WEST PAPUA PRAY NETWORK MOVEMENT From christ the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and build itsself up in love as each part does its work.

 WEST PAPUA  PRAY NETWORK MOVEMENT
From christ the whole body, joined and held  together by every supporting ligament, grows and   build itsself up in love as each part does its work.

The other locals engage in compelling practices of impression management when preparing for a jaunt into this town, entering a different social, political and  economic  space  that  is  now  home  to  as  many  non-Papuans  as  highlanders. For instance, it is seen as important to put on footwear, minimally sandals, and ideal to remove garden boots and leave those at home. In general, the more layers of clothes and accessories the better, preferably on a freshly bathed and perfumed body. Activities like visiting a doctor or a government office require long  pants  (for  men),  as  well  as  an  accomplice  with  sufficient  education  or experience  to avoid possible discomfort  or embarrassment over not knowing the correct procedure, not understanding the lingo, feeling shy amidst powerful outsiders  –  or  becoming  the  ‘primitive’  subject  of  a  picture  taken  by  a  Javanese businessman and proliferated across Indonesia in real-time. A notebook in a netbag is essential for those women or men who want to be seen as having a genuine  purpose in  town, perhaps  linked  to a church  activity,  an NGO, or  a project  team.  Walking  is  to  be  avoided  at  all  costs  because  it  implies  that  one does not have money (or a friend) for a ride. Mobile phones should be on display as much as possible, along with USB drives dangling from lanyards and laptops (or laptop bags, if a laptop is lacking). These activities  suggest ways people are recognising, while also devising, certain expectations related to modern, urban, multi-ethnic space, and in doing so seeming to accept, or at least know intimately, the gaze of others upon which judgments of their character and capacity are likely to be made. It is hard not to see the layers of clothing, the hats, jackets, socks and other accessories, in juxtaposition to the traditional  koteka  or the hip-hugging grass skirt that hold a significant place in so many conceptualisations of Papuans’ identity,  but it is also  possible  to see an  ongoing cultural form of  adornment with traditional roots.  We can read the recognition of unequal positioning in Indonesian  modernity brought to the fore in  a small, rapidly growing town. But, we would also encounter staunch and articulate resistance to many (but not all) expressions of alleged Papuan primitivity.  What often confounds the stoneage designation in contemporary Papua is in fact Papuans’ confident critiques, creative expressions, thoughtful histories and bold moves.  These scenes, flush perhaps with emotions of discomfort, anger, pride and concern, also remind us of the importance of looking at affective experiences of the current moment, as well as past and present mobilisations of affect in cross-cultural encounters. Given the long-lasting association of the highlands with primitivism and more recent Papuan strategies to counter this image, it does not come as a surprise that desires of becoming part of the real-time world are particularly pronounced there,  especially  in  the  last  few  years  when  the  lifestyles  of  Indonesian  modernity have become more and more accessible, at least for some Papuans, spurring the dreams of  those who have been merely  bystanders.  When  we were in  the phase  of completing this introduction a ‘letter from the field’ reached us, i.e. an email and not a traditional letter of course. It was written by Jacob Nerenberg, a doctoral student in anthropology at the University of  Toronto, who is currently ‘embedded in a small-scale mobile phone network pilot project, designed by foreign scientists, in a district centre that lies beyond the reach of the major national mobile phone networks, at the end of the main road from  Wamena’.6 We want  to include  our colleague’s account  here, as  he illustrates so vividly the concerns of many Papuans with their spatial and temporal position in the world: While conducting fieldwork in the Central Highlands I have heard many different  forecasts  and  aspirations  for  changes  that  people  anticipate happening in the region. One day, after a rally to promote the formation of a new regency in what is now a mere district centre, I asked a retired local politician what changes he hoped the new regency would bring. This man explained that new roads would link the village market to surrounding villages so that farmers could transport their produce efficiently; and that more new roads would allow the regency to sell its produce all over Papua, becoming the region’s breadbasket. I was also told that the national carrier would extend mobile phone network coverage, so that ‘the voice of the people would be heard’ in power centres far away; and that these changes would make this place more ‘advanced’. I have heard other, seemingly very different projects – providing improved education, training women to market handicrafts, or changing Papua’s political status – get framed in surprisingly similar terms of enhancing forms of wide-ranging connection.7 Nerenberg’s reflections on his fieldwork are worth quoting here as well: It becomes difficult to decide if transcending space and time is seen as a means to an end, or an end in itself […] Sometimes I think about this situation as a kind of laboratory, where I am to determine how new network  access  transforms  people’s  reality.  The  stories  I  collect  remind me of these transformations’ complicated trajectories. Families scatter from this ‘remote’ district to  Wamena, Jayapura,  Timika,  Yogyakarta; young people  travel around Papua living and working as miners, stereo salesmen, teachers, drivers, airplane ticket hawkers, before coming back home; some end up assisting foreign researchers, only realizing later that they appear in internationally-published books.  The transition to ‘modern’  network connection  has  never  been  discrete  –  ‘rural’  life  in Papua has long been about relocation, dislocation, migration, seeking out new knowledge and technologies.  The story of real-time connection