Christianity, Local Culture And Disaster Relief Theory And Practice in Papua New Guinea: A Case Study of the Involvement of the Combined Churches Organisation in the 1998 Aitape Tsunami Disaster Relief

Abstract

In this thesis I argue that local Melanesian culture and evangelical Christian religious faith informed the disaster relief theory and practice of an NGO - the Combined Churches Organisation (CCO) - that formed in response to the 1998 Aitape tsunami disaster. I focus on the Christian Brethren component of this organisation. This qualitative ethnographic research is aimed at exploring the margins of mainstream development/disaster relief. The research is based on a dialogic critical realist epistemology. The CCO was an ephemeral religious conglomeration of evangelical and pentecostal groups. The organisational structure emerged to support relief activities. It was ad hoc, multicentred and fluid. The CCO was characterised by internal tension and in this it reflected the wider relief context. In part because the CCO had limited access to financial resources, its relief work was based on voluntary labour by Christians from within denominational networks. The CCO was involved in three 'sectors' of relief activity: relief aid, reconstruction and church planting. These activities exhibit local cultural practices as well as revealing a religious understanding of the 'needs' of the affected people. In its relief work the CCO filled niche needs left by larger relief organisations. The pastors who worked with the CCO held a holistic perspective in regard to the spiritual - physical dynamic of their relief work. Their disaster relief theory was deeply informed by a Melanesian evangelical theology. In the process of exploring the CCO I have also analysed the sociopolitical context of the disaster relief operation. This context was characterised by weak coordination from governmental authorities, differing perspectives between the victims and donors as to what the relief aid signified and intense multilayered conflict.