IRIAN JAYA STUDIES: A PROGRAMME FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
(ISIR)

1. GENERAL INFORMATION

During the next seven years, about twenty researchers from
different disciplines shall work in the Birdshead, a penninsula
in the northwesten part of Irian Jaya. This scientific operation
in former New-Guinea, has been made possible by a grant of 6.5
million guilders of The Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research (NWO).
The Birdshead's land area of about 40.000 square kilometers, is
inhabited by 300.000 people, consisting of 30 ethnic groups. In
all eighteen different languages are spoken. The intiator and
supervisor of the ISIR-project is Professor W.A.L. Stokhof of the
Department of Languages and Cultures of South-East Asia and
Oceania.  This national project is coordinated by Leiden
University. The objective of ISIR is to acquire more knowledge
about Irian's languages, cultures and territory.
"Since 1962 research in Irian Jaya has become deadlocked",
according to the co-ordinator of the project Dr J. Miedema. "In
comparision to Papua New Guinea, where much research has been
done in the past decade, knowledge about the western part of New
Guinea is still meagre." 

Due to historical ties, the existing expertise and the big amount
of source material, The Netherlands seems best suited to initiate
this project. " We must make up an inventory", Miedema states. 
"Our interests go beyond classical notions of ethnography, in
which a timeless image of a culture seen in isolation is
presented. We look at the changing circumstances, mutual exchange
and foreign influences which play a major role in the development
of cultures." As a point in case Miedema sees the development of
the dowery-system which replaced the practice of the exchange of
sisters.
To be able to conduct the research from a comparative persepcti-
ve, the ISIR project has a multi-disciplinary framework in which
many disciplines are represented: linguistics, anthropology,
demography, archeology, botanics and geology. The outcome of the
research of the different disciplines will be compared which will
result in a more complete picture of the Birdheads area.
Apart from Dutch universities and institutes the Indonesian
government is also actively involved in the execution of ISIR.
The governor of Irian Jaya has shown much enthusiasm for the
project and attaches much value to it. Miedema:"Knowledge of
local languages and cultures is a precondition for effective
governance of the area." (Source: Jaarbericht 1992-1993 of the
Leiden University, p. 7)

2. OVERVIEW OF ACTUAL AND PLANNED ACTIVITIES AND DEVELOPMENTS

Right at the beginning of the ISIR project, two working-groups
have been formed: an Alfa-group (anthropology, demography,
development administration, linguistics) and a Beta-group
(archeology, botany, and geology). Since January 1993 these
groups are working closely together, having resulted in several
joint meetings and a two-days working session on May 24 and 25,
1993. 
During these meetings the organizational and methodological
interconnections between the respective sub-programmes have been
further explored, whilst during the two-days workshop both intra-
and interdisciplinary theoretical aspects were discussed in
particular. Thus more insight was obtained into mutual fields of
interest, or rather, insight into the possibilitiies and
restrictions for common research with regard to space, time and
topics. Aside from the area at issue, evidently a common ground
was found more easily in methodological than in theoretical
issues, though both research levels have their practical
difficulties. 
This has partly to do with the circumstance that geologists and
archeologists work with other time-horizons than, for instance,
anthropologists and demographers, as well as the circumstance
that in some disciplines one is already rather familiar with the
area of investigation whereas in others one is not. Consequently,
it has been realised that, on the one hand, several disciplines
have to do more preliminary research before a more coherent
common research strategy can be developed, while, on the other
hand, some disciplines can already deal with some mutually
recognized general theoretical issues like cognitive aspects of
data in the field of anthropology-ethnobotonay-linguistics, or
migration considered as a transfer and 'transformation' of
people, goods and ideas. (Source: Newsletter ISIR, 1993 no. 1)