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The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia, by Nicholas A Bainton. Canberra: anu e Press, 2010. isbn paper 978-1-921666-84-1; isbn pdf 978-1-921666-85-8 xxiv + 229 pages, maps, notes, bibliography, index, color photographs. Paper a$24.95; free download from http://epress.anu.edu.au/titles/asia -pacific-environment-monographs/ lihir_citation
For roughly two decades, the gold mine on the island of Lihir in Papua New Guinea has been one of the most important mines in the Pacific in terms of its size, environmental and social impact, and the cultural significance of the area in which it is located. Despite this fact, very little has been published about the mine until now. Nicholas Bainton's new book, The Lihir Destiny, is a welcome corrective, providing a broad and worthwhile overview of Lihir and its mine in a format that is clearly written and available free of charge through the anu e Press.
Papua New Guinea is well known in the anthropological literature for having a history of "cargo cults"-a term that many scholars feel exoticizes and reifies a wide variety of indigenous social movements. Lihir is no exception, and the central question of Bainton's book is, what happens when the cargo comes? The mine has brought a massive influx of wealth and social change of the sort predicted by early prophecies of "Lihir's Destiny," and contemporary Lihirian life is marked by the rise...