'Preserving the Papuan': JHP Murray and doomed race theory in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This article provides a detailed account of the impact of depopulation theories on the administrative policies developed under JHP Murray in the Australian Territory of Papua (1908–40). It charts the rise of a colonial discourse that linked racial and cultural pathology to physical depopulation in the Pacific and explores how the same set of ‘scientific’ ideas – the doomed race theory – was applied differently to Papuan versus Aboriginal subjects under the wider rubric of Australian ‘native’ administration.