In the decade since the end of Suharto's New Order regime, internal displacement has been a prominent political and humanitarian issue across Indonesia. This timely and important collection examines the major cases of displacement outside Java. The editor, Eva-Lotta E. Hedman, argues that “the emergence of a new kind of person—the internally displaced—in post-Suharto Indonesia has been symptomatic not only of conflict and violence, but also . . . emblematic of the reordering of state power through processes of democratization, demilitarization, and decentralization, and the powerful effects thereof on ‘the national order of things’” (pp. 3–4).
“IDP” (internally displaced person) is a relatively recent term in Indonesian; tellingly, pengungsi is used to refer both to refugees who cross international borders and to internally displaced persons. As Hedman notes, the Madurese pengungsi demonstrate the affinity between these terms: The Indonesian government failed to acknowledge or protect their rights as citizens, placing them in a kind of “internal exile,” and the international humanitarian aid programs failed to recognize that the “needs” of Madurese were not reducible to humanitarian assistance. In the introduction, Hedman argues that “displacement, in the context of conflict and violence, has been an integral, if often overlooked, dynamic in the making of the Indonesian nation-state since Independence” (p. 7). Her chronology of instances of displacement from the revolution through the end of the New Order situates the analyses of post-Suharto displacement that follow.
In contrast to analyses that have seen IDPs in Indonesia as a consequence of various conflicts, this collection marshals a range of comparative and interdisciplinary case studies to explore the complex relationships among state power, violence, humanitarianism, and displacement. The volume promises a “new, critical perspective on the nature and direction of Indonesian postcolonial state and nation-formation” (p. 7). However, the book lacks a concluding chapter that synthesizes the diverse case studies and articulates this comprehensive alternative perspective.
John Sidel's insightful piece offers a macro view of the dynamics of displacement in Maluku and Poso. His analysis of religious pogroms uses displacement in the Freudian sense, not simply as a condition inflicted on others but as a process generated within a group as anxieties are externalized and projected onto others. In this case, anxieties about religious authority and institutions within both Christian and Muslim communities were displaced and acted out in these attacks; the violence was as much about intrareligious as interreligious tensions. Three important points follow: Violence was a means of effecting displacement, and displacement was not merely the result of violence; displacement spread violence as IDPs moved to other areas; and displacement contributed to the cessation of conflict between Christians and Muslims as boundaries and hierarchies were stabilized.
Jamie Davidson contrasts the violence that erupted in 1997 and 1999 in West Kalimantan to other cases, noting that it was neither separatist nor religious, and traces it back to the earliest period of the New Order. Davidson provides a very detailed analysis of local politics and the revitalization of ethnic identities, especially Dayak, that was facilitated by nongovernmental organizations. More analytic attention could be devoted to the relationship between the inter- and intrareligious violence that Sidel analyzes and the ethnic violence that Davidson examines.
The next three chapters examine cases of separatist violence. Geoffrey Robinson offers a detailed and well-researched account of two periods of forced displacement in East Timor, in 1975–79 and 1999, to argue that both sides deployed displacement as a strategy because control over population was key to legitimacy in the conflict. Edward Aspinall examines displacement in Aceh as the result of Indonesian military security strategies and GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or Free Aceh Movement) campaigns against Javanese transmigrants. However, this view misses the more complex use of displacement by the GAM against villagers to create an IDP problem that attracted international humanitarian attention; Robinson's point that displacement was a strategy for attaining legitimacy might be relevant here. Richard Chauvel examines armed conflicts in Papua that have led to cross-border displacement into Papua New Guinea.
The second half of the book focuses on the “lived experience of displacement.” Lorraine Aragon offers an ethnographic account of displacement in Poso and examines how the implications of “displaced” shape discussions of prior and future rights. She argues that the conflict is extended by contested narrative frames that invoke issues of return. The narratives of those displaced in Poso disclose the complexity of the conflict and the diversity of those falling under the label “IDP,” as well as elucidating “the links between narratives about and by evacuees and political outcomes with regard to public accountability for violence and reparations” (p. 200). Christopher Duncan draws attention to the role of local government corruption and the movement of displaced people in extending violence through North Maluku and North Sulawesi. Helene Bouvier and Glenn Smith examine how rumor and the silencing of Madurese voices had policy consequences that extended rather than resolved displacement, underlining the value of understanding the role of conspiracy theories and rumors in structuring everyday life in the aftermath of violent conflict. Hedman's contribution on Aceh demonstrates the complexities of resolving massive displacement wrought by natural disaster in a militarized conflict zone. She draws on IDPs' narratives to disclose the importance of critical research on how government and military habits of surveillance and control constrain international humanitarian interventions. The voices of IDPs point to the complexity of questions of representation and recognition. In the volume's final chapter, Nils Bubandt examines the intersection of the “global concept of trauma” that accompanies the psychosocial programs sponsored by international interventions with local ideas of spiritual revenge in North Maluku, contributing to critical discussions of the use of “trauma” in postconflict situations.
The volume points toward, but does not offer, an overarching analysis of the politics of displacement. The case studies provide evidence of the complex politics of displacement, the need to interrogate humanitarian and evidentiary politics, and the importance of understanding local historical contexts. Hedman suggests some of the contours of a more comprehensive perspective, but does not outline it as systematically as these case studies, with all their particularity and diversity, seem to warrant. How does understanding displacement as generated by the state, as a tool of politics among contesting groups, and as construed by humanitarian agencies help us to understand the national order of things in Indonesia? Some contributors, especially Duncan and Davidson, do an excellent job of situating this issue in local politics for those familiar with the broad outlines of Indonesia's recent history. While the introduction demonstrates that displacement has been an important feature of violence and rebellion in Indonesia since independence, what is qualitatively different in the new politics of representation of displacement could be made more explicit. Answering this question would require more systematic, comparative analysis of the different kinds of displacements—whether a feature of separatist, ethnic, or religious conflict, arising in response to natural disasters, or shaped by international conflicts and interventions—and a consideration of how the dynamics of displacement have reordered state power at different times. This collection offers rich materials for reconsidering Indonesian politics, as well as for placing internal displacement in comparative perspective.
