Expectations vs. reality: preferential treatment

A good friend in Normal, Illinois asked me recently: “Has your work in Papua New Guinea been just what you expected before you went, or is it different?” I fumbled through an answer in that conversation, but I've continued to think about the question.

When I was preparing to go to Papua New Guinea the first time, in 2002, I was really excited to begin my first major ethnomusicological fieldwork experience. I'd prepared so long, with four years of graduate studies in ethnomusicology, and then a year of linguistic and cultural pre-field courses at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. I expected that, after some initial language learning, I would find a village location where we would live, and I would begin learning about the indigenous musical traditions. In working with local musicians and local Christian church congregations, I hoped that together we might find ways to incorporate distinctive Papua New Guinean musical elements into the Christian worship. Research and application: for me, two concurrent, ongoing joys.

Certainly I'm doing the kind of work I prepared for and expected. Researching endangered musics, learning from local musicians, recording, documenting, sharing knowledge, and encouraging local Christians to understand their faith more deeply (especially through their composing songs in their own languages and musical styles) are all activities I'd hoped to be involved with when I went to Papua New Guinea. And I have been able to do all of that. But I also find that being an American working in Papua New Guinea affects my work in ways that I wouldn't have expected or predicted.

Music surveying among the Alamblak

Before we left for PNG, in 2002, all of my training taught me to go in as the learner. Don't be quick to assume I have the answers. I wanted to be almost invisible, that my work would not be to my personal glory but to the encouragement and lifting up of my Papua New Guinean friends. I didn't need to live very long in PNG to find that I truly wasn't an expert in much of anything—walking on slick, muddy roads, or picking up bits of vocabulary in local languages, to say nothing of comprehending cultural cues for proper behavior or effective communication. No amount of posing on my part will give anyone the impression that I have it all together in PNG.

And yet, I found that PNG is a place that grants great (and automatic) prestige to visitors from other, Western, countries. Ways of naming outsiders give some idea. The Tok Pisin generic term for me, waitskin ('white-skin'), for example, is a constant reminder that I can't blend in, no matter how hard I try. More troubling to me than that is when Papua New Guineans call me Masta ('master'), which takes me back to a colonial past from which I would prefer to be separated. Bikman ('big-man') is an honorific that might refer to my being in fact taller than many of the Papua New Guineans I work with, but it also connects to a traditional cultural category of a strong leader who is in many ways above the others in his family group or village. How can I work in equality side-by-side with my Papua New Guinean colleagues with these reminders of the differences between us? Being called Masta puts me in the awkward position of having to decide what kind of issue I will make of the distinction. What is the more appropriate response: to correct the term, explaining that I am not a master in this country and have no wish to be put up on a pedestal, or simply to accept the term as it is offered, in a spirit of honor and respect, likely with no negative power-relationship implications intended? And how will my response affect the work of future Americans (and other waitskin) in Papua New Guinea? What kind of legacy am I leaving?

The honoring of white-skinned foreigners in Papua New Guinea extends beyond terms of address into actual behavior. Just based on my skin color, for example, I'm given preferential treatment at stores in town. While Papua New Guinean shoppers are frisked and have their bags searched when exiting a grocery store, those same security guards wave me right through with big smiles. How often I've wanted to say, “Hey! Go ahead and treat me like everyone else!” (Which I do sometimes say, but I'm usually met with amused smiles . . . and then waved through.) And when I attend a Christian church in a village, people's assumption is that I'm highly educated, mature in my own Christian faith, and ready to preach a sermon at a moment's notice.

Discussing garamut drum signals in Buka

All of this makes it more difficult than I would have predicted to find the local experts and build them up as leaders within their own communities and beyond. I want skillful people in the village to step up and do what they are gifted to do—not put themselves down because they assume that I know more. It's a difficult balance between, on the one side, being truly honored that people want me to be all that I am and to share that with them, but on the other side feeling that my elevated status prohibits others from being all that they might be. This is one of the biggest differences between my expectations and the reality. In my research, I want Papua New Guineans working with me, equal partners as much as possible. And in the practical applications, I want to see that what starts with my assistance will continue after I leave. That point is especially difficult and is probably experienced to some extent by almost every fieldworker.

In Ukarumpa, consulting with composers

I'm grateful that these complexities don't make effective work impossible. The good relationships of mutual exchange and interaction that I do enjoy are very sweet when I know how much must be overcome on both sides for that kind of relationship to flourish. When at other times I'm discouraged by disappointment, I remember that each individual is living out of a history of experiences, making his or her own choices based on that past, and I can't know all the details of everyone I encounter. It's often not simple or straightforward, and it leads to situations I wouldn't have expected, but it's the reality we live with.