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Living with difference in rural Indonesia: What can be learned for national and regional political agendas?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

Michelle Carnegie
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Abstract

Much research has sought to understand why mixed communities in Indonesia have been torn apart by violent conflict. By contrast, little is known about how people live together successfully in the mixed, low-conflict communities that exist in abundance throughout the Indonesian archipelago. This paper explores the inter-communal relations in the multiethnic, Christian-Muslim coastal village of Oelua in Roti, Nusa Tenggara Timur province. Mechanisms of agreement across ethnic, religious and livelihood differences have shaped and reproduced a low-conflict community — including transfers of land, labour, technology and surplus; use of customary law and conflict management; and social mixing and interpersonal relations. The findings suggest that there are lessons to be learned from communities like Oelua about how to foster social and economic inclusion, which could inform national and regional political agendas concerned with governing difference in a post-New Order Indonesia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , October 2010 , pp. 449 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2010

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106 Ibid., p. 224 n179.

107 This is also the case amongst indigenous Rotinese who fine each other for mis-using language and a range of other petty verbal offences in relation to upholding honourable negotiations.

108 Fox, Harvest of the palm, p. 81.

109 The percentage composition of ethnic and religious groups is one variable that could be important in comparative village studies.

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112 Ibid., p. 179.

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