National cultures and local identities: Cultural persistency in the face of Papua New Guinean national encompassment

One of the major issues to be discussed in this paper is how local cultures reproduce themselves in the face of modernity, and how these developments affect the process of identity formation. What does this mean for the overall processes of national encompassment of the local cultures perse? Another and related set of important issues to be discussed is the feasibility of creating a specific national culture in the face of an increasing internationalisation of culture, characterised by an intensified global flow of different culture elements. The question is here: does this constitute an impetus towards a greater cultural diversity within the individual nation‐state, triggering a potential marginalisation of the latter as the future overall societal factor of cohesiveness? The paper closes with a discussion of what these two types of constraint mean for the creation of a national culture and thus ultimately for the integrity and legitimacy of the nation‐state.