Scholarly Collaborations and Community in Indonesia

Celia Lowe, University of Washington

How is it that both Indonesian and U.S.-based scholars have taken a similar approach to "community" in environmental conservation? This paper examines the question of community-based natural resource management, and whether the community is the correct scale for analysis or action. It looks at how both Indonesian and EuroAmerican scholars have both come to see "community" as the solution to the problematization of relations between nature and the human. And it discusses the process of collaboration itself. How do U.S.-based and Indonesian scholars form academic collaborations and on what (and whose) terms? The investigative and imaginative research of Amelia Hapsari and Eugene Ammarell on Balobaloang Island south of Makassar gives us wonderful material through which to analyze and discuss both North-South scholarly collaborations, and the idea of community as it has been used in conservation projects throughout Indonesia.

Participatory Video as a Tool of Democratization in Indonesia

Drew McDaniel, Ohio University

In this paper, I would like to discuss the participatory video made in Balobaloang as a tool for democratization in Indonesia. Although the media have been perceived as one of catalysts of democratization in Indonesia, the means and the skills to create a message for the media have remained to be possessed exclusively by a limited number of privileged people. However, new technologies have given birth to new opportunities for marginalized people to participate in telling their own stories, as attempted in the participatory video. I would like to analyze how the framing of the story is different than traditional documentaries or news coverage due to the nature of participatory process. I would also like to explore how the framing that is chosen in the participatory video is important in understanding the nature of a conflict setting at the community level. As a closing mark, I would like to analyze the prospects of participatory videos to be implemented in other settings to foster democratization in Indonesia.

Legitimating Activism through Film

Nancy Lee Peluso, University of California, Berkeley

This film on legal and illegal fishing practices and the people who practice them contrasts multiple sides of a complex resource access and management problem. The medium of video is also a major part of the message and reflects a growing trend among Indonesian activists in their drive to document their activities and the activities of the people for whose interests they advocate. I propose to discuss this film in relation to others recently made by activist groups or individuals in Java, Kalimantan, and other parts of Indonesia about disputes over access to land and forests. I will focus my comments on how these films represent particular struggles and how they compare to other "technologies of legitimation" such as counter-mapping. The uses of these technologies have broader effects than straightforward documentation. I will argue that they create a particular view of the world and the role of the NGOs and activists in that world, whether or not these roles are explicitly treated in the films or not.

Participatory Development and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia

Dias Pradadimara, Hasanuddin University

After years of centralized and authoritarian rule, Indonesians were left with the daunting task of fashioning a democracy built upon a strong civil society and a self-disciplined bureaucracy. One highly contested and problematic feature of this transition has been the move toward regional autonomy. For the first time, local government officials and their constituents must find ways to communicate effectively with one another and to take responsibility for the common good. Under New Order rule, it was a wealthy and powerful elite who decided whether the nation’s resources were conserved or plundered. Today, the fate of those resources rests in the hands of local officials who, all too often, are easily corrupted by their new-found power and ready to profit at the expense of future generations of Indonesians, while individual citizens are left to feel powerless to "take back" their heritage. In this paper, I compare this video project with participatory "mapping" projects of historical forts in Yogyakarta, Central Java, and Buton, Southeast Sulawesi. In these cases, the participants, like their ancestors before them, reside and gain their livelihoods within the forts themselves. By mapping and researching the histories of "their" forts, it is hoped that residents will be able to gain the cooperation of local officials to conserve resources and sustain their traditional livelihoods. The problems and prospects for such participatory projects under regional autonomy will be the subject of my comments and analysis.