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As part of a wider study on the formation and maintenance of academic identity among lecturing staff at a faith-based university in Papua New Guinea, we explore the perceived influence of an institutional Christian ethos. The wider study treated topics such as values and academia, how interviewees experience and enhance their identity as an academic, what they most and least enjoy about academic work, and possible cultural tensions between Western and local values. Our analysis in this paper focuses on responses to the research question: "What roles does a Christian ethos play in shaping your academic identity at Divine Word University?" The question was designed to elicit responses on how an institutional faith ethos and personal academic identity are viewed as related. Four broad themes were identified from academics' responses to the specific question. These themes suggest that an institutional Christian ethos is seen as shaping academics' role identities in multiple ways across three levels: on a personal level, as reinforcing academic values and academic commitment; at a community level, through contributing to creating a campus academic community; and at a national level, through framing the task of student learning as a contribution to nation building and ethical citizenship, not only to instrumental purposes of employment. We suggest that at this University, a Christian ethos helps to give shape and definition to concepts of academic identity in an environment where longstanding Western ideals of the academic profession are not well-known. Overall, for academics at Divine Word University, the institutional ethos is perceived to contribute positively to academic identity but its continuation cannot be taken for granted. We offer some proposals for improved practices that might apply to the University and to Christian higher education in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the story of the formation and subsequent activities of a church women's group in Maisin villages and women's experiences of Christianity more broadly, in relation to the changing production and uses of traditional bark cloth ( tapa), a signature women's product which has become a marker of Maisin identity. While the influence of the local Mothers' Union has waxed and waned over the past 60 years, tapa cloth has had a continuing influence upon its fortunes. Tapa cloth has been the chief means for church women to raise funds to support their activities and the local church. However, we argue that, more fundamentally, tapa has shaped women's gendered Christian identities, experiences and history, mediating relationships with men, between generations of women, and with various sorts of 'missionaries' who have often justified their intrusions in terms of improving women's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]