Anthropology and the professionalisation of colonial administration in Papua and New Guinea

Abstract

During the 1920s Australia took three steps to raise the quality of its field staff engaged in ‘native administration’ in Papua and New Guinea: the appointment of government anthropologists, the institution of a cadet scheme, and the establishment of a chair of anthropology at the University of Sydney. The driving force behind all steps was J. H. P. Murray, who had first expressed an intention in 1915, and had been interested in the usefulness of anthropologists since meeting Dr C. G. Seligman in 1904. To persuade the Australian government and his colleagues in New Guinea, Murray enlisted support from academic circles and others interested in colonial affairs. Besides official suspicion of ‘experts’, Murray had to overcome the parsimony of the Australian government which otherwise responded warmly to his suggestions. The greatest difficulties were practical, but the delay in implementing all three steps was due more to an anxiety on Australia's part not to make mistakes and to undertake innovations only after fullest consideration and on the best possible advice. The episode is important not so much for its impact on Papua and New Guinea, although that was not insignificant, but because of the light it throws on Murray's thought and on the seriousness with which Australia regarded its colonial undertakings.

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