For centuries, trading companies and colonial officials have sought to manipulate indigenous Asian kingdoms by banishing recalcitrant elites, thereby discouraging resistance and ensuring compliance. Less examined by scholars is how colonial officials adapted this tool in their efforts to manage mobility and achieve territorialisation at the turn of the twentieth century. Applying Josiah Heyman and Howard Campbell's framework of “re-territorialisation” to make sense of how states harness mobile flows for the purpose of redrawing boundaries and producing new political spaces, this article will examine Dutch strategies for incorporating the sultanate of Aceh into the Netherlands East Indies. Site of an infamous multi-decade war of insurgency and pacification between 1873 and the early 1900s, this Sumatran kingdom had long resisted imperial subjugation. Dutch authorities eventually moved to complete its elusive ambition of conquest by leveraging distance and forcibly sending Acehnese elites to “training schools” in Java. By fusing exile with pedagogy, colonial officials hoped to transform Acehnese elites into loyal servants of the colonial centre. Rancorous debates about the deposed Acehnese sultan, however, illustrated the limitations of such re-territorialisation schemes and the resiliency of alternative Asian geographies.

This article draws attention to the case of Aceh to analyse the mechanisms through which ideologically driven geographic imaginings obscured the role of place and class in colonial and anti-colonial violence in Indonesia. Its main perspective is the region's West Coast. In the course of the long and brutal Dutch-Acehnese war (1873–1942), the West Coast of Sumatra was transformed from a dynamic centre of trade, commerce, and religious renewal into a colonial frontier. Violent resistance persisted in this area as the Dutch involved themselves in and exacerbated local contestations for authority and resources. Colonial discourse worked to conceal these complexities, foregrounding an image of the West Coast as a remote, backwards, and inherently dangerous place, prone to a violent Muslim millenarianism.

The last decade has witnessed an extraordinary spate of scholarship on the ethno-communal violence that swept through Indonesia following the collapse of the Suharto regime. Yet we know very little about how these large-scale violent conflicts subsided and the patterns of post-conflict violence that have emerged since. We introduce evidence from an original dataset to show that the high violence period lasted till 2003, after which violence declined in intensity and scale. Despite this aggregate decline, we find that old conflict sites still exhibit relatively high levels of small-scale violence. We conclude that Indonesia has moved to a new, post-conflict phase where large-scale violence is infrequent, yet small-scale violence remains unabated, often taking on new forms. Finally, we propose that effective internal security interventions by the state are a key reason, although not the only reason, why large-scale violence has not emerged again despite the continued prevalence of low-level violence.

This article discusses the early modern Acehnese epic tradition to demonstrate the emergence of an individualized Muslim ethics. From the late seventeenth century onwards, a protracted decline of Acehnese royal power initiated a process of political fragmentation as well as the gradual integration of rural areas in the globalizing economy. This shift coincided with the emergence of local religious teachers as a new and influential social group. Contingent upon these changes, the Acehnese epic tradition shifted from a dominant cosmological model based on ritual hierarchies to a paradigm of reflexive ethics based on individual responsibility to God.

The Coral Triangle Initiative is an ambitious attempt to conserve the marine biodiversity hotspot known as the Coral Triangle. However, the reef fauna in many nearby regions remains poorly explored and, consequently, the focus on the Coral Triangle risks overlooking other areas of high conservation significance. One region of potential significance, Aceh, Indonesia, has not been visited by coral taxonomists since the Dutch colonial period. Here we document the species richness of scleractinian corals of Pulau Weh, Aceh. We also compare the species richness of the genus Acropora at 3–5 sites in each of nine regions in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Although dominated by widespread Indo-Pacific species, the coral fauna of Pulau Weh is also the eastern and western boundary for many Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean species, respectively. We identified a total of 133 scleractinian species, of which three have been previously recorded only in the western Indian Ocean and five are presently undescribed. The mean species richness of the Acropora at Pulau Weh is similar to regions within the Coral Triangle. This high species richness plus the high proportion of endemics suggests that the Andaman Sea is of similarly high conservation value to the Coral Triangle. We suggest that an international initiative similar to the Coral Triangle Initiative is required to conserve this region, which includes the territorial waters of six countries.

We describe the successful creation of new reef habitat on Pulau Weh, Indonesia. Coral cover on artificial reef modules increased from a mean of 24±SE 2.4% 1 year after the initial attachment of Acropora spp. coral fragments to 64±SE 4.8% after 3 years. The artificial reef modules were also rapidly colonized by coral recruits. Recruit densities were 53±SE 3.2 m−2 on modules that had been submerged for only 1 year, nearly twice as high as recruit densities on natural reef substratum (31±2.8 m−2). Consequently, the original Acropora assemblage had increased to include at least 23 coral taxa, including 10 additional Acropora species. The artificial reefs also supported at least 29 reef fish species, from 11 families. Unfortunately, this initial success in habitat creation was abruptly halted by a rapid rise in sea temperature in May 2010 that killed almost all corals on the artificial reefs and on nearby natural reefs. Notwithstanding the general view that reef rehabilitation is yet to deliver ecological and conservation benefits at meaningful scales, other benefits of this project included raising the awareness of reef conservation in the local community, promotion of tourism on Pulau Weh and job creation. We conclude, therefore, that habitat creation has a legitimate role as part of an integrated marine conservation strategy.

One of the major goals of coral reef conservation is to determine the most effective means of managing marine resources in regions where economic conditions often limit the options available. For example, no-take fishing areas can be impractical in regions where people rely heavily on reef fish for food. In this study we test whether coral reef health differed among areas with varying management practices and socio-economic conditions on Pulau Weh in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Our results show that gear restrictions, in particular prohibiting the use of nets, were successful in minimizing habitat degradation and maintaining fish biomass despite ongoing access to the fishery. Reef fish biomass and hard-coral cover were two- to eight-fold higher at sites where fishing nets were prohibited. The guiding principle of the local customary management system, Panglima Laot, is to reduce conflict among community members over access to marine resources. Consequently, conservation benefits in Aceh have arisen from a customary system that lacks a specific environmental ethic or the means for strong resource-based management. Panglima Laot includes many of the features of successful institutions, such as clearly defined membership rights and the opportunity for resource users to be involved in making, enforcing and changing the rules. Such mechanisms to reduce conflict are the key to the success of marine resource management, particularly in settings that lack resources for enforcement.

Many tropical biodiversity projects seek to combine development and conservation goals. Here, we assess the performance of a revolving fund, established by Fauna & Flora International (FFI), in delivering sustainable and equitable benefits to coastal community livelihood groups and individuals while ensuring that it did no apparent harm to the environment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 103 loan recipients to determine changes in attitude, perception and behaviour. After a 9 month preparation phase the project succeeded in changing a community view towards the fund from being overwhelmingly pessimistic to overwhelmingly optimistic and then loaned IDR 602,977,400 (USD 66,261), with near perfect repayment rates thereafter (indicating financial sustainability). Most (92%) respondents thought that the fund had been a success, mainly (56%) because it had increased their perceived daily income. Even though most (59%) of the loan recipients met with FFI staff at least once per month on average during the project, the linkages between conservation and development were only understood by some (40%). Nevertheless, understanding was highest amongst the project's main target group, fishermen. Furthermore, nearly half of all respondents said they now acted if they found people fishing with spear guns or throwing litter into the sea (a violation of customary law), indicating a positive change in behaviour. Although this study cannot unambiguously demonstrate that this change was purely due to the fund, as FFI was conducting other conservation activities, it helped to develop a strong relationship with the community and create an enabling environment for implementing this broader set of activities.

Despite dating back over 400 years the relevance of traditional fisheries management in Aceh, Indonesia, still remains high. Aceh was, however, greatly affected by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed an estimated 167,000 lives, including 14,000 fishermen and 59 of the 193 traditional marine leaders (Panglima Laot). This tragic loss of life was accompanied by a substantial loss of local knowledge, such as the locations of hazardous fishing grounds. In this study we describe an innovative project that sought to rebuild a post-tsunami fisheries sector by re-engaging and empowering the Panglima Laot. During April–June 2008 GPS (global positioning system) sounding devices were installed on 53 local fishing boats and hazardous fishing areas mapped based on local knowledge, and shared amongst fishermen. During July–December 2008 nearly five million GPS data points were collected, from which detailed bathymetric maps were produced and shared between fishermen and Aceh government officials. Significant project outputs included a map of fishing areas over 20,000 km2, which included three new seamounts, one of which expanded Aceh's provincial boundary by > 1.3 million ha, and a Panglima Laot decree that reduced fishing in hazardous areas of high coral density by 23.3%. Our findings have wide applicability. Locally, the introduction of GPS technology and sharing of traditional knowledge resulted in fishermen developing and implementing their own management strategies and demonstrating their ability to stay out of restricted areas. Provincially, this project provided a framework through which government agencies and academic institutions could effectively engage with local customary leaders and their fishing communities.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, there was a sudden rise in violent ethnic conflict in Indonesia. Two aspects that require explanation are the timing and clustering of this type of conflict historically. Other studies have not adequately explained these aspects. Methodological and thematic choices have generated problems with identifying and explaining clustering. Microlevel studies fail to account for the broader changes occurring at a macrolevel. Some researchers have chosen to broaden the scope of analysis of violent events to provide explanations of violence more generally. After reviewing these other studies, I argue that a historical institutionalist approach remains best able to explain the clustering of conflicts and the following period of stability. Changing institutional contexts at critical junctures created rising anxieties as well as opportunities to renegotiate group inclusion and status in the Indonesian state.