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Regulating the Terminal Economy: Difference, disruption, and governance in a Papuan commercial hub

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2019

JACOB NERENBERG
JACOB NERENBERG*
Affiliation:
York University, Canada Email: nerenber@yorku.ca
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Abstract

What kinds of governance agendas emerge at frontiers of commercial expansion, where routine economic relations traverse differences of ethnicity and degrees of formality? In the Balim Valley in the highlands of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, mobilities and trade intersect at adjoining peri-urban markets and minivan terminals. The ‘terminal economy’ at the edges of Wamena, the region's bustling hub, is a threshold between rural and urban life, where indigenous livelihoods are subordinated to Indonesia's expanding commercial networks. Here, a cosmopolitan population—including indigenous Papuan highlanders and newcomer merchants from distant Indonesian regions—gathers to buy and sell local horticultural produce and imported commodities, transit between modes of transportation, and engage in a variety of formal and informal economic activities. This article traces the emergence of a multifaceted commercial regulation agenda, in the wake of demands for the recognition of indigenous contributions to the regional economy. It considers recent indigenous-formulated regulation policies in the context of the region's commercial history, one that is marked by a colonial devaluation of indigenous economic life and, more recently, by uprisings, inter-ethnic tensions, and government attempts to control and contain informal vending. The article conceptualizes commercial regulation as a convergence between efforts to contain disruption and demands for the revaluation of marginalized economic practices. It argues that commercial regulation is especially salient in regions that have been relegated to an end-point position in national and global commodity distribution paths.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Special Issue 3: Marginal Hubs: Conviviality Beyond the Urban Centre in Asia , May 2019 , pp. 904 - 942
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I thank Madeleine Reeves, Magnus Marsden, and Norbert Peabody for their feedback and assistance, as well as the three anonymous reviewers for their comments. Fieldwork for this research was carried out with support from the International Development Research Centre, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture, and the Lorna Marshall Doctoral Fellowship of the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

References

1 All translated terms are from Indonesian (either Standard or Papuan Colloquial), unless otherwise noted.

2 WEOP was a collaboration involving Wamena-based NGOs and researchers from the Department of Anthropology at Universitas Cenderawasih in Jayapura, Papua. WEOP members worked as research assistants and as participants in and facilitators of focus groups discussions. I also draw on material I collected during 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in and around Wamena from 2012 and 2014, and previous visits dating back to 2007.

3 While much English-language literature on Indonesia translates kabupaten as ‘district’, I use ‘regency’ instead, reserving ‘district’ for the next (lower) level, kecamatan (often called distrik in Papua).

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23 The world's largest gold and copper mine, owned by the US-based Freeport McMoRan, is located in Papua (in a separate highland region west of the Balim area). Papua's relegation to an extractive development paradigm is illustrated in Strategic Asia, Implementing Indonesia's Economic Master Plan (MP3EI): Challenges, Limitations and Corridor Specific Differences (Jakarta: Strategic Asia, 2012).

24 Freeport uses its private fleet to ship mineral ore from the terminal in Timika to processing facilities in Java and overseas, withholding return cargo from shipping circuits, thus further inflating regional shipping costs and prices of consumer goods in Papua.

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26 Assolokobal, Tradisi perang suku orang Dani; Herry Haluk, ‘Bangsa Buta [Blind Nation]’, unpublished manuscript, n.d.

27 Economic geographers have identified this type of marketing system as ‘dendritic’, marked by hierarchical, linear connections linking commercial nodes, on a spectrum from more central to more marginal. See Augustus, Edgar Johnson, Jerome, The Organization of Space in Developing Countries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970)Google Scholar in Smith, Carol A., ‘Economics of Marketing Systems: Models from Economic Geography’, Annual Review of Anthropology 3 (1974), pp. 177–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dendritic systems are typical of regions with a recent (or ‘late’) colonial history.

28 See, for example, Aditjondro, George J., ‘ Datang Dengan Kapal, Tidur Di Pasar, Buang Air Di Kali, Pulang Naik Pesawat’: Suatu Telaah Tentang Dampak Migrasi Suku-Suku Bangsa Dari Sulawesi Selatan Dan Tenggara Ke Irian Jaya Sejak Tahun 1962 [‘Arrived by Boat, Sleep at the Market, Defecate in the River, Go Home by Plane’: On the Impact of Migration of Groups from South and Southeast Sulawesi to Irian Jaya since 1962] (Yayasan Pengembangan Masyarakat Desa Irian Jaya, 1986)Google Scholar; Palmer, ‘Temporary Widows’.

29 Rutherford's discussion of the marketing system in Biak (an island off Papua's north coast) highlights dynamics similar to those at play in Wamena, as the ‘foreign’ (amber) merchant class becomes a focus of indigenous anxieties. Rutherford, ‘Intimacy and Alienation’.

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33 O'Brien, ‘Toward a Reconstitution of Ethnicity’; Wolf, ‘Incorporation and Identity’.

34 This explanation has been presented regarding reports of toxic tofu sold at markets in various towns in Java and Sumatra, reported in 2005 and 2006, and then again in 2011. Otniel Tamindael, ‘Formaldehyde-Laced Foods Reemerge in Indonesian Markets’, Antaranews.com, http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/74626/formaldehyde-laced-foods-reemerge, [accessed 19 December 2018].

35 True or false, this accusation echoes actual global commercial practices, such as large pharmaceutical companies’ earmarking of lower-quality batches for sale to countries in the global South.

36 The power of such circulating messages drew on a history of rumour as an important way for Papuans to share knowledge about their disempowerment. Butt, Leslie, ‘“Lipstick Girls” and “Fallen Women”: AIDS and Conspiratorial Thinking in Papua, Indonesia’, Cultural Anthropology 20, no. 3 (1 August 2005), pp. 412–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kirsch, Stuart, ‘Rumour and Other Narratives of Political Violence in West Papua’, Critique of Anthropology 22, no. 1 (1 March 2002), pp. 53–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 The fact that affordable mobile phones had recently begun to be marketed to the indigenous population was likely to have been one of the key factors that enabled the ‘poisoned foods’ uprising to take place in 2007.

38 Koalisi LSM untuk Perlindungan dan Penegakan HAM di Papua, ‘Laporan Awal: Kasus Wamena’ (Jayapura: SKP Jayapura, ELSHAM Papua, Kontras Papua, ALDP, Koalisi Perempuan Papua, Elsam Jakarta, PBHI Jakarta, 6 May 2003); Upton, ‘The Impact of Migration’.

39 Population statistics show no permanent decrease in the migrant population in Wamena, leading one researcher to conclude that most of the non-indigenous population soon returned to the region and that this was a temporary dip in in-migration. Upton, ‘The Impact of Migration’.

40 By interpreting Autonomy as a government response I do not mean to diminish the role of Papuan representatives in the negotiations that produced it. Indeed, the mass movement in the Balim and elsewhere in Papua pressured Jakarta to engage in negotiations. King, Peter, West Papua and Indonesia since Suharto: Independence, Autonomy or Chaos? (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

41 After the Indonesian takeover, missions retreated only partially from their authoritative roles in regional governance; their moral lenses remain influential across the region.

42 Hayward, Douglas, ‘From Tribal Economics to a Market-Oriented Economy’, IRIAN: Bulletin of Irian Jaya 11, no. 2–3 (1983), pp. 1–29Google Scholar. There is tension between regional Catholic and evangelical ideologies in relation to customary exchange and expenditure. Catholic missions historically valorized customary (pre-colonial) religious institutions, lending Balim Catholicism a syncretic character. It remains more common for Catholic (rather than evangelical) residents to practise customary ritual expenditure and exchange, and for participants to openly interpret such practices as having the capacity to placate ancestors and ward off negative outcomes in health, livelihoods, and horticulture. In contrast, evangelical teachings promote fear and hostility towards ancestral power and interdict customary ritual exchange and expenditure. While contrasting mission approaches colour interactions among indigenous groups today, my point here is that residual colonial scrutiny is embedded in moralizing institutions and routine consumption and exchange relations.

43 Evers and Schrader, The Moral Economy; Grijp, Paul van der, ‘Between Gifts and Commodities: Commercial Enterprise and the Trader's Dilemma on Wallis ('Uvea)’, The Contemporary Pacific 15, no. 2 (7 August 2003), pp. 277–307CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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47 Relocating the central market beyond the town limits mirrored interventions in cities elsewhere in Indonesia and worldwide. Gibbings, Sheri L., ‘Unnamed Interests and Informal Leaders: A Street Vendor Relocation in Yogyakarta City’, Indonesia 96, no. 1 (2013), pp. 151–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The creation of a new peri-urban space evoked, on a much smaller scale, the Suharto-era policy of the ‘peri-urbanization’ of Jakarta, which aimed to contain political threats associated with mass peasant migration to the city. Kusno, Abidin, ‘Peasants in Indonesia and the Politics of (Peri)Urbanization’, in Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society, (eds) Dirlik, Arif, Woodside, Alexander and Prazniak, Roxann (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2012), pp. 193–220Google Scholar. As peri-urban Wamena hosts virtually no industrial production, the labour at stake was the informal market and terminal work of indigenous women and youth.

48 A vendor encountering this transportation obstacle could still choose to sell goods at either Wouma or Sinakma markets, located closer to the town core. As these markets serve respective hinterland catchment areas, access to vending space is not automatic, whereas Jibama is understood to serve the entire Balim region.

49 Pasar kaget are found in many Indonesian towns, for instance, gathering together itinerant food stalls and other vendors on a weekly basis at certain well-frequented central sites.

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51 In the years leading up to the announcement of the new market in Wamena, indigenous Papuan women in Jayapura had organized as part of a group—SOLPAP (Solidaritas Mama-Mama Pedagang Asli Papua)—to advocate for the construction of a permanent market in Jayapura city centre. This demand emerged in 2010 several years after women had been evicted from a market in the Jayapura suburb of Abepura, only to resettle as a pasar kaget beside a supermarket in downtown Jayapura. See Sophie Crocker, ‘Paying for Progress: The Marginalisation of Indigenous Papuan Market Women’, Down to Earth, October 2014, http://www.downtoearth-indonesia.org/story/paying-progress-marginalisation-indigenous-papuan-market-women, [accessed 19 December 2018].

52 Islami Adisubrata, ‘Habiskan Dana 34 Miliar Lebih, Pasar Tradisional Potikelek Akhirnya Diresmikan [Using up over 34 Billion in Funds, Potikelek Traditional Market Finally Unveiled]’, JUBI, Jujur Bicara Papua, 24 February 2015, http://tabloidjubi.com/16/2015/02/24/habiskan-dana-34-miliar-lebih-pasar-tradisional-potikelek-akhirnya-diresmikan/, [accessed 19 December 2018].

53 Ibid. (Translation by the author.)

54 Gandolfo, ‘Formless’.

55 Sekenyap, Elisa, ‘Pasar Tradisional OAP di Wamena Minim Pengunjung [OAP Market in Wamena has Few Visitors]’, Majalah Kemitraan GKI (blog), 1 November 2015Google Scholar, http://majalahkemitraangki.blogspot.ca/2015/11/pasar-tradisional-oap-di-wamena-minim.html?view=magazine&m=1, [accessed 19 December 2018].

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59 Collins, The Politics of Value.

60 Gandolfo, ‘Formless’.

61 See, for example, Dove, ‘Rice-Eating Rubber’.