The people of Indonesia & their culture, politics, economy and environment - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Rural Indonesia

Struggling for a job

Misinformation and lack of opportunity form disproportionate barriers for rural youth looking for work

Is education the golden plough?

Flores youth migrate for education, but are their university degrees worth the investment?

Mining – who benefits?

Two carts rest on a mining site path. The photo is taken at an angle where the path appears to be going down from left to right.

Mining law changes in decentralising Indonesia raises new challenges and opportunities for local communities

Has resource extraction reduced poverty?

A child worker pushes a wheelbarrow of harvest along in an oil palm plantation.

The benefits of more concentrated natural resources are less likely to be spread

Mining and equitable development

A car drives along a concrete road among tall crop fields.

Mining dominates East Luwu GDP but development of agriculture underpins equitable development

Small-scale mining in Central Kalimantan

A car zooms by on a road in a barren landscape.

After reformasi, Kereng Pangi, Kalimantan became the site of a gold rush

Mining the land, mining people

A mining base, with a pipe running across the foreground and some wooden structures.

Irrespective of location or commodity, peasants now compete with multinational mining companies on the mineral-rich tracts of Indonesia

Multiplier effects on the Bombana goldfields

A photo of the front of a Toyota dealership.

Benefits ripple outwards but local government struggles to regulate the process

The extractive industries in East Nusa Tenggara

Protestors hold up signs expressing anger at mining activity and exploration.

As a number of communities in East Nusa Tenggara reject mining, tourism as a resistance strategy can be equally exploitative

Church-based resistance to mining in Manggarai

In a forest clearing, a group of villagers surround a priest, listening to his sermon.

Resistance is a way of defending local people’s rights in dealing with mining policy

Mining mercury in an Indonesian periphery

A child worker in a squatting position, burning mercury amalgam while smoking a cigarette.

Improved market chain monitoring and recognition of sociocultural dynamics are important for central mercury control

Community mining in West Timor

A group of miners stand near a community manganese mine, South Central Timor.

Small-scale manganese mining supports livelihood diversity

The Floating School

A mobile school in South Sulawesi offers new horizons to young islanders

Fighting apathy, seeking engagement

Students have mixed feelings about a mandatory community service program at Indonesian universities

New law, new villages?

The new Village Law could substantially change Indonesia’s villages. Not necessarily for the better.

Creating Indonesia’s Village Law

How a law that goes against many vested interests was enacted

The myth of the harmonious village

Indonesia’s Village Law fails to provide village communities with control over their elites

New law, old bureaucracy

Taking stock after two years of village law implementation

The village head as patron

The Village Law might restore the dominance that village heads enjoyed under Suharto

Participation in Ngada

Why residents in Ngada district are exceptionally eager to take part in village meetings

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Lontar Modern Indonesia

A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar.