Mobility and Human Development in Indonesia

This paper addresses population movement in Indonesia within the broader contexts of human development. Human movement, voluntary and involuntary, is a reflection of the people initiatives and responses to the changing nature of society and economy. As a large archipelagic state, movement of people across the country, historically, has always an important dimension of social formation in Indonesia. The paper however focuses on movement of people in the last four decades. It aims to examine the connection between migration and its wider social and economic contexts, looking at how politics shape migration policy and in turn, how migration affects policy making. The paper discusses at length recent issues of overseas labor migration, particularly on the apparently embedded inertia within the policy making processes. The continuing incidences of irregular migration, forced migration and human trafficking obviously mirror the incapacity of the state in properly managing the movement of people. The insufficient data and information generally hampered any conclusive linkages of migration and human development. With or without state’s proper policies people will continuously on the move enriching human development in Indonesia.Indonesia, migration, transmigration, social formation, economic development, human development

THE INSURGENCY OF ADAT, AN IMPEDIMENT TO INDONESIA AS A COMMON PROJECT

This article traces what is known as adatrechtpolitiek within the contexts of social unrest among the natives inspired by Islam. Adat is a form of identity politics from above and cannot be isolated from the colonial policy to contain the rise of political Islam. As adat posits exclusive and distinct characteristics it is problematic after independence to revive it for social engineering as Indonesia is a common project that is based on equality of its citizens. The main question is therefore whether or not the deployment of adat in the current political development will be an impediment for Indonesia as a common project. Using evidence from several adat communities, this article exposes the impasse of continuing adat politics as only masking real challenges confronted by contemporary Indonesian society. In the current rise of conservative Islam, rehearsing adat as identity politics is dangerous in promoting a divided society. Inclusive citizenship as an embodiment of a common project in which the right of individual and the right of community is accommodated should be the ultimate solution to eradicate inequality and to fulfill social justice

THE JAVANESE IN LAMPUNG, STRANGER OR LOCALS? WITH THE REFERENCE OF CHINESE EXPERIENCE

Javanese is the majority of the Indonesian population. Geographically they are resided in the provinces of Central Java, DIY and East Java. However, since the beginning of the 20th century the Dutch colonial government began to relocate them to Lampung in the sothern part of Sumatra and then to other places. Within a century Lampung become the main destination of Javanese migration, making Lampung the Javanese province after Central Java, DIY and East Java. Unlike the Chinese that is able to construct Chinese nation and state, the Javanese failed in constructing the Javanese nation, instead supporting the construction of Indonesian nation and state. In this article the Javanese in Lampung is exposed as the showcase of how Javaneseness as an identity is located within the post-Suhartos political development contexts, when decentralization and regional autonomy began to be implemented. Based on a fieldwork in Lampung, it shows that the Javanese while continue preserving the cultural identities yet reluctantly using their identities for political mobilization, for instance during the election of head of local government. The Javanese seems secure to be the majority, and not perceived themselves as strangers, although the resided in the land of the Lampuners.Keyword: Migration, Ethnic Identity, Local People, Political Mobilit

Migration, Ethnicity and Conflict in Southeast Asia

Konflik kekerasan merupakan ancaman paling nyata bagi pembangunan berkelanjutan dalam setiap masyarakat. Sumber konflik biasanya berasal dari peperangan antar-negara. Akan tetapi, selama lima puluh tahun terakhir, sumber konflik telah berubah dan sebagian besar berkaitan erat dengan proses nation-buliding di negara-negara pascakolonial, seperti di Asia, Afrika, dan Amerika Latin. Di negara-negara yang baru terbentuk, konflik yang bersumberkan pilihan ideologi negara adalah yang paling umum. Jika tidak terselesaikan, konflik berujung pada pemisahan atau pembagian wilayah negara-negara yang bersengketa, seperti kasus China-Taiwan, India-Pakistan, dan beberapa contoh konflik dalam kilas balik sejarah. Ketika ideologi berperan penting, konflik tidak bisa dilihat dari pengaruh faktor-faktor non-politik seperti demografi dan etnisitas saja. Konflik yang berdasarkan mayoritas-minoritas selalu terkait dengan komposisi demografis populasi tersebut di mana etnisitas, agama, dan ekonomi terbawa ke dalam konstelasi politik setelah Perang Dingin. Konflik etnis tidak terselesaikan dan terkadang berujung pada disintegrasi negara-bangsa. Terputusnya hubungan Uni Soviet dengan negara-negara satelitnya, pemisahan negara-negara bagian Yugoslavia, dan mungkin Indonesia merupakan beberapa contoh kasus ini. Myron Weiner, Thomas Homer-Dixon, dan Milica Zarkovis Bookman merupakan penggagas studi tentang hubungan antara demografi, politik, dan konflik. Komposisi etno-demografis dan pengaruhnya dalam proses nation-building telah ditelaah melalui berbagai macam teori terkait dengan konflik kekerasan. Tulisan ini merupakan sebuah upaya untuk memperkaya wacana tentang hubungan populasi dan konflik dengan mengacu kerangka pengetahuan yang ada dan bukti empiris yang terdapat di wilayah Asia Tenggara.Kata kunci: demografi, migrasi, konflik etnis, negara-bangsa, konflik kekerasan, populasi

Mobility and Human Development in Indonesia

This paper addresses population movement in Indonesia within the broader contexts of human development. Human movement, voluntary and involuntary, is a reflection of the people initiatives and responses to the changing nature of society and economy. As a large archipelagic state, movement of people across the country, historically, has always an important dimension of social formation in Indonesia. The paper however focuses on movement of people in the last four decades. It aims to examine the connection between migration and its wider social and economic contexts, looking at how politics shape migration policy and in turn, how migration affects policy making. The paper discusses at length recent issues of overseas labor migration, particularly on the apparently embedded inertia within the policy making processes. The continuing incidences of irregular migration, forced migration and human trafficking obviously mirror the incapacity of the state in properly managing the movement of people. The insufficient data and information generally hampered any conclusive linkages of migration and human development. With or without state’s proper policies people will continuously on the move enriching human development in Indonesia.Indonesia, migration, transmigration, social formation, economic development, human development

MIGRATION, ETHNICITY AND LOCAL POLITICS: THE CASE OF JAKARTA, INDONESIA

As the capital city of a country with the world’s fourth largest population, Jakarta, like many other big cities in the developing economies, for example, Mexico City or New Delhi, hosts migrants from all regions of the country. Without a doubt, Jakarta has increasingly become the major core of the agglomeration processes transforming it and its satellite cities into a Mega Urban Region (MUR). This paper traces historically the interactions between migration, ethnicities and local politics in Jakarta from the 1960s to the 2000s focusing on the latest development, in which the phenomenon ‘Ahok’, the nickname of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Chinese-Christian from the small district of Belitung, has become an increasingly popular Governor of Jakarta. The paper argues that through the recent developments in Jakarta the politics have apparently been transformed into more civic, rather than ethnic politics. The nature of Jakarta as a proliferating migrant city transcends narrow cultural identities as well as conventional party politics into a more active citizenry through the widespread use of social media.

DIMENSI SOSIO-EKONOMI DAN IMPLIKASI KEBIJAKSANAAN PEMUKIMAN PERAMBAH HUTAN*

The problems of settlement concerning "forest explorers" (slash and burn cultivators) have become increasingly interesting in the last few years, particularly since many countries in the world have been propagandizing reforestation throughtout the world. This study is discussing various problems relating with forest explorations in Indonesia, the socioeconomic dynamics, the settlement policy to explorers, and the constraints of its related implementation policies.Several significant points proposed in the study are that whatever the efforts or the program selected by the decision makers of this field of study, they have to realize that the phenomenon of forest explorers and their related problems is a symptom of a more basic problem, which is the disparity of income distribution among groups as well as among regions in Indonesia

The Making of a Minahasan Community in Oarai: Preliminary Research on Social Institutions of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Japan (<Special Issue> The Community of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Oarai Town, Ibaraki)

論文ArticleIn the mid-1980s, Minahasan migrant workers from North Sulawesi began to trickle into Oarai Town of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, to work in the local seafood processing companies, and Oarai became \u27little Manado\u27 with their increasing numbers. As primarily irregular workers, the Minahasans depended heavily on social institutions for help on the basis of kinship, locality and religion, as the pillar of the Minahasan societies. This self-support system of Minahasan family and kerukunan (village association in Indonesian) promoted the endurance and sustainability of their community. Later, the system came to be extended to larger organizations in connection with the outside world, such as kaisha (company in Japanese) and Christian churches in Japan. The Minahasan people successfully penetrated the Japanese labor market by translating their concept of family to the kaisha or traditional labor-management relations. Additionally, they performed informal religious activities in their kerukunan until the kerukunan were finally integrated into formal churches. Thus, they developed their social institutions, sometimes in extending them to the local inhabitants of Oarai and the neighboring areas. This paper discusses the developing roles of these institutions, family-kaisha and kerukunan-Church, in the life of the vulnerable community of Oarai. At the peak of the Minahasan immigration in early 2000, the Oarai-Minahasan numbered slightly over one thousand people, and there flourished four churches and ten kerukunan. The future of those Minahasan, however, seems to be bleak because of intensifying control since the 1990s of irregular workers by Japanese immigration officers as well as the police. In fact, the employers of Oarai have started to recruit regular workers, such as the nikkeijin (Japanese-descended foreigners) and kenshusei (trainees). This structural change in the employment system of the manufacturing industry has weakened the existing employment channels of Minahasan irregular workers. As a consequence, many of the Minahasan have moved from Oarai to other regions in Japan, or have returned to their homeland

Mobility and Human Development in Indonesia

This paper addresses population movement in Indonesia within the broader contexts of human development. Human movement, voluntary and involuntary, is a reflection of the people initiatives and responses to the changing nature of society and economy. As a large archipelagic state, movement of people across the country, historically, has always an important dimension of social formation in Indonesia. The paper however focuses on movement of people in the last four decades. It aims to examine the connection between migration and its wider social and economic contexts, looking at how politics shape migration policy and in turn, how migration affects policy making. The paper discusses at length recent issues of overseas labor migration, particularly on the apparently embedded inertia within the policy making processes. The continuing incidences of irregular migration, forced migration and human trafficking obviously mirror the incapacity of the state in properly managing the movement of people. The insufficient data and information generally hampered any conclusive linkages of migration and human development. With or without state’s proper policies people will continuously on the move enriching human development in Indonesia

Transmigration and its centre-regional context : the case of Riau and South Kalimantan Provinces, Indonesia

This thesis analyses transmigration policy in Indonesia within the context of centre and regional relationships. The evidence from Riau and South Kalimantan suggests that as a consequence of the unequal relationship between the centre and the regions, the implementation of transmigration policy has suffered from a lack of both coordination and feedback that could enhance an appropriate policy. At the regional level, the ambiguous national goals of transmigration policy have been simply translated into physical and quantifiable targets, which, in turn, have resulted in the neglect of transmigration policy as an integrated and complementary effort between the different sectors and ministries. The prevailing problems of implementation, such as the unsuitability of land for agricultural settlements, the various forms of mismanagement within the implementing agencies, and the hidden conflicts with the local population, have only had limited feedback effect on the policy making process in the central government. After the budget was drastically cut back in the mid-1980s, however, transmigration policy started to confront new dimensions of these problems. At this time, the implementation of transmigration policy was forced to change direction toward, among other things, maintaining the existing settlements and bolstering the cash-crops scheme. The spontaneous transmigration scheme, which became government rhetoric during the previous period, seems also to be receiving serious attention by the government. Yet, as the prevailing economic and political structure of the country is unchanged, the myth of transmigration policy as a panacea is unlikely to vanish