God and the Virus in Papua New Guinea: Outsourcing Risk, Living with Uncertainty and (Re)creating a Niupela Pasin

Abstract

In Papua New Guinea COVID-19 has been experienced in various ways. The public statements of Prime Minister James Marape evolved within his strategy of outsourcing the country’s response to and risk from the virus to God. In a remote area of Western Province, people learned that western science could not cure COVID-19, while their Christian beliefs were challenged by the re-appearance of practices that purported to identify sorcerers who might harness the power of the virus. Some people in East New Britain Province revived the use of shell money. Confronted by collapsing certainties, local people resurrected the past as a means of creating an apparently ‘new normal’. Living with uncertainty, ..