  to  have  his  brother  residing with him in Woktemwanin.  However, it brought with it the contradictions of abandoning  male cult  traditions based on the culture heroine Afek  and taking up drinking  in  the  new social order. Spakmen are married and unmarried men under 35 years of age.  Loose beers are known  as wokmafuk (vernacular for bad drink)  and cases  of 24 bottles are known as 'tool boxes'.  Night-long,  all-male  drinking sessions typically lead to vomiting and  urinating in the open, fights and adultery, all in violation of established cultural norms.
     The use value of beer in the new capitalist relations of production was structurally similar to the use value of meat under subsistence production.  Beer and meat are both concerned with an exclusive masculine realm of production and the absence of formal prestations by socially defined categories of men.  In Wopkaimin subsistence production there was the nodal position of the men's house and the emergence of leaders through the volume of meat sharing.  Feeding meat to male visitors was the conspicuous feature of sharing based on the men's house.  Meat was the supreme valuable and was shared, not circulated. Meat only had use value, it was not alienated for its exchange value.  Thus, masculinity was defined by production and consumption of meat, which accentuated gender differences and monopolised male privilege.
     Each corner in the roadside villages occupied a nodal position like the former men's house.  The host exclusively allocated each beer and  made exaggerated  claims  that his generosity in sharing beer was like the sharing of meat from the men's house. Sharing beer with male visitors had become the conspicuous feature of the new masculine sphere of production.  Beer, in becoming the new supreme valuable, was thus shared, not circulated.  It only had use value and was not alienated for its exchange value.  Beer was not institutionalised in the circulation of wealth and men were not differentiated by controlling its circulation.  Consuming beer accentuated gender differences and monopolised male privilege.
     Moreover, the spakman  acted out a kind of fantasy of himself as  a white  by communicating in Melanesian Tok Pisin and listening  to  Western cassette music, a pattern that occurred among the  Nasioi when  the  Bougainville  mining  project  started  (Ogan  1966). Nevertheless,  obvious  gaps remained between the desired  and  the actual  social  situation and this generated tensions  which  were discharged  in  drunkenness and the extreme  behaviour  associated with it.
     Wopkaimin men regularly propositioned new white women they saw in  Tabubil  with  the  sexually  provocative  Tok  Pisin   phrase  fortnight  o?,  which  had  the  double  meaning  of  'can  you accommodate  me sexually?' and 'will you last here longer than  a few days?'.  The prevailing white and PNG national staff attitude to indigenous women of the socio-ecological region is even worse.  In  1985 most of the PNG national women clerical staff  allegedly made  more money at night selling sex than they made  from  their wages.  This,  and certain Wopkaimin men selling some  of  their women's  sex,  accommodated working men  in  Tabubil.   Men working in   temporary camps away  from  Tabubil  reportedly kidnapped  and  raped indigenous women gardening near  the  road.
      The nickname "GBH", for the fighting that regularly broke out in the  new roadside communities over adultery and rape,  originated from  the frequency of Grievous Bodily Harm charges heard in  the new  Police Station and Court in Tabubil. The few  Wopkaimin  men remaining  in  their mountain hamlets in the Kam Basin  viewed  becoming  a spakman  with ambivalence because they were fearful of  subjecting  their families  to  GBH.  Likewise, the spakman was fearful his wife would be  assaulted in  the  roadside villages while he is away earning wages or hunting.
 

Crises of articulation

Once Bechtel constructed enough of the intended infrastructure to phase in  gold processing in 1984, the Ok Tedi project became known to the Wopkaimin  as the  "place without work."  During the height of Bechtel construction in 1982 over  60  percent  of  the Wopkaimin men were employed.  Employment for Wopkaimin men had dropped to only five percent  by the height of OTML's gold mining operation in 1986 (Lourie 1987).  With gold processing  most  Wopkaimin men  lost work or became dissatisfied with the role of  unskilled wage earner.  Enthusiasm for active participation as  wage earner in  the  new  capitalist relations of  production  was  removed  with realisation that vast disparities in wealth and status  separated them  from  the white controllers of the mining  enclave.
     Previously as  men  rose  through  the  highest  grade  of initiation,  they gained cultural understanding and knowledge to enable them to compete for status as great men.  Schooling  and  job-training  did  not  fulfil great man expectations.  As  the  mining project progressed, Wopkaimin men increasingly realised that  they would  be  relegated  to  insignificant roles as pupils  and  apprentices throughout  the  duration of the project.  The  Ok  Tedi  enclave required  complex  skills  and  the  time  never  came for Wopkaimin men to  wield  authority and  become  anything  else  than apprentices to a succession of authoritative outsiders (Barth and Wikan 1982:32).  Although females  participated in schooling, they never engaged in job-training or wage earning.
     The Wopkaimin continued to recognise the  authority of  their traditional leaders (kamokims).  These leaders remained in the former hamlets and continued subsistence  production in the ancestral homeland.  However, there was leadership competition in the  roadside villages. A  limited number of Wopkaimin men escaped the roadside villages and were allocated white helmet status with housing in Tabubil.  Unskilled workers like the   Wopkaimin are allocated yellow helmets.  They were distrustful  and suspicious of those Wopkaimin men who had become white helmet workers and  tended  to  view their class position as a contradiction in terms. One of the Wopkaimin white helmet workers exploited his status ambiguity in  a  bid  to politically  bridge  the gap between the Wopkaimin and  OTML.  He competitively used his broker position  to build personal  wealth through  control  of  the largest  trade  store  in  Woktemwanin.  However,  this only succeeded  in  further  alienating  the roadside  villagers  who  generally  did  not  see  local  bisnis entrepreneurs as enhancing their quality of life.  Black-marketeers  had  limited influence as  power  brokers because  they  were seen as sustaining anti-social  behaviour.  In  1985,  in  the community  interest,  black-marketeering  was  banned in Woktemwanin  under  the  sentiment that "the  spakman  lives  off compensation  and  gardens, the  bisnis-man  and  black-marketeer lives off everyone."
     Within the Ok Tedi enclave, squatters outnumbered  the  Wopkaimin by the end of the 1980's,  which dramatically altered the character of the roadside villages.  The Wopkaimin  became a demographic minority in their  roadside  villages.  Outsider  'pasendia' (an  aeronautical  Melanesian  Tok  Pisin metaphor  for the wives, children, parents and siblings  visiting workers, or those seeking work) flooded into Tabubil.  Northern Mountain Ok pasendia  circulated  in  and out  of  Finalbin  and  Woktemwanin, southern  Mountain  Ok pasendia circulated in and out of Wangbin  and  Migalsim  and Lowland  Ok and Aekyom established themselves across the  Ok Maani from Tabubil (Fig.2).   Wangbin  is  the largest  roadside  village  with  over  2,500  residents  and Woktemwanin  is next  in size with between 800-1,000 residents who are mostly  non-Wopkaimin pasendia.   The greater Ok  Tedi enclave fluctuated to over  10,000  residents, divided roughly in half between workers and pasendias.
     Once gold mining operations started there was a reversal of the proletarianisation process and the  roadside  villages  were  not  united  by  commitments  and obligations  to  OTML and the State.   As in subsistence  production, there was continuity of separate men's and women's spheres of production. Women had subsistence control of Xanthosoma and sweet potato gardening and this feminine sphere of production was not commoditised.  The masculine sphere of production was no longer  based on wage earning, but rather on control over beer and compensation  money.
      Land leases eventually appropriated by OTML amounted to over 18,000 ha (Pintz 1984:63). The Wopkaimin alone lost 7000 hectares to  the Ok Tedi project (Fig.2).  The National  government  used their  renegotiated arrangements for compensating Bougainvillean land  owners as a precedent for the Ok  Tedi project.  Lease rates of about K25/ha per year were established for 1)  payment of occupation fees,  2) payment for restricted access, 3) payment  for  cleared land, 4) payment for physically used land, 5) payment into a trust fund and 6) payment of about K650 for each Wopkaimin  per  year.  Because Mt. Fubilan is within  the  Iralim Parish,  Woktemwanin and Finalbin residents also  received annual royalty  payments between K600 to K1000 per person  depending  on prevailing  copper  prices.  However 'occupied land' compensation  for  most Wopkaimin was only around K1 per person per day with an equivalent sum  placed in a trust account.  Moreover, 'occupied' mining  land destroyed nearly 10 percent of their homeland. This represented a substantial loss to the ecological basis of Wopkaimin subsistence production  and compensation  was inadequate to even substitute the daily diet with the purchase of rice and tinned fish or meat.  Nonetheless, the non-wage  income  of the Wopkaimin in Woktemwanin and Finalbin was three times above the national  average  (Pintz 1984:164) and became the source of the masculine sphere of control over beer and compensation money.
 

Conclusion

Two main social transformations were initiated by the Ok Tedi project.  A spatial division division of labour developed between the Ok Tedi enclave and  portions  of the socio-ecological region closest to the  mining project, and as well as a gender division of labour occurred in which men attempted to sell their labour and women took on an increasing share of gardening (Polier 1990).  However, the  dialectics of changing relations of  production associated with the Ok Tedi project, as with  the Panguna mining project on Bougainville, provided another example of "a general truth about Papua New Guinea: even where introduced capitalist relations of production have had the greatest effect, they have not completely eliminated those that existed before colonialism" (Wesley-Smith and Ogan 1992:261).
       Capitalist relations of production increased inequalities between the sexes and accentuated the separation of feminine and masculine spheres of production.  However, proletarianisation initiated by the Ok Tedi project dropped away dramatically once gold and copper mining was underway. Articulation to capitalist relations of production remained primarily through the masculine sphere of control of compensation money.  There was no commodity production in women's control of subsistence gardening.
    When Ok Tedi became the place without work and the roadside villages filled with pasendias, it emphasised a sense of Wopkaimin identity and they became more active in defence of  their interests and ancestral domain.  Class formation was complicated by ethnicity, a pattern which also occurred in association with the Bougainville mining project (Hyndman 1991; Nash and Ogan 1990; Wesley-Smith and Ogan 1992).  Bombakan grew into a major new Wopkaimin hamlet used by many families as an alternative to Woktemwanin. The Wopkaimin significantly revitalised their Afek male cult traditions (Hyndman 1995) and substantially abandoned  Woktemwanin to pasendias and relocated themselves in Bombakan and elsewhere in the hamlets of their Kam Basin homeland.  Most Wopkaimin returned, or regularly circulated back and forth, to their ancestral homeland and continued subsistence production with internal consumption of surplus.

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