This project involves the ethnographic research of two cultural anthropologists, one from Amherst and one from Trinity College. The project will take place in Papua New Guinea and is a continuation of a long-term study of the Chambri ethnic group in East Sepik province. This is an area of traditional tribal society which has recently urbanized. The researchers will interview people in the traditional rural communities that they have studied for the past 25 years, as well as in the urban slum to which some have moved. The focus of the study is changes in ethnic identity, from a `tribal` affiliation as `Chambri` to a residence-based identity as `urban-resident` vs. `rural-resident`. As a result of recent global processes of change involving increased urbanization and mass culture (clothing and music styles) these formerly traditional people are changing to become more individualistic and more capitalistically inclined. Using ethnographic participant-observation and structured interviews the researchers will assess the flows of resources between urban and rural places, to see whether a remittance economy has developed with urban cash and whether the rural communities subsidize the urban communities through cheap reproduction. The changes in knowledge of traditional culture will be assessed by interviewing young people, and the emergence of a national identity over the traditional tribal one will be assessed. This research is important because it studies in depth a continuing process of global change that has changed personal identity along ethnic, class and residential lines. Advances in our understanding of the changes in the actual lived situations of traditional, tribal peoples will be valuable for decision-makers and planners who must cope with the continuing movement of peoples between rural and urban places.
