Social Science Research Council

"Translating Locality: The Politics of Language and Culture in Papua New Guinea Bible Translation"

The purpose of this research is to examine the processes of globalization under conditions where local knowledge, in this case local linguistic and cultural knowledge, is considered the only ground upon which something like globalization could be possible. In particular, I will be examining Christian Bible translation practices in Papua New Guinea under conditions where the Bible must be translated into local languages in order for those translations to be deemed capable of inspiring conversion to Christianity. According to SIL, local knowledge must both be overcome by Christianity and also celebrated in the Bible translation. This research will investigate the ways in which locality and its attendant knowledges are transformed in the process of these Bible translation projects. Among the Guhu-Samane of Papua New Guinea the common assumption is that their SIL New Testament translation brought about a 1977 Christian revival and eventually the formation of a local Revival church that has gone through contentious schisms in recent years. Now local Guhu-Samane leaders are translating the Old Testament with SIL support. Because SIL does not engage in church planting, only Bible translation, one of the more important issues I want to look at is how a local language translation becomes a local church. My goal is to examine the ways in which Bible translation projects, previous scholarship on Guhu-Samane, and Evangelical Christianity produce competing claims to the location, valuation and use of what is considered Guhu-Samane language and culture as they are contested in local church splits that have fractured the Revival church community.