REGIONAL HISTORY AND ETHNIC-IDENTITY IN THE HUB OF NEW-GUINEA - THE EMERGENCE OF THE MIN

Recent approaches to the ethnography of Papua New Guinea stress the hi storicity of local cultures and their encompassment in larger fields o f relations. In this paper I consider the historical and cultural back ground to the emergence of the 'Min' as a novel ethnic designation amo ng the Mountain Ok peoples of the Fly Sepik headwaters. While Min iden tity draws much of its impetus from responses to mining operations and resistance to provincial governments, it is also clear that it grows out of a complex interaction between pre-existing cultural identities, a history of colonial administration and Christian evangelism. Emergi ng at the intersection of local and global processes, Min identity con stitutes a regionalization of ethnicity which has led to agitation for the creation of a Min province, producing a movement that may outlive its immediate political aims.