Compensation for Resource Development in Papua New Guinea

Download Compensation for Resource Development in Papua New Guinea PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Compensation for Resource Development in Papua New Guinea by : Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea

Download or read book Compensation for Resource Development in Papua New Guinea written by Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Attitudes Towards Land Compensation and Development in Papua New Guinea

Download Attitudes Towards Land Compensation and Development in Papua New Guinea PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 66 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Attitudes Towards Land Compensation and Development in Papua New Guinea by : Susan Toft

Download or read book Attitudes Towards Land Compensation and Development in Papua New Guinea written by Susan Toft and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Landowner Compensation in Papua New Guinea's Mining and Petroleum Sectors

Download Landowner Compensation in Papua New Guinea's Mining and Petroleum Sectors PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Landowner Compensation in Papua New Guinea's Mining and Petroleum Sectors by : Colin Filer

Download or read book Landowner Compensation in Papua New Guinea's Mining and Petroleum Sectors written by Colin Filer and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Development and Local Knowledge

Download Development and Local Knowledge PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 0415318262
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (153 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Development and Local Knowledge by : Alan Bicker

Download or read book Development and Local Knowledge written by Alan Bicker and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a revolution happening in the practice of anthropology. A new field of 'indigenous knowledge' is emerging, which aims to make local voices hear and ensure that development initiatives meet the needs of indigenous people. Development and Local Knowledge focuses on two major challenges that arise in the discussion of indigenous knowledge - its proper definition and the methodologies appropriate to the exploitation of local knowledge. These concerns are addressed in a range of ethnographic contexts.

Land Rights

Download Land Rights PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199545103
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (995 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Land Rights by : Timothy Chesters

Download or read book Land Rights written by Timothy Chesters and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do indigenous people mean when they invoke their collective right to land? How are national governments, and international law, to arbitrate between them and property-owners and corporations? Experts from diverse fields and organisations - anthropologists, historians, lawyers, conservationists, and campaigners - debate 'Land Rights'.

Migration, Land and Livelihoods

Download Migration, Land and Livelihoods PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317620569
Total Pages : 113 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Migration, Land and Livelihoods by : George Curry

Download or read book Migration, Land and Livelihoods written by George Curry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-17 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book critically and succinctly examines recent changes in land ownership, mobility and livelihoods in various Pacific island states, from East Timor to the Solomon Islands, where climate change, environmental change (including hazards of various origins), population growth and urbanization have contributed to new tensions and discords and resulted in complex structures of migration and resettlement. This has brought new and varied experiences of income and livelihood generation, and consequent reinterpretations of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. In a series of detailed case studies this book traces various responses to such socio-economic changes both in how they are locally envisaged, as pressures on land have intensified, urban informal settlements and livelihoods have expanded and perceptions of identity and property rights have changed, and in national development policy responses. It offers valuable reflections on the complex balance between continuity and change, the tensions between social and economic development, the will to develop and the management of dissent and difference. This book was published as a special issue of Australian Geographer.

Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Download Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ANU E Press
ISBN 13 : 1921313463
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (213 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea by : Nicole Haley

Download or read book Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea written by Nicole Haley and published by ANU E Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Southern Highlands is one of Papua New Guinea's most resource-rich provinces, but for a number of years the province has been riven by conflict. Longstanding inter-group rivalries, briefly set aside during the colonial period, have been compounded by competition for the benefits provided by the modern state and by fighting over the distribution of returns from the several big mining and petroleum projects located within the province or impinging upon it. Deaths from the various conflicts over the past decade number in the hundreds. As a result of inter-group fighting, criminal activity and vandalism, a number of businesses have withdrawn from the province. Roadblocks and ambushes have made travel dangerous in many parts and expatriate missionaries and aid workers have left. Many public servants have abandoned their posts with the result that state services are not provided. Corruption is rife. Police are often reluctant to act because they are outnumbered and outgunned. This volume brings together a number of authors with deep experience of the Southern Highlands to examine the underlying dynamics of resource development and conflict in the province. Its primary purpose is to provide some background to recent events, but the authors also explore possible approaches to limiting the human and economic costs of the ongoing conflict and breakdown of governance.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Natural Resource Conflict

Download Corporate Social Responsibility and Natural Resource Conflict PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317667387
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Corporate Social Responsibility and Natural Resource Conflict by : Kylie McKenna

Download or read book Corporate Social Responsibility and Natural Resource Conflict written by Kylie McKenna and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the possibilities and limitations of corporate social responsibility in minimising the violent conflict often associated with natural resource exploitation. Through detailed and penetrating empirical analysis, the author skilfully asks why previous corporate social responsibility practices have not always achieved their aims. This theme is explored though an analysis of two of the most complex and protracted conflicts linked to natural resources in the Asia Pacific region: Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and West Papua (Indonesia). Drawing on first-hand accounts of corporate executives and communities affected by resource conflict, this book documents the translation of global corporate social responsibility into local peace. Covering topics as diverse as post-colonialism, law, revenue distribution, security, the environment and customary reconciliation, this ambitious text reveals how and why current corporate social responsibility initiatives may be unable to assist extractive companies avoid social conflict. The study concludes that this is attributable to the failure of extractive companies to respond to the social and environmental issues of most concern to local host communities. The idea is that extractive companies could actively contribute to peace building if they were to engage with the interdependencies between business activity and the root causes of conflict. What sets this book apart is that it offers a holistic framework for extractive companies to engage with the complexity of resource conflict. ‘Interdependent Engagement’ is an integrated model of corporate social responsibility that encourages extractive companies to deal with the underlying causes of resource conflict, rather than applying solutions or critiques of their symptoms.

Property Rights and Economic Development

Download Property Rights and Economic Development PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136177760
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (361 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Property Rights and Economic Development by : Toon van Meijl

Download or read book Property Rights and Economic Development written by Toon van Meijl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1999. This book provides a critical analysis of the widespread assumption that the formalisation and standardisation of property rights through state legislation has a positive impact on economic development. It is based on anthropological case studies of land and natural resource rights in Southeast Asia and Oceania. These suggest that the economic impact of the formalisation of property rights is not necessarily positive, certainly not for all categories of peoples. They also suggest that state reform of property rights do not necessarily eliminate the conditions of legal pluralism, but rather add new legal structures to an already complex constellation of property rights and duties. The point of departure for the empirical analyses of the central hypothesis examined in this book is that the practical significance of complex forms of property rights and related socio-economic practices cannot be usefully examined within formalistic, one-dimensional and normatively oriented legalistic or economic approaches. Instead, an anthropoligical approach to law is advocated in order to analyse the complicated, multi-dimensional relationships between property rights and economic development, and their embeddedness in social practice. Based on this approach, the contributions to this book show how different people and institutions attribute different meanings to the various components of property relationships, and how they use them as resources in their everyday lives and social struggles.

The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects

Download The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ANU Press
ISBN 13 : 176046449X
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (64 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects by : Nicholas A. Bainton

Download or read book The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects written by Nicholas A. Bainton and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standing on the broken ground of resource extraction settings, the state is sometimes like a chimera: its appearance and intentions are misleading and, for some actors, it is unknowable and incomprehensible. It may be easily mistaken for someone or something else, like a mining company, for example. With rich ethnographic material, this volume tackles critical questions about the nature of contemporary states, studied from the perspective of resource extraction projects in Papua New Guinea, Australia and beyond. It brings together a sustained focus on the unstable and often dialectical relationship between the presence and the absence of the state in the context of resource extraction. Across the chapters, contributors discuss cases of proposed mining ventures, existing large-scale mining operations and the extraction of natural gas. Together, they illustrate how the concept of absent presence can be brought to life and how it can enhance our understanding of the state as well as relations and processes forming in extractive contexts, thus providing a novel contribution to the anthropology of the state and the anthropology of extraction. ‘The Absent Presence fills a major gap in our knowledge about the relationship between states and companies – at a time when resource extraction seems to be more contested than ever. Bainton and Skrzypek have curated an incredibly impressive volume that should be read by all those interested in exploring corporate and state power, and the ever-present impacts of extraction. A highly recommended read.’ — Professor Deanna Kemp, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, The University of Queensland ‘Countless books have been written on the sovereign state and how it imposes a particular kind of order on economic and social interactions. What is original and compelling about this collection is the portrait of how two very different states converge when it comes to “extractive ventures”. From the presumption of exclusive sovereignty over mineral resources, to the bargains that are struck with major (often global) corporations, and the relative indifference to environmental impacts, there is a remarkable consistency in the patterns that are referred to as “state effects”. These effects are brought from the background to the foreground in this book through the blending of creative and critical thinking with detailed empirical research.’ — Tim Dunne, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland ‘This brilliant and intriguing title provides a timely contribution to understanding the actual functions and strategies of state (and state-like) institutions in resource arenas. The dialectics of presence-absence and its refractions at different levels and scales of government allow the authors to go beyond stereotypes about the (strong, weak, failed or corrupt) state, highlighting more commonalities than expected between Papua New Guinea and Australia, and even New Caledonia.’ — Dr Pierre-Yves Le Meur, Anthropologist, Senior Researcher, French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Joint Research Unit SENS (Knowledge Environment Society)

Major Impediments to the Development of Papua New Guinea. Non-Communicable Diseases (Lifestyle Disease), High Illiteracy Rate, Corruption and Landowner Compensation (Conflict)

Download Major Impediments to the Development of Papua New Guinea. Non-Communicable Diseases (Lifestyle Disease), High Illiteracy Rate, Corruption and Landowner Compensation (Conflict) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3668022550
Total Pages : 102 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (68 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Major Impediments to the Development of Papua New Guinea. Non-Communicable Diseases (Lifestyle Disease), High Illiteracy Rate, Corruption and Landowner Compensation (Conflict) by : Joseph Bossip

Download or read book Major Impediments to the Development of Papua New Guinea. Non-Communicable Diseases (Lifestyle Disease), High Illiteracy Rate, Corruption and Landowner Compensation (Conflict) written by Joseph Bossip and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Study from the year 2015 in the subject Economics - Case Scenarios, , language: English, abstract: This paper discusses some of the major impediments that are affecting the development of this country, Papua New Guinea and off course the general picture of the world. These impediments are identified as Lifestyle or Non Communicable Diseases, Corruption, High Illiteracy rate and Landowner issues especially land conflict and land compensation for mining. I see the following as major impediments to the development of this nation; however people have different views, but I see these things are becoming barriers to the development of this nation. Due to modernisation and westernisation, a lot of people in Papua New Guinea have already adopted western lifestyle. Thus, Non- Communicable Disease is prevalent in PNG. Non- Communicable Diseases are normally found in developed countries but now it is found in PNG. The first case was reported in 1971 but now it’s rose up to almost 46% of the total death rates in PNG is NCD. The survey shows that it is affecting most working class people who have direct correlation in term of input in the development of PNG through human resource development and economic development. Secondly, corruption can also be regarded as one of the impediments to development in PNG because a lot of public funds have been misused at the political and bureaucratic level. We will explore the details in the discourse of this paper. Thirdly, high illiteracy rate is another contributing factor hindering the progress of development in Papua New Guinea. Finally, but not the least is land owner conflict and land compensations, it is also seen as an obstacle to the development of this nation of Papua New Guinea. Especially customary land acquisitions and landownership conflicts in mining areas. For example, Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) has been closed down due to landowner compensations, as a result government infrastructures have been destroyed and lives have been claimed. This paper also provides some strategies and recommendations to address the following issues highlighted above. Especially recommending the government of the day to look into these issues through policy development and legislative framework. Further research is encouraged for the decision makers or policy makers to have sufficient information available to make informed decisions to address those issues before it’s too late.

Renegotiating a PNG Compensation Agreement

Download Renegotiating a PNG Compensation Agreement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 28 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (128 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Renegotiating a PNG Compensation Agreement by : Barbara Sharp

Download or read book Renegotiating a PNG Compensation Agreement written by Barbara Sharp and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This paper describes a multi-stakeholder negotiation over compensation at the Ok Tedi copper mine, Papua New Guinea (PNG). It details the Informed Consensus process used to respond to the high levels of distrust and diversity of interests in the negotiations and explains how a sustainable development focused outcome was agreed. It shows how a carefully built, culturally appropriate process is able to provide a 'safe', 'free' environment for diverse parties to an agreement, allowing all 'voices' to be heard and how genuine ownership of outcomes can be achieved. The Ok Tedi Informed Consensus process was underpinned by guiding principles and used particular 'independence devices' adapted to support a range of public dialogues applicable to smaller-scale negotiation processes. While the context for these negotiations was PNG, the approach and learnings are directly applicable to many communities--indigenous and non-indigenous--negotiating complex, enduring agreements. The paper describes the context in which the process was designed and operated, how the process worked, the theoretical underpinnings that it drew on, the financial and sustainable development focused outcome, and the key learnings from such a large and complex task"--Page ii.

Transactions and Creations

Download Transactions and Creations PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 9781845450281
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (52 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Transactions and Creations by : Eric Hirsch

Download or read book Transactions and Creations written by Eric Hirsch and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 21st century, intellectual and cultural resources emerge on all sides as candidates for ownership claims. Members of an anthropological research team investigating emergent economic relations in a part of the world renowned for its innovative approach to resources and transactions, wish to open up the vocabulary. In this unique volume, they bring an unexpected comparative perspective to global debates on intellectual and cultural property rights (IPR and CPR). The contributors bring from Melanesia their collective experience of people initiating, limiting and rationalizing claims through transactions in ways that challenge many of the assumptions behind the international language. In a bold theoretical move, "property" is put alongside two other terms: "transactions" and "creations." The former have a place in the anthropological tradition that now needs to be brought into the foreground. In turn, increasing interest in protecting intellectual and cultural resources means that questions about creativity have suddenly become pertinent to what is or is not being transacted. Yet is creativity a special preoccupation of modernity? How are we to talk about people's creative practices, when innovation becomes the basis for ownership claims? This book is full of surprises!

Unequal Lives

Download Unequal Lives PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ANU Press
ISBN 13 : 1760464112
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (64 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Unequal Lives by : Nicholas A. Bainton

Download or read book Unequal Lives written by Nicholas A. Bainton and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2021-01-18 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As we move further into the twenty-first century, we are witnessing both the global extensification and local intensification of inequality. Unequal Lives deals with the particular dilemmas of inequality in the Western Pacific. The authors focus on four dimensions of inequality: the familiar triad of gender, race and class, and the often-neglected dimension of generation. Grounded in meticulous long-term ethnographic enquiry and deep awareness of the historical contingency of these configurations of inequality, this volume illustrates the multidimensional, multiscale and epistemic nature of contemporary inequality. This collection is a major contribution to academic and political debates about the perverse effects of inequality, which now ranks among the greatest challenges of our time. The inspiration for this volume derives from the breadth and depth of Martha Macintyre’s remarkable scholarship. The contributors celebrate Macintyre’s groundbreaking work, which exemplifies the explanatory power, ethical force and pragmatism that ensures the relevance of anthropological research to the lives of others and to understanding the global condition. ‘Unequal Lives is an impressive collection by Melanesianist anthropologists with reputations for theoretical sophistication, ethnographic imagination and persuasive writing. It brilliantly illuminates all aspects of the multifaceted scholarship of Martha Macintyre, whose life and teaching are also highlighted in the commentaries, tributes and interview included in the volume.’ — Robert J. Foster, Professor of Anthropology and Visual and Cultural Studies, Richard L. Turner Professor of Humanities, University of Rochester ‘Inspired by Martha Macintyre’s work, the contributors to Unequal Lives show that to theorise inequality is a measured project, one that requires rescaling its exercise over several decades in order to recognise the reality of inequality as it is known in social relations and to document it critically, unravelling their own readiness to misjudge what they see from the lives that are lived by the people with whom they have lived and studied. This fine volume shows how the ordinariness of everyday work and care can be a chimera wherein the apparent reality of inequality might mislead less critical reports to obscure its very account. From reading it, we learn that such unrelenting questioning of what makes lives unequal becomes the very analytic for better understanding lives as they are lived.’ — Karen M. Sykes, Professor of Anthropology, University of Manchester

Hybridity in Peacebuilding and Development

Download Hybridity in Peacebuilding and Development PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429657277
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (296 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Hybridity in Peacebuilding and Development by : Lia Kent

Download or read book Hybridity in Peacebuilding and Development written by Lia Kent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of hybridity highlights complex processes of interaction and transformation between different institutional and social forms, and normative systems. It has been used in numerous ways to generate important analytical and methodological insights into peacebuilding and development. Its most recent application in the social sciences has also attracted powerful critiques that have highlighted its limitations and challenged its continuing usage. This book examines whether the value of hybridity as a concept can continue to be harnessed, and how its shortcomings might be mitigated or overcome. It does so in an interdisciplinary way, as hybridity has been used as a benchmark across multiple disciplines and areas of practical engagement over the past decade – including peacebuilding, state-building, justice reform, security, development studies, anthropology, and economics. This book encourages a dialogue about the uses and critiques of hybridity from a variety of perspectives and vantage points, including deeply ethnographic works, high-level theory, and applied policy work. The authors conclude that there is continued value in the concept of hybridity, but argue that this value can only be realised if the concept is engaged with in a reflexive and critical way. This book was originally published as a special issue of the online journal Third World Thematics.

Law and Order in a Weak State

Download Law and Order in a Weak State PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824863291
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Law and Order in a Weak State by : Sinclair Dinnen

Download or read book Law and Order in a Weak State written by Sinclair Dinnen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2000-11-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-five years after independence, Papua New Guinea is beset by social, economic, and political problems: poverty and inequality, a young and expanding population, a stagnant economy, corruption, and rising crime. The state has not only failed to contain these problems but has become progressively implicated in their persistence. Escalating levels of violence and lawlessness are seen by many as the most serious challenge facing the young country. This book examines these problems of order in light of Papua New Guinea’s remarkable social diversity and the impact of rapid and pervasive processes of change. Three original and strategic case studies involving urban gangs, mining security, and election violence form the core of the work. Each case study looks at particular forms of conflict, and the responses these engender, across different socioeconomic contexts and geographic locations. Empirical data are analyzed through a common framework that employs material, cultural and institutional perspectives, allowing readers to view the three cases through different theoretical prisms, identify linkages between them, and, in the process, build a larger picture of the post-colonial social order. Law and Order in a Weak State charts not only the problems of crime and lawlessness in Papua New Guinea but also the possibilities for constructive, pragmatic solutions. It will be of great interest to scholars, aid and policy officials, and others concerned with understanding the social complexities and challenges of contemporary Papua New Guinea.

Kastom, property and ideology

Download Kastom, property and ideology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ANU Press
ISBN 13 : 1760461067
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (64 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Kastom, property and ideology by : Siobhan McDonnell

Download or read book Kastom, property and ideology written by Siobhan McDonnell and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2017-03-22 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between customary land tenure and ‘modern’ forms of landed property has been a major political issue in the ‘Spearhead’ states of Melanesia since the late colonial period, and is even more pressing today, as the region is subject to its own version of what is described in the international literature as a new ‘land rush’ or ‘land grab’ in developing countries. This volume aims to test the application of one particular theoretical framework to the Melanesian version of this phenomenon, which is the framework put forward by Derek Hall, Philip Hirsch and Tania Murray Li in their 2011 book, Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Since that framework emerged from studies of the agrarian transition in Southeast Asia, the key question addressed in this volume is whether ‘land transformations’ in Melanesia are proceeding in a similar direction, or whether they take a somewhat different form because of the particular nature of Melanesian political economies or social institutions. The contributors to this volume all deal with this question from the point of view of their own direct engagement with different aspects of the land policy process in particular countries. Aside from discussion of the agrarian transition in Melanesia, particular attention is also paid to the growing problem of land access in urban areas and the gendered nature of landed property relations in this region.