Samting Bilong Yumi Yet: Creative continuities and national beginnings

Abstract This personal narrative celebrates Papua New Guinea's (PNG) 50th year as an independent nation by charting the author's experience working with the PNG National Theatre Company after meeting them at the second South Pacific Festival of Arts in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 1976. The theatre's slogan in Tok Pisin, ‘samting bilong yumi yet’ (something that belongs to ourselves), provides a recurring mantra to explore the themes of personhood, identity and belonging. The article reflects on the complementarity of theatre and anthropology, how both disciplines navigate encounters and connections between self and others, and the ethics of representation and legitimacy of experience. By mapping the author's initial immersion into daily life in PNG's capital of Port Moresby, the article reflects on the creative collaborations that formed emerging ties. Reciprocity is explored as a core cultural value that gifted the author's place of belonging in PNG and resonates with meaning in action for mutual identity and social cohesion.