ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at aspects of what has been characterised as kastam in the introductory chapter. Processes of ‘cultural nationalism’ (Smith 1983:93) have in various political settings usually aimed at counteracting a loss of people's self-respect. It has been mentioned above that in the case of PNG, this loss has been brought about by imported Western values and Western-style institutions, and we should thus include into the cultural nationalism of PNG two processes which, in certain aspects, are contradictory. Firstly, the articulation of state-kastam, a ‘unique PNG-style’ that aims at creating a ‘genuine PNG identity’ and its communication to the villagers, and secondly, various regional or local kastam phenomena, which offer different blends of more or less decontextualised cultural bits and pieces.
