Muddying the waters of the Fly: underlying issues or stereotypes?

Abstract

This paper was originally written in 1998, as a contribution to a book which was to have been edited by Stuart Kirsch, but which failed to find a publisher. One of the other intended contributions to this volume has since been published in a learned journal (Hyndman 2001), and Stuart Kirsch himself has recently published a review of his own role (and that of other social scientists) in the saga of the Ok Tedi Min (Kirsch 2002). The present paper does not respond to the arguments put forward in either of these pieces, but the Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program has offered to publish it as a Working Paper (with only minor revisions) in order to sustain an academic debate which has continued over the five years since RMAP published a monograph on the same subject (Banks and Ballard 1997).