Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya
Dick van der Meij
Even though it was true up to a few years ago, it can no longer be said that the Bird's Head Peninsula of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, is a neglected area in New Guinea Studies. A special programme called ISIR, Irian Jaya Studies – a programme for Interdisciplinary Research - is devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the area. As a result of this programme a number of publications have appeared of which the following deserve special attention:Bird's Head Approaches, edited by Gert-Jan Bartstra
(Rotterdam/Brookfield: A.A. Balkema, 1998, ISBN 90-5410-683-2, x + 275 pp.),
and Jelle Miedema, Cecilia Odé, Rien A.C. Dam (eds) with the assistance of Connie Baak, Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia
Proceedings of the conference, Leiden, 13-17 October 1997, Amsterdam / Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1998, XVI + 982 pp. ISBN 90-420-0644-7, NGL 325 / US$ 180,50.
In the fall of 1997 the First International Conference entitled Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia was organised in Leiden by ISIR, in co-operation with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and the IIAS. It hosted seventy scholars and students from all over the globe and resulted in the book Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The volume contains 42 contributions which were presented during the conference. They feature a wide range of subjects from the following disciplines: (ethno)botany, demography, development administration, geology, and linguistics.
The book is divided into six parts: Social Sciences and Humanities. Natural Sciences; Anthropology, Demography, Ethnohistory: from inland to coast; Bird's Head Anthropology and Related Areas: inland, coast, and beyond; History; Linguistics: Bird's Head, and beyond; and Geology, Botany, Archaelogy.
The book is an indispensable tool for scholars interested in Bird's Head studies and New Guinea Studies in general. It forms the outcome of interdisciplinary research which can act as an example for other interdisciplinary research in the area and in other parts of New Guinea. It is hoped that this first conference will have its successor and that yet another volume of this kind may be published in future.