Shaping a ‘New Manggarai’: Struggles over culture and tradition in an Eastern Indonesian regency1

Abstract: Policies of decentralisation and democratisation since the end of the New Order of Indonesia in 1998 have seen a major shift of economic and political attention to the regions and widespread clamouring from local communities for more power in decision making and control over local resources. This regionalisation has led to a resurgence in interest in ‘tradition’ and a shift in the understanding of ‘culture’ as it was formed during the New Order. This article looks at contestations over the use of traditional culture in the regency of Manggarai (in Flores Island, Eastern Indonesia) and how, while political elites retain an image of culture similar to the New Order, local communities struggle to reform tradition in their own way and to regain local governance.     

Regional autonomy and local resource management in Indonesia

Abstract: As the largest archipelagic nation in the world, with distinctive environmental conditions and biodiversity, Indonesia on the one hand has tremendous natural and environmental riches while on the other hand faces a variety of environmental problems. After three decades of the New Order era, 1967–1998, Indonesian society is in a crucial transformation process towards a more democratic era. At the same time, as indicated in that country's decentralisation laws No. 22/99 and 25/99, Indonesia is also shifting its style of government, from a centralistic to decentralised one. These two trends are happening simultaneously with globalisation prompting a flow of global capital that directly increases pressure on the Indonesian environment. This paper evaluates the decentralisation of environmental management programmes in Indonesia and focuses on the implications of these changes. The weaknesses of current environmental policies and programmes in Indonesia, which give too dominant a role to the government and neglect civil society's involvement in natural resources and environmental management, are analysed. Further, the paper addresses the lack of attention to date to issues of environmental rights and justice that create many complex environmental and social conflicts throughout Indonesia. We conclude by recommending some fundamental changes to environmental policies and programmes in the decentralised system.     

Building knowledge city in transformation era: Knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing in the context of globalisation and decentralisation

This study examines knowledge‐based urban development in Beijing with the objective of revealing the impact of the ‘synergetic’ forces of globalisation and local government intervention on knowledge‐based urban development in the context of the coexisting processes of globalisation and decentralisation. The findings in this paper show that due to the rapid growth of the cultural industry sector, knowledge‐based urban development has created various kinds of ‘cultural industry clustered areas’, which were recently promoted by the 2008 Olympic Games. ‘Synergetic’ global and local forces are leading knowledge‐based urban development, with the emergence of a local coalition regime in which local government manages local development, considered as ‘enterprises’ in the decentralisation process, while the State retains a significant influence on knowledge‐based urban development. The central and municipal governments tend to emphasise strategies to ‘facilitate the climate for growth’ rather than the centrally planned control they exerted prior to the 1980s.     

Political contestation,resource control and conservation in an era of decentralisation at Indonesia's Kerinci Seblat National Park

Since the fall of long‐time strongman Suharto and his authoritarian ‘New Order’ government in 1998, Indonesia has embarked upon a series of decentralisation and democratisation reforms. This new era of decentralised politics has come to be known as Reformasi and has significantly altered the political landscape of the archipelago as national and subnational levels of administration continue to contest the balance of power. Indonesia's national parks, which remain under the authority of the national government, have become arenas for negotiated encounters between local resource users, aspiring district elites and the national government. This essay explores three legacies of incomplete and unfinished decentralisation as they related to national‐park‐based conservation, using Sumatra's Kerinci Seblat National Park as a case study.