Waiting for company: Ethos and environment among Kubo of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Kubo are a small population of hunter-horticulturalists living in the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. To date they have remained largely outside the 'development' and westernization' occurring in many parts of the country. Nevertheless, in its failure to materialize, modernity has had significant local impact. In this article we first characterize Kubo relations with outsiders and with the environment as they were in 1986-7. We argue that over the past ten years the people have responded to perceived failures of modernity by relocating outsiders (and eventually each odier) from the domain of the social to that of environment. Rather than reconstructing understandings of the relationsh..