“Culture” as cipher: Enterprise, inequality and citizenship in highland Tanah Papua
A lecture by IIAS fellow Jacob Nerenberg in which he questions what sense it does make to identify “culture” as a reason for inequality. In Indonesia’s Papua region, claims of “non-competitive culture” provide an ideological lens to compare livelihoods of indigenous and newcomer populations. This lens disguises the issue of displacement from agrarian livelihoods in the “frontier” zones of Southeast Asia.
This lecture takes place in the IIAS conference room from 11:00 – 12:00pm Amsterdam Time (CEST); it will not be streamed or recorded.
Everyone is welcome to attend. However, we kindly ask you to register as seating is limited.
The lecture
How to interpret talk that attributes systemic inequalities to cultural characteristics? Facing conflicts and uprisings in frontier contexts around the world, some development agencies promote “indigenous empowerment” through “micro-entrepreneurship” interventions. In the highlands of the Indonesian province of Papua (also known as West Papua to supporters of the independence movement), the failures of such initiatives give rise to comments about the supposedly “uncompetitive” character of Papuan highlander culture. These empowerment programs are part of a set of regional autonomy reforms aimed at defusing pro-independence sentiment. Such programs intervene in a context of inequalities between indigenous small landholders and newcomers from other Indonesian islands, who form the local merchant and trader minority. Growing numbers of indigenous residents have left agriculture without finding coherent job markets to greet them, and in many cases relying instead on combinations of informal work and the state’s social protection mechanisms. Both supporters and opponents of Papuan independence put forward “cultural” explanations for inter-ethnic inequalities. Inter-ethnic comparison acts as a substitute for discussion of how to mobilize the labour of highlanders exiting agriculture. The promotion of “micro-entrepreneurship” as a solution to indigenous poverty, and the need to interpret its “failure”, destabilize the ideological framework of a regime of differential citizenship. “Culture” here acts as a cipher which disguises pressures on social reproduction and rationalizes the non-recognition of indigenous labour.
The speaker
Jacob Nerenberg is an economic anthropologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies. He obtained his PhD in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Toronto, and has carried out postdoctoral fellowships at York University in Toronto and at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin, where he is now an affiliated researcher. Dr. Nerenberg’s work focuses on identity and difference, transregional connections, and the political economy of development in Indonesia’s far east. He has taught at University of Toronto and Universitas Brawijaya, and his writing has appeared in Modern Asian Studies and Development and Change.
Registration (required)
Everyone is welcome to attend. We kindly ask you to register, as seating is limited, and we would like to know how many attendees we may expect.