WHY WE RETURN TO PAPUA-NEW-GUINEA

In this article we reflect upon the continued significance of Melanesi an ethnography to anthropology. To do so, we consider what of importan ce has compelled us to return frequently to Papua New Guinea. Focusing primarily on a confrontation between a Chambri big man and a Chambri evangelical woman, we establish what we think remains (rather) unique about contemporary Papua New Guinea (and perhaps about Melanesia more generally). Our analysis shows Papua New Guinea as a place where the g lobal intersects the local in axiomatically condensed form. Within the lifetimes of most adults, colonialism, missionization, military occup ation, independence, development, transnational capitalism, and charis matic Christianity have all provided contexts in which a diversity of local peoples, responding to the extensive transformation of their liv es, have generated a range of desires and an active sense of the possi bility of enacting those desires. Our analysis reveals, thus, a preocc upation with local agency that demonstrates with instructive immediacy the contingency and variability characteristic of the local instantia tion and shaping of global processes.