The folk of the Lihir Islands in Papua New Guinea have lengthy held visions of a filthy rich new destiny, frequently stated through neighborhood leaders because the ‘Lihir Destiny’. whilst large-scale gold mining actions started out at the major island of Lihir in 1995, many was hoping that this new global had eventually arrived. The Lihir future offers a nuanced account of the social structural and cultural adjustments engendered via large-scale source extraction. Tracing the heritage of Lihirian engagement with outdoor forces, from the colonial interval via to contemporary mining actions, this publication brings new mild to endure at the greater query of what ‘development’ potential in modern Melanesia. The Lihir future explores how Lihirian leaders devised destiny plans for a cultural revolution dependent upon the maximisation of mining actions and the influential philosophies of the non-public Viability circulate. despite the fact that, achieving the ‘Lihir future’ is not any basic affair, and plenty of Lihirians locate themselves negotiating divergent formulations of tradition, sociality and financial engagement. The Lihir future will attract readers drawn to the social affects of large-scale source improvement, the tactics of cultural continuity and alter and the ways that modernity is configured in neighborhood phrases.