The battle for the highway

Road, place, and non-place in Manus (Papua New Guinea)

Abstract

One of the most interesting battlegrounds between candidates for the Regional Seat in the 2007 Parliamentary Election in Manus was the road going inland on Manus Island. This road refers to concrete connections between villages (ples) and the provincial capital, Lorengau, which is the only town (taun) of Manus Province. But it also refers to the access to development and exchange relations to government leaders. The argument of this paper is that the road can be understood as a site for exchange and connectedness, which was evident in the way different candidates in the election tried to claim credit for the reconstruction of the road. This exchange and connectedness is framed by the mutual constitution of the spatial imaginaries
of ples and taun, where villagers attempt to avoid the category of being a peripheral 'last place' (las ples) by connecting to taun. Yet, taun itself is a semi-urban 'non-place' devoid of the social relations, which make a place in the sense of 'home'.