Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies

Mixed-race people in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have long been socially acknowledged as a distinct ethnic group—a group whose individual members sometimes also oscillate between being subsumed by, included within, or excluded from other racial categories like Asian, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and White. It is perhaps this ability to shift between what are often perceived as fixed racial categories that leaves some mixed-race people having to justify, negotiate, or explain the breakdown of their ethnic heritage to strangers, friends, and colleagues, some of whom think it is enlightened to say things like, “But aren’t we all mixed race?” or “Are you sure that’s what you are?” or the far less benign “You’re nothing but a mixed-race bastard.” This article examines historical and contemporary ideas about mixed-race identity in PNG in terms of both the privilege and oppression that members of this category experience. It stresses that racial identity in PNG is strongly connected to notions of peles (one’s place of Indigenous origin)­—a reliance that is beyond the influence of colonialism—and is further shaped by language, behavior, and social relationships. Drawing on the work of Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, Epeli Hau’ofa, and Irma McClaurin, the article decolonizes data collection and analysis techniques and sets Black, Islander, and female perspectives at the core of the methodological approach. In addition, the author’s own socialization as a mixed-race woman of New Zealand Pakeha and PNG descent adds further insight to the topic.