Author: Michael Benedict Cookson Abstract: This thesis addresses a wide variety of representations of Indonesian Papua and their relationship to tradition, socio-cultural change, new technologies, and political institutions. Attending to dominant stereotypes of ‘Papuan’ and ‘Indonesian’ identities, the thesis probes some of the more salient practices by which Papua is produced, by means of an interpretative analysis of three distinct realms of representation. Postage stamps depicting Papua are brought together for the first time in a case study that challenges both the ambition of the state to represent Papua as well as Papuan assumptions about the nature and extent of Indonesian hegemony. A second case study assembles an original history of Papua through maps. Key themes in the cartographic history of the territory are considered in the light of their implications for the capacity of the state to control internal and external influence over Papua. The relationship of community to the built environment is the focus of the third case study, which examines aspects of the history of the architecture (broadly defined) of Papua and the extent to which this history embodies and illuminates the nature of relations between state and civil society in the province(s). The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of contemporary challenges for the state and civil society in Indonesian Papua and some tentative suggestions for ways in which new modes of research and expanded opportunities for Papuan self-expression might assist in transcending the present socio-political impasse in the region.