Patrol Officers (Kiaps) as Political Educators
Abstract
Scholars of various disciplinary persuasions, but particularly anthropologists and historians, have long considered the possibilities and limitations of archival research for understanding various social issues across time and place. In this paper, based on my research to date as a Fryer Library Fellow working with the PNGAA (Papua New Guinea Association of Australia) papers held at the Fryer Library at UQ, I focus on the political education programme that Australian Administration Patrol Officers (kiaps) delivered prior to Independence in remote communities throughout the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
I discuss the approach I have taken to the archive, which is to ‘be there’ as an ethnographer listening out for, and to, the ‘voices’ of not only the kiaps, but also the people among whom they conducted political education. An ethnographic approach to archival research treats it as more than ‘a mere extractive enterprise’. Rather, it involves immersion and engagement in dialogue with the material. I provide a new ‘thick description’ of the role the kiaps played in the mechanics of state formation, by considering what can be learnt from an ‘archival ethnography’ focused on places remote from the corridors of power.
Using an ethnographic lens to read patrol reports and other administrative material produced by kiaps reveals that there was great local and regional diversity in responses to political education, state formation and the coming of Independence in PNG and that a more nuanced analysis of the nature of these responses is required.
Post-seminar refreshments are available at the Anthropology Museum foyer, courtesy of the Fryer Library.
About the Presenter
Rosita Henry
Rosita Henry is an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at James Cook University, and the 2025 Fryer Library Fellow. Her research career has broadly focused on the political dimensions of people-place-state relations and the performative politics of memory in Australia and the Pacific.
About Anthropology Working Papers
The Working Papers in Anthropology seminar series provides a forum for dissemination of anthropological research and ideas among UQ scholars and invited researchers. All students are invited to attend the series and postgraduate students, from honours upwards, are invited to present their research. The aim is to provide opportunities for students, staff and those from outside UQ, to present and discuss their work in an informal environment.