'Preserving the Papuan': JHP Murray and doomed race theory in Papua New Guinea

This article provides a detailed account of the impact of depopulation theories on the administrative policies developed under JHP Murray in the Australian Territory of Papua (190840). It charts the rise of a colonial discourse that linked racial and cultural pathology to physical depopulation in the Pacific and explores how the same set of scientific ideas the doomed race theory was applied differently to Papuan versus Aboriginal subjects under the wider rubric of Australian native administration.