Spotted In
A PNG anthropologist in Brisbane
Growing up in Queensland, Australia, with a Papua New Guinean mother and New Zealand father and constantly being asked about her origins made becoming an an
thropologist an easy choice for Kirsten McGavin.
Born in Australia, she was often asked, ‘where are you from’?
“And so it was reinforced from an early age that ‘Australia’ was not the answer my interrogators were looking for,” she tells Paradise.
“This got me interested in race and identity, even as a child, and solidified my identity as a mixed-race person of PNG and NZ descent – to the point where I’d often refer to myself as a Papua New Zealander!”
Her mother was born in Rabaul and her father is from Auckland. She went to school and university in Brisbane and Auckland. After graduating from the University of Queensland in 1998 she taught at Hoskins Secondary School at Kimbe, West New Britain Province.
“I was 21, not that much older than some of the students. It was probably the best secondary school in the country at the time – I’d like to think it still is – and I was excited to be there, although I had never wanted to be a teacher and I knew that anthropology was my true calling.
“Nevertheless, the school was fantastic – a great melting pot of students from all over PNG.
“One of the disappointing things about the school, though, was that they had a policy of giving demerits to students who spoke pidgin or any other local language.”
The aim of the policy was to encourage students to do well in their final exams and head to university or into business.
“This policy really hit me personally, as my grandmother had often spoken about a similar policy when she’d been at school in Kokopo,” McGavin says.
“Back then, in my grandmother’s time, students would be punished not by demerits, but by having to stand out in the sun in the middle of the oval for hours. Just for speaking language. And when my mother came to Australia to go to school, she was even made to go to elocution lessons to get rid of her PNG accent.
“I think that means a lot more to us Papua New Guineans because language is so central to our identities and connects us with peles (the home village).
“The wantok (countryman or kinsman) system – at least theoretically – centres around people who are from the same language group.”
At Hoskins, with no TV, no phone, and not even a washing machine, she had time to think about where she was and how much she actually felt at home there. She kept notes and made draft outlines for her honours thesis, which examined mixed race and islander identity in the New Guinea Islands.
“I was always eager to learn more about my heritage and culture and the more I read, the more I realised that most of the stuff written on our culture and history was written by white people, especially white men.
“This made me want to write what I knew from a PNG perspective – to help bring some kind of balance to that. I soon finished a PhD and anthropology was a natural choice – I felt I had a lot to contribute, and at the same time, I could spend my studies and career immersed in my culture, always learning more.”
As well as researching and guest lecturing at the University of Queensland, McGavin is working on a novel about a New Ireland woman who develops superpowers, set in the time when blackbirding was rife throughout the Pacific.
“For years, I’d been dying to see a black superhero on the big screen. Too often, we’d been relegated to the ranks of best friend, sidekick or token.
“I think it’s really important to have black and islander voices represented in anthropology, as these are our stories. That’s why I love Black Panther and Aquaman so much.”
McGavin is also working on a biography of one of Kimbe’s founding families.
“As the town itself has only just celebrated the 50th anniversary of its naming, it seemed like a good idea to reflect on the history and social and economic development of the place, and focusing on one of the town’s key families seemed like a great way to do that,” she says.