2005 Volume 20 Pages 13-33
This paper assumes a very pragmatic approach in explicating the phenomenon of food security from a community initiative in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski made Trobriand Islands famous in the early part of the last century (see especially Malinowski, 1922, 1929). About the same time the British and subsequently Australian colonial administrators were already intent on instituting a state-like control of the islands affairs. Since then tradition vis-a-vis change has had some pretty turbulent moments. For once, population of the islands increased exponentially particularly during the post WWII decade just as the cash economy was craftily ushered in by Western capitalism beginning with the beachcombers and the colonial administration. Questions of independence, autonomy and self-reliance subsequently emerged and fared rather prominently in the local people’s affairs. Two very recent catastrophes that hit the island, however, brought about enlightened realisation for the people of their being and future. In late 1993 the island was seriously devastated by a cyclone. Houses, economic trees and food gardens were destroyed. And in the wake of the 1997-8 six-month drought, courtesy of an El Niño, the source of the islands’ food supplies was brought down to its own knees. Root crops withered and died such that people were forced to beg from the state or any lending agent for assistance. Whether it was the work of God or, some other, has since remained a contentious issue. Notwithstanding, the summing effect had an interesting twist in which the two events reminded and thereby revived the people’s fast disappearing wise practices. As a start, the people realised that they must also return to old-aged traditions of replanting and caring for economic trees so as to sustain a desired state of food security rather than relying upon the state or some foreign agency for continued subsistence. The underlying theme then is on how to survive the coming 21st century through a subtle blend of traditional and modern knowledge.
