The states of law in Papua New Guinea

Melissa Aviva Demian

doi:10.1007/s10978-021-09300-3

The states of law in Papua New Guinea

Melissa Aviva Demian^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

This article employs a consideration of Peter Fitzpatrick’s early work in Papua New Guinea to reflect on legal and social developments in the country since his residence there during the independence period. In particular, Fitzpatrick’s concerns about the emergence of a Papua New Guinean bourgeois legality that would shape the postcolony are shown to have been prescient in some respects, and also to have had other outcomes unanticipated by the Marxist legal and anthropological imagination of the 1970s. Finally, I use examples from the heterogeneous lawscape of Papua New Guinean cities to illustrate how the ‘true people’s law’ envisioned by Fitzpatrick is in the process of emerging in spaces outside of formal legislative or court processes.

Original language	English
Number of pages	14
Journal	Law and Critique
Volume	32
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-021-09300-3
Publication status	Published - 5 Aug 2021

Keywords

Postcolonialism
Class formation
Legal pluralism
Jurisdiction
Lawscape

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Cite this

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KW - Lawscape

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The states of law in Papua New Guinea

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Keywords

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