Papua Development Paradigm

The implementation of the first 20-year phase of the Papuan special autonomy policy ended in 2021 and it is now entering the second phase (2022-2041).

Thanks to the special autonomy policy that saw the administrative proliferation of provinces and regencies, Papuan educated elites, be they professionals, scientists and academics of various educational majors have received greater opportunities for political positions as local government heads or staff who have authority and control over financial resources and others.

A dissertation by anthropologist I Ngurah Suryawan (2020) titled Siasat Kuasa, Dinamika Pemekaran di Papua Barat (strategy of power, dynamics of administrative proliferation in West Papua) shed light on the Papuan ethnographic issues of the region’s latest development. During the first 20 years of special autonomy, the economic dualism in Papua did not change with the production capitalist system of mining extraction, forestry and plantations continue to expand. Land concessions, production relations, the deployment of technology and human resources formed economic extractive enclaves under the control of urban capitalists.

What JH Boeke referred in his 1953 book Economics and Economic Policy of Dual Societies, as Exemplified by Indonesia as the theory of economic dualism in Java during colonial times is also prevalent in Papua.

The main difference is that while Javanese people could be converted into landless farmers, paid laborers and koeli (coolies) or be transferred to East Sumatra and other Dutch colonies, in Papua, the capitalists do not turn to local human resources in their exploitation of land and natural resources. Local people are deprived of the capitalist-worker social relations in their corporations.

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Of course, this has an impact on the welfare of the Papuan people, especially when the capitalism-controlled economic activities resort to using guards and coercive methods, instead of mutual consent. In turn, the residents who relied on the land and natural resources have looked elsewhere for their livelihoods by becoming permanent or circular migrants in urban areas.

In cities, they become marginalized through having to compete with other migrants from other islands who already have more established economic shares in trade, transportation, services and others, formal or informal.

There is a worry of marginalization, with the persistent social perception that traditional practices are an obstacle to development. Elements of traditional practices related to religion, community, social organization, knowledge, language, culture and livelihood are seen as necessary to be replaced by new systems from the modern world.

The traditionalism versus modernism dichotomy is a simplification of motives to make way for government projects to operate, while demeaning or ignoring traditional culture. Such transplantation practices have resulted in the citizenship alienation of local residents living in traditional communities.

The practices have caused what is conceptualized as “old societies” at odds with “new states”, according to Clifford Geertz’ Old Societies and New States: A Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa in 1963. The condition has been exacerbated by how mining, forestry and plantation corporations work through the strategy of creating enclaves of territorial control or concessions.

It is evident that in the formation of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) the corporate entity has dominated the land and natural resources by way of government policies and exploiting the natural wealth to commodities that are traded under control of capitalism beyond indigenous peoples’ imagination, shown in Ito et al’s study Power to Make Land Dispossession Acceptable: A Policy Discourse Analysis of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), Papua, Indonesia in 2014 and Zakaria et al’s 2011 study, MIFEE: Unreachable Angan Malind.

Human capability approach

After the first phase of special autonomy (2001-2021), Papua is now entering the new phase, with the central government issuing Law No. 2/2021 as an amendment to Law No. 21/2001 concerning special autonomy for the Papua province. The National Development Planning Ministry/National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) is currently preparing the master plan for the acceleration of Papuan development (RIPPP) 2022-2041.

This RIPPP plays a strategic role in the relationship between the central government and local governments and the indigenous Papuans (OAP), especially local customary communities. The formulation of RIPPP is the government’s explicit commitment and determination to ensure the OAP, particularly the customary communities, as beneficiaries of government affirmative policy. This new policy has a goal, but it can only be achieved if the implementation uses new and improved measures.

The approach and theory of human capability in Amartya Sen and Marta Nusbaum's book, Capability and Well-Being in 1983, can be used as a new conceptual reference. There are two points of presupposition. First, the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance. Second, the freedom to achieve well-being must be understood in terms of people who have the ability.

Nussbaum (2011) in the book Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach further describes the capability approach as a new theoretical paradigm in development and policy, which seeks to provide opportunities for people's capability development. To do so, it must address the question "what should people really do and be?”

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Traditional culture should not be seen as an obstacle to government-run development, but as a space, where humans, groups of communities are encouraged to achieve well-being by virtue of their social functions. This approach enables development planners to evaluate the compatibility of the social institutions rules with a view to bringing freedom to increase the ability of people and realize their functions.

At the very least, what development can do is to eliminate or reduce the obstacles to the development of human capabilities so that they can live a prosperous life. Development planning with such a human

development approach is completely different from the new geography economic development planning process, which is centered on the development of production centers for the expansion of the world capitalist economic system, as described in a 2008 World Bank document, “World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography”.

It no longer focuses on geographically regional economic development centered on the distribution of resource-based production and aggregate income combined with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at the national level, but on the liberation from various social, economic, and political barriers of individuals, social groups and communities in order to enable the development to bring well-being to the people.

Affirmations of OAP

The OAP is often identified as being of the Polynesian race, but is not uniform and homogeneous. They are diverse according to ethnic background, geographical location, language, class, gender, age, job position, religion and belief systems. Their diversity being acknowledged, the RIPPP 2022-2041 formulation has sought to affirm the OAP. With indigenous Papuans expected to be more than simply being the targeted beneficiaries of development, the formulation makes it explicit that indigenous communities living in ethnic units are the target of affirmative policy that pursues to make active in the development.

The affirmative approach also needs to be carried out with a bottom-up approach, and must side with the weakest, poorest and most marginalized, especially women, youth and children. With the validity of the RIPPP document being 20 years (2022-2041), there is an opportunity to bring about cross-generational well-being with development focusing on children and adolescents who are still in their formative period of development.

During the implementation of the special autonomy from 2001 to 2021, the beneficiaries of the special autonomy fund were mostly local governments from the provinces, regencies, districts, to village administrators. The misuse of the special autonomy fund needs to be corrected from its contribution as an addition to the central-regional financial distribution funds. This special autonomy fund must be channeled directly for and by the OAP. I propose an empowerment of social and cultural organizations to play roles in helping improve the quality of human resources for children and young people.

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Youth art organizations can function as a space for art and cultural expression, socialization of customary norms, learning centers for traditional knowledge and technology, training in joint economic efforts, the formation of new, healthy, pro-society and pro-environment development, improvement of behavior and good nutrition and a scientific and technology-based modern community.

It is really shocking how social pathology has spread and is associated with OAP behavior. Technological disruption is also a challenge in how we can protect children and teenagers from its negative impact.

Who can provide the basics of understanding how digital space and technology work, an introduction to digital literacy and ethics and reminding young people about all kinds of bad possibilities, such as internet addiction and digital crime, to being critical of how algorithms work in games, entertainment and other social media?

These youth organizations can serve as both information and learning centers through which indigenous children and youths are expected to develop themselves with knowledge, but also with strong traditional roots, without feeling inferior to their peers from outside. These youth organizations can take the form of elementary and secondary school extracurricular activities, traditional schools, reading centers or village libraries, art theatres, nature-based schools, special services for people with disabilities and school dropouts from poor families.

We need to build and knit together social reformers/innovators who have been active so far and can be relied on to develop their network in a community

This special autonomy fund needs to be allocated to drive the functioning of these youth organizations across Papua, both for infrastructure needs and activity implementation so that the learning process can run smoothly. Navigation of the operation of these organizations needs to be done by involving groups of people who have concern and passion for social organization and knowledge building, which pushes them to interact periodically and continuously.

As a community of practitioners, we need to build and knit together social reformers/innovators who have been active so far and can be relied on to develop their network in a community who become the main agents of the socio-cultural-economic-ecological changes that we hope to realize.

The community of practitioners from these youth organizations will be the bearers of a new identity as Papuan cultural reformers and sources of inspiration. They show eagerness about their involvement in tapping into the cultural and natural diversity in order to achieve well-being through their social functions they have been craving for. Isn't it the way to implementing Article 28H Paragraph 1, 18B Paragraph 2 and Article 28 I Paragraph 3 of the 1945 Constitution?

ARSIP PRIBADI

Noer Fauzi Rachman

Noer Fauzi Rachman, Lecturer of Community Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Padjadjaran

This article was translated by Musthofid.