ABSTRACT
In a richly illustrated book produced on the occasion of Independence by the Office of Information of the Papua New Guinea government (1976) one chapter is titled ‘Nationhood’. It deals with political and constitutional developments from 1945 to 1974. Not a single word is spent, however, on the cultural aspects of nationhood, particularly the issue of shaping a national identity. The author of the chapter, who is a Papua New Guinean ‘national’ (which has become the generally accepted term to distinguish citizens from expatriates), appears to identify independent statehood with nationhood. However, on 16 September 1975, at the proclamation of independence, the process of imagining the nation (Anderson 1991) had barely begun.
