Oct 21, 2019 Last Updated 4:14 AM, Oct 17, 2019

Inside Indonesia

Decentralisation

Mining – who benefits?

Two carts rest on a mining site path. The photo is taken at an angle where the path appears to be going down from left to right.

Mining law changes in decentralising Indonesia raises new challenges and opportunities for local communities

The life and death of Indonesia’s mineral export ban

President Joko Widodo speaks at a podium, with a red banner as a backdrop.

The Jokowi government’s policy shift contributes to pervasive regulatory ambiguity in Indonesia’s mining sector

Stories from Sulawesi

An elderly woman stands in a grass field in a rural dwelling, looking to the side.

The 2009 mining law and the community benefit in Sulawesi

Resource nationalism as imperialism

A worker at a mining site points to the low-hanging clouds.

Foreign investment in large-scale mining has encountered serious obstacles

Mining and equitable development

A car drives along a concrete road among tall crop fields.

Mining dominates East Luwu GDP but development of agriculture underpins equitable development

Small-scale mining in Central Kalimantan

A car zooms by on a road in a barren landscape.

After reformasi, Kereng Pangi, Kalimantan became the site of a gold rush

Mining the land, mining people

A mining base, with a pipe running across the foreground and some wooden structures.

Irrespective of location or commodity, peasants now compete with multinational mining companies on the mineral-rich tracts of Indonesia

Multiplier effects on the Bombana goldfields

A photo of the front of a Toyota dealership.

Benefits ripple outwards but local government struggles to regulate the process

The extractive industries in East Nusa Tenggara

Protestors hold up signs expressing anger at mining activity and exploration.

As a number of communities in East Nusa Tenggara reject mining, tourism as a resistance strategy can be equally exploitative

From mother to citizen

A woman measures the height of a toddler under a tree, surrounded by other women and children. (Vita Febriany)

The New Order actively promoted citizenship of a particular kind for women

‘We are natural-born children, you are adopted’

A small wooden boat is docked on the shore, with two others in the background, in Malifut, North Halmahera. (Yefta Christiono)

Locals contest national citizenship rights in North Maluku

When ‘home’ is not home

The worn-down, wooden-plank exterior of a house, bare but for a mural of a bull on a red background - PDI-P's symbol. (Laila Kholid Alfirdaus)

Locals react coolly to ex-transmigrants who return to Java after fleeing violence elsewhere

Islam and citizenship

Speakers address Wahdah Islamiyah's members at the third 'muktamar' (congress) in Jakarta, July 2016. (Imam S/Kiblat.Net)

Organisations like Wahdah Islamiyah envision an ‘Islamic’ citizenship for Indonesia

‘I am an Indonesian citizen!’

A group of people pose smiling for someone taking a photo on their phone.

What does exercising citizenship in Indonesia's democracy look like?

Labour takes a citizenship approach

A woman tips a coin tin over another woman's open palm.

Despite the impressive activism of Pekalongan’s labour union, its political clout remains limited

New law, new villages?

One of many seminars for discussing the content of new Village Law (© Yando Zakaria, Yogyakarta, July 2013)

The new Village Law could substantially change Indonesia’s villages. Not necessarily for the better.

Creating Indonesia’s Village Law

A coalition of civil society organisations campaigned for the new Village Law. (©Yando Zakaria, Jakarta 4 July 2013)

How a law that goes against many vested interests was enacted

The myth of the harmonious village

Abraham Salm, ‘Village feast in the vicinity of Ardjoeno, Surabaya residency’ - Source: KITLV digital image library, http://media-kitlv.nl

Indonesia’s Village Law fails to provide village communities with control over their elites

New law, old bureaucracy

‘New Law - new village office’ seems to be the rule all over the country (© Jacqueline Vel, Central Sumba, August 2016)

Taking stock after two years of village law implementation

The village head as patron

Although illegal, village heads often support candidates during district head elections - Source: Ward Berenschot

The Village Law might restore the dominance that village heads enjoyed under Suharto

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