Pat Gesch SVD
Abstract
Typical of many squatter settlements throughout PNG, Public Tank was a highly visible community beside the Northcoast road out of Madang prior to its eviction by government riot squad agents in December 2003. The article reports on the ways this community was built from various ethnic groups, and how they managed to live together and form some kind of common identity. The primary focus rests on the motile collection of young men who come from the villages to live an impressively tenuous and poorly resourced life in town, but who provide dynamic links both backward to the villages of origin and laterally to the communities of the neighbourhood. Their strategies for resolving conflicts and supplying basic social needs to the squatter settlement are investigated.
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