What are they doing for us?

I joined the project late and so this was one of the only remaining sounds - The Bwiadogan Kadede from Goodenough Island chose me, recorded by anthropologist Diamond Jenness. I was delighted because this randomness fits with my experimental approach to creating music. But I became increasingly concerned with the disconnect between this project and the people who live in the place the sound was collected from. Could I, a complete outsider, a person with no knowledge of Goodenough Island, its people, land or culture, use this sound in a way that wouldn’t reproduce Jenness’s racism and hubris?

I did some digging in Jenness’s writing, particularly The Northern D’Entrecasteaux and Language, Mythology and Songs of Bwaidoga, to try and get a better understanding of the song’s lyrics and meaning, but all I really know about it is that it’s a dance song where singers are arranged in parallel rows. 

I joined a Goodenough Islanders Facebook group to ask if anyone knew about the song and to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to use it. Apart from a couple of likes there was no response, but by joining the group I learned that the people of Goodenough were struggling with the impact of foreign mining and logging companies working on the island. Perhaps this random question of mine on a page for Goodenough Islanders could have been perceived as another outsider’s demand on the islanders? 

This piece is an attempt to grapple with the positionality of an outsider speaking on behalf of the people who know their island and ecology best. 

Initially, though, I had been inspired to create an aural representation of the landscape of the island. The geography of the island is striking, and the landscape is dominant in the myths of origin documented by Jenness at the time this recording was made. The island is described as having a coastal belt of reefs, grasslands and swamps contrasted with Mount Vineuo (also known as Mount Oiautukekea), which rises dramatically to over 2500 meters above sea level and is covered in more dense forest. 

I used the Kadede song in Jenness’s recording in different ways throughout this piece; a time-stretched version of the song runs throughout, a sampled section was pitched down to create a deeper ‘muddy’ sound, a slice of a particular microtonal singing section was stretched and looped, and later on, the original piece is left to play alongside another sampled section on a loop with added echo. Echo has been used here a lot, both to generate a feeling of memories resurfacing and to give a sense that the voices are echoing off the mountainside. 

Realising that I wanted voices from Goodenough to be central to the piece, I started using sections of news reports to create a dialogue: on the one hand, the leader of the opposition and member for Kiriwina Goodenough, Douglad Tomuriesa, demanding local involvement with decision-making around mining, and on the other Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape promising the people of Goodenough their rights to the land but also advocating for mining and its importance for the country’s economy. The powerful voice of Dorothy Tubu from Karapi Village from West New Britain on PNG expresses anger at the greed of the Malaysian logging company, asking “and what are they doing for us?”. The extra processing and glitching I added to these sections were an attempt to provoke critical reflection on the perspectives of outsiders (like those of anthropologists, a mining company or a sound artist) who impose their own worldviews on the people of the island. 

I also added recordings of myself digging in the garden: one sample was used as a kick to suggest the mechanical sounds of mining and logging while a less processed digging sound represents the significance of agriculture in the culture of the island. I was attempting to further evoke the debates I’ve observed around the future of the island and its natural environment: will it be in ecological harmony achieved through sustainable agriculture or in the exploitation and extraction of natural resources for profit?

Additional sounds from:
Front Line Pacific – Malaysian Loggers Destroying Papua New Guinea Forest 23.10.2025 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=676039632219606 Last accessed 20.12.25
EMTV Online – Goodenough Gold 20.11.2025 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vw_EEciQTzI&t=52s Last accessed 20.12.2025

"Bwaidogan kadede": a dance song reimagined by laura dymphna.

———
Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds