Internal conflicts at the local and national levels in several
South Pacific countries have revealed the fragility of national
unity and the difficulties nations face in governing and managing
their own economic development. In Papua New Guinea, the focus
of this paper, an uncertain economic future for many rural and
urban communities, and rising inequalities in income opportunities
and access to resources, have coincided with greater intolerance of
migrants at sites of high in-migration by customary landowners and
provincial and local authorities. This paper draws on fieldwork
undertaken in the major oil palm growing regions of Papua New
Guinea where migrants from densely populated regions of the
country have settled on state land alienated from customary landowners.
We examine how struggles over land, resource control
and development are polarising migrant and landowner identities
resulting in increasing tensions and episodic communal violence. A
settler identity is emerging based on a narrative of nation building
and national development, while an ethno-regional identity amongst
customary landowners is undermining the citizen rights of migrants
and challenging the role and authority of the state in land matters.