Community Governance in Melanesia: The Impact of Long-Range Leaders

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly hard to understand local level governance in Melanesia without attending to the role played by ‘long-range leaders’. We use this term to refer to members of a village community who are living permanently or periodically outside their community, usually in a larger town or city. Unlike their Polynesian and Micronesian neighbours, few Melanesian countries (with the exception of Fiji) have significant overseas diasporas, so we are concerned primarily with incountry long-range leadership. Long-range leaders can be elites such as politicians, businessmen/women or senior bureaucrats. In some contexts, they can simply be individuals with a regular pay-packet living in an urban area. Their leadership claim may stem from their standing in the village including customary title, or status gained through education or employment. In recent fieldwork in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG), we have become increasingly struck by the profound influence exercised by such leaders.