It is Christ or Corruption in Papua New Guinea: Bring in the Witness!

Endemic corruption and fervent Christianity dominate Papua New Guinea (PNG) public discourse. We draw on ethnographic material—including the emplacement of a King James V Bible in Parliament—to contextualise discourse Christian measures against within evolving Guinean ideas about witnessing. Both invoke specific kind observer: disembodied, reliable witness capable discerning people's intentions. Established linguistic data from PNG meanwhile document witnesses as imagined to be embodied, interested, lacking privileged relationship truth, thus susceptible coercion. Recasting issue terms witnessing foregrounds perceived cultural conflict between inclusion duty; it also reveals how why God was invoked—using debt obligation rhetoric—to end at national scale.