Acknowledgments
Map of the Island of New Guinea
Introduction
1. "Such a Site for Play, This Edge": Tourism and Modernist Fantasy
2. "We Are Here to Build Your Capacity": Development as a Vehicle for Accumulation and Dispossession
3. Discovering the Already Known: Tree Kangaroos, Explorer Imaginings, and Indigenous Articulations
4. Indigenous Theories of Accumulation, Dispossession, Possession, and Sovereignty
Afterword. Birdsongs: In Memory of Neil Smith (1954-2012)
Notes
Bibliography
Index

When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating their dispossession. Paige West's searing study reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today's globalized world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for constant regeneration.