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

Decentralisation

Small island life

Remote island communities are fighting for greater autonomy and more suitable, fair development

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

The life and death of Indonesia’s mineral export ban

President Joko Widodo speaks at a podium, with a red banner as a backdrop.

The Jokowi government’s policy shift contributes to pervasive regulatory ambiguity in Indonesia’s mining sector

Stories from Sulawesi

An elderly woman stands in a grass field in a rural dwelling, looking to the side.

The 2009 mining law and the community benefit in Sulawesi

Resource nationalism as imperialism

A worker at a mining site points to the low-hanging clouds.

Foreign investment in large-scale mining has encountered serious obstacles

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

From mother to citizen

A woman measures the height of a toddler under a tree, surrounded by other women and children. (Vita Febriany)

The New Order actively promoted citizenship of a particular kind for women

‘We are natural-born children, you are adopted’

A small wooden boat is docked on the shore, with two others in the background, in Malifut, North Halmahera. (Yefta Christiono)

Locals contest national citizenship rights in North Maluku

When ‘home’ is not home

The worn-down, wooden-plank exterior of a house, bare but for a mural of a bull on a red background - PDI-P's symbol. (Laila Kholid Alfirdaus)

Locals react coolly to ex-transmigrants who return to Java after fleeing violence elsewhere

Islam and citizenship

Speakers address Wahdah Islamiyah's members at the third 'muktamar' (congress) in Jakarta, July 2016. (Imam S/Kiblat.Net)

Organisations like Wahdah Islamiyah envision an ‘Islamic’ citizenship for Indonesia

‘I am an Indonesian citizen!’

A group of people pose smiling for someone taking a photo on their phone.

What does exercising citizenship in Indonesia's democracy look like?

Labour takes a citizenship approach

A woman tips a coin tin over another woman's open palm.

Despite the impressive activism of Pekalongan’s labour union, its political clout remains limited

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

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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.