Abstract

This paper brings into analytical focus the impact of citizenship precarity on moral economies of care. We explore several cases of the denial of citizenship to people born in pre-Independence Papua New Guinea (PNG) who understood themselves to be Australian. These cases emerged from a project on ageing and transnational care relations. We position care and its negation as fundamental to definitions of citizenship. Following Franz Fanon, Orlando Patterson and Paul Farmer, our case studies show that the revocation of Australian citizenship led to intense effects in people’s lives and that transnational care has been, and continues to be, significantly impacted by citizenship precarity. Our analysis of these accounts considers how social forces such as racism and colonialism to become experientially embodied. We describe some forms of resistance to bureaucratic ordering and highlight innovative responses to confusing state and legal definitions of citizenship.

Presenter biographies

Prof Rosita Henry is an anthropologist whose ethnographic research, to date, has focused on NQ and the Western Highlands of PNG. She has collaborated with Michael Wood on two ARC projects, one on the history of artefact collecting in the NQ Rainforest region and the other on transnational care practices among the PNG diaspora in NQ. More recently, she has worked collaboratively with Michael and Simon Foale to develop an historical anthropology project exploring the work of patrol officers (kiaps) in the lead up to PNG Independence. She was awarded the 2025 Fryer Fellowship to conduct archival research at the Fryer Library (University of Queensland) on the ‘political education’ programme that kiaps delivered in the rural areas of PNG. She is also collaborating on a related project with Michael Wood, Anna Hayes and Claire Brennan concerning kiap-led WW2 evacuations from PNG.

Dr Michael Wood is an anthropologist who has spent over forty years learning things with Kamula speakers in the Western Province of PNG. He mainly works on resource politics concerning the rainforests of this region. Together with Prof Rosita Henry, Dr Anna Hayes and Dr Claire Brennan, they have developed a project on the history of patrol officers in WW2 evacuations from PNG. Michael has recently written a paper on the types of reports patrol officers wrote while in PNG, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Pacific History. He is now planning to do some research on A/Prof Simon Foale’s ARC on fishing in PNG and the Solomons.

How to join:

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