Anthropologists as Serial Offenders: Scandalous Engagements with the Ok Tedi Mine in Papua New Guinea
Colin Filer, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Australian National University
The Ok Tedi mine is not only notorious for the damage which it continues to inflict on the Fly river system in PNG’s Western Province; it has also been the site of a protracted debate about the ethical and political obligations of anthropologists working in the mine-affected area. In this paper I shall briefly review the way in which this debate first arose out of the social monitoring project sponsored by Ok Tedi Mining Ltd in the early 1990s, and then examine the company’s more recent attempt to engage anthropologists in the mine closure planning process, the way in which anthropologists reacted to this second form of ‘incorporation’, and the way in which the mining company’s own plans were thwarted by the actions of its majority shareholder, PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd. The key question posed by this latest saga is whether anthropologists can make any contribution to the pursuit of ‘sustainable development’ or the appearance of ‘corporate social responsibility’ by conducting independent academic research on the actual response of mine-affected communities to the prospect of closing a mine that will leave such a damaging environmental legacy behind it.
