Politics, gender, and culture shape women’s political engagement in Papua New Guinea
(PNG).
Nahau Elizabeth Kambuou Rooney, a Manus woman (Pihi Manus), was a prominent female figure in PNG’s political history. She was influential in the establishment of the Pihi Manus Association. When she died in 2020, the Manus Provincial Government (Gavman) honoured her with an official procession which included her lying in state at the Pihi Manus Association office and the Provincial Government Lapan Assembly.
Nahau: Gavman, Pihi Manus, Lain shows the official government handover of her deceased body to her family lineages (lain). Viewers are invited to join this mortuary time exploration of politics, gender and culture in Manus, PNG. Speeches, sorrow, celebration, laughter, surprise, disruption and more reveal the gendered storylines mutually and relationally embodied between and in relation with Nahau, her Lain, Pihi Manus, and Gavman. Mortuary space and time is a gendered relational epistemological site for exchanges that occasion the telling, witnessing, remembering, claiming the past, present and future.
Trigger warning: This film is about a mortuary event and may trigger discomfort in some viewers.
Registration is essential.
This event will be recorded for research purposes.
View trailer here.
Event Speakers
Dr Nayahamui Rooney
With a focus on Papua New Guinea, Nayahamui blends political economy, economic anthropology and human geography approaches to examine livelihoods in PNG. Her research is multi-sited and her research methods are multidisciplinary crossing development studies, gender, anthropology, human geography and ethnographic poetry.