
































Outside the Benefit Zone, Inside the Impact Zone: Jerry Jacka on Mining 

and Social Change in Porgera, Papua New Guinea 

Review by Alex Golub

Alchemy in the Rain Forest: Politics, Ecology, and Resilience in a New Guinea Mining Area 

by Jerry K. Jacka

Duke University Press, 2015

The Porgera valley in Papua New Guinea is well-known as the home of one of the largest gold mines in

the world, and this book documents the lives of people in the eastern part of the valley, who live just

outside of the main area affected by mining. These are people whose lives have been changed not by

the direct  impact  of mining but by its  present  absence in  their  lives.  The eastern Porgerans Jacka

discusses receive little of the money and benefits that have gone to people whose lands have been taken

by the mine, but they must still struggle with the massive negative social change that the mine has

engendered. In particular, it is the road which supplies the mine, rather than the mine itself, which runs

through  their  territory  and  which  deeply  alters  their  lives.  Although  much  of  the  material  in  this

monograph has been published before in articles and book chapters,  Alchemy in the Rain Forest is a

valuable, readable ethnography that greatly enriches our understanding of Porgera and contemporary

Melanesia more generally.

Jacka is an environmental anthropologist and the organization of his book reflects this fact. The book is

divided into three sections. The first section sets the stage for the rest of the book, with a chapter

reviewing the literature on political economy and introducing the valley's main features, and a second

chapter on the history of the valley from the 1930s, when Australians first reached it, to the creation of

the mine in the late 1980s. The second section of the book describes main themes in Ipili culture. There

are  chapters  on  land,  gardening  and  kinship,  and  spirits.  The  final  section  of  the  book  looks  at



ecological and social change in the valley since the coming of the gold mine. This section includes a

chapter on deforestation in the valley and fluctuations in rainfall, and another on the impact of money,

warfare, and the highway on eastern Ipili people.

This book's analytic model revolves around three terms: ontology, resilience, and alchemy.

First, ontology. Throughout the book Jacka cites the ontological turn in anthropology, and particularly

the work of Phillipe Descola. Jacka's engagement with this literature is relatively brief – for Jacka,

ontology really just is another word for culture and 'ontology' is a way to focus on local meanings. This

is a lucky turn for the reader, because the ethnography in this book is infinitely more readable than

monographs such as Truth in Motion (Holbraad 2012).

Indeed, the ethnography in this book is its strongest feature. The central three sections on Ipili culture

and relation to land are a superb blend of ethnographic example and generalizing statement. Jacka often

appears as a character in his book, but never in a way that is distracting or narcissistic. Best of all, the

book is written in a clear, lean style which will make it very accessible to students and nonspecialists –

something that might not have happened if Jacka had used a more 'ontological' prose style.

Jacka's description of Ipili culture is not new or original – in addition to his previous publications,

much of this material repeats the work done by Jacka's dissertation supervisor, Aletta Biersack. Indeed,

since Biersack was a major influence on Marilyn Strathern's influential  Gender of the Gift (1988),

Jacka's work is, in a sense, pre-ontological! But Biersack's writings are often at a very high level of

academic abstraction, and her classic papers of the early 1980s are not as much in the public eye as

they  should  be.  This  volume  is  valuable  because  it  is  the  first  easily-accessible,  comprehensive

overview of general themes in Ipili culture which a non-specialist can read. At this, it excels.

That said, Jacka's book does more than simply repeat Biersack's work. His account is an up-to-date

portrayal of contemporary Porgera, complete with consumerism, tribal fighting, and changing gender

relations that simply did not exist during Biersack's initial fieldwork. What's more, while there have

been specialist accounts of the mine from geographical and social impact perspectives, and my own

political anthropological case study, Leviathans at the Gold Mine (2014), Jacka fills a needed gap in the

literature  in  Porgera  by  providing  this  readable  overview  of  the  valley's  culture.  Contemporary,

accessible, and informed, this volume is at its best when it describes the lives of everyday people living



life in Porgera today.

Resilience is another major theme of Jacka's book, but as a Porgera specialist and not an ecological

anthropologist I have less to say about this theme. Although Jacka does attempt to map social change in

Porgera onto the model used by Gunderson and Holling, he does not seem to advance the use of the

concept, nor does he suggest ways in which Porgera could become more resilient – something the

valley badly needs. At the same time, no-one so far as been able to come up with answers for the

valley’s many woes, so perhaps it is hoping for too much to expect to find a solution here.

Throughout  the  book,  Jacka  seems  to  use  the  term  'resilient'  to  mean  that  Ipili  culture  is  not

disappearing underneath the impact of resource colonialism, or to say that it shapes the way Ipili people

respond to new events. But Jacka seems to misunderstand the implications of this argument when he

argues that "Porgeran ontological systems serve to inhibit social transformation by providing templates

with which to understand novel events. In essence they channel disruptive events into recognizable

frameworks of experience (cf. Sahlins 1981)" (p. 235).

Simply because change is culturally mediated does not mean that it is culturally inhibited. Indeed, in

the piece that Jacka cites, Sahlins argues that the cultural mediation of novelty can both amplify and

inhibit change, depending on the cultural structures which mediate. Roy Wagner, Alan Rumsey, and

many of the other authors that Jacka cites argue that Melanesian cultures – and especially highland

cultures such as the Ipili – value novelty and change for its own sake. And indeed, Jacka's own material

supports the idea that Ipili culture mediates and amplifies – rather than just inhibiting – change. He

emphasizes the long tradition of migration in this area, and then discusses the way that in-migration

into the valley put stress on social order. He points out that Ipili want 'development', but also contend

with changing gender roles, consumption patterns, and the influence of money.

Might it not make more sense to argue that Ipili want change, but got more of it than they could handle,

and too quickly? Although Jacka is careful not to paint Ipili as primitive conservationists, one does feel

at times there is one ecologically noble savage in this text – Jacka himself – who seems to value the

good old days of myths, rituals, and subsistence agriculture more than some Ipili do.

As for the final of Jacka's three concepts, 'alchemy', this is the one about which there is the least to

discuss. It's a cunning, rich notion which connects Ipili culture to premodern understandings of nature



and to the tragic, greedy quest for wealth. But after the introductory chapters the idea drops out from

the  book  and  is  never  developed  again,  except  as  the  star  concept  of  Jacka's  brilliantly  written

conclusion.

I do have some other minor quibbles about the book – Christianity perhaps deserved more time than it

got, and the mine is offstage for most of the book despite being its ostensible subject. And at times,

Jacka's views seem less that of an independent analyst and more a conveyor of the views of Eastern

Porgerans who look with indignant disdain at the landowners of the goldmine, believing that they are

rolling in money rather than in mine waste. But while there is much for Porgera specialists to debate in

these pages, these are not issues that detract from the book for a general reader.

In his review of my book about Porgera, Jacka (2014) said that it was full of jargon and lacked an

indigenous voice (I plead guilty to the first count, but not the second). It's probably not surprising, then,

that I wished his volume had more follow-through on its theoretical claims and less romantic populism.

I do agree with Jacka, however, that our differing perspectives result in an increasingly rich body of

literature about the valley.

In sum, this book is a valuable addition to the specialist literature on mining and social change in

Melanesia, but also written in a clear style that will be of great use in the classroom. I recommend

Jacka’s accessible, straight-forward ethnography to all readers.

References Cited

Golub, Alex

2014.  Leviathans  at  the  Gold  Mine:  Creating  Indigenous  and  Corporate  Actors  in  Papua  New

Guinea. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Holbraad, Martin

2012.  Truth in Motion: The Recursive Anthropology of Cuban Divination. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Jacka, J.K.

2014. Review of Leviathan at the Gold Mine: Creating Corporate and Indigenous Actors in Papua

New Guinea. Alex Golub. Duke University Press. ID: International Dialogue 4:33-36.



Sahlins, Marshall

1981. Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich

Islands. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Strathern, Marilyn

1988.  The Gender  of  the  Gift:  Problems  with  Women  and Problems  with  Society  in  Melanesia .

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Alex Golub is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i  at Mānoa. His

research focuses on the political anthropology of mining. His book Leviathans at the Gold Mine about

the Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea was published by Duke University Press in 2014. He is

also one of the founders of the well-known anthropology blog Savage Minds.

© 2015 Alex Golub 


