Changing Frames: Identity and Citizenship of New Guineans of German Heritage during the Inter-war Years

It is an easy trap, when analysing the past racialisation of individuals, to treat the categories of ‘race’ developed in the past as if they were stable entities and practices based on them as if they were coherent. That there is no logic or system in the framing of individuals according to ‘race’, and that the resulting entitlements or opportunities granted or denied are arbitrary and forever changing has to be said before embarking on the history of New Guineans of German heritage during the interwar years. Most of them born to New Guinean mothers and German fathers during the short period of German colonial rule of New Guinea, these children lived through dramatic political changes that impacted on their lives. Who they were, fellow citizens or enemy aliens, Germans, New Guineans, Europeans, natives, mixed-bloods or half-castes
depended on the political circumstances and on who defined and framed
their being and their rights.