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This book examines the dynamic process of political transition and indigenous ( adat ) revival in newly decentralized Indonesia. The political transition in May 1998 set the stage for the passing of Indonesia’s framework decentralization laws. These laws include both political and technocratic efforts to devolve authority from the centre (Jakarta) to the peripheries. Contrary to expectations, enhanced public participation often takes the form of adat revivalism - a deliberate, highly contested and contingent process linked to intensified political struggles throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The author argues adat is aligned with struggles for recognition and remedial rights, including the right to autonomous governance and land. It cannot be understood in isolation, nor can it be separated from the wider world. Based on original fieldwork and using case studies from Sulawesi to illustrate the key arguments, this book provides an overview of the key analytical concepts and a concise review of relevant stages in Indonesian history. It considers struggles for rights and recognition, focusing on regulatory processes and institutional control. Finally, Tyson examines land disputes and resource conflicts. Regional and local conflicts often coalesce around forms of ethnic representation, which are constantly being renegotiated, along with resource allocations and entitlements, and efforts to preserve or reinvent cultural identities. This will be valuable reading for students and researchers in Political Studies, Development Studies, Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies and Politics. 1. Introduction 2. Critical Conjectures 3. In Search of Recognition 4. Recognition of the Seko Domain 5. Lembang Governance in Tana Toraja 6. The Nickel Project in East Luwu 7. Rubber Production in Bulukumba 8. Becoming Indigenous Adam D. Tyson is a Lecturer at the College of Law, Government and International Studies (COLGIS), University of Northern Malaysia.

The Malaysian brain drain and migration trends have become highly salient problems and the focus of numerous academic research projects and government policy studies. Building on the comparative approach to migration developed by Schiller and Caglar (2009), this paper argues that Malaysian migration discourse tends to focus on the highly skilled while overshadowing other forms of Malaysian migration. For instance, migrants are not simply Chinese-Malaysian, but rather there are multiple intersectionalities of migrants according to ethnicity, gender, age and class that must be considered. This paper also suggests that migration is insufficiently explained by conventional push and pull factors, which apply differently to different individuals and must incorporate mechanisms of migration. Finally, this paper attempts to demonstrate the increasing complexity of migration and the brain drain by contrasting the case of ASEAN scholars in Singapore with Malaysian low-skilled labour in Singapore. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Harry Roesli was a prominent member of thetradisi baru(new tradition) Indonesian artists who emerged in the 1970s, although his lifework and critical accomplishments are little known outside of Java. Roesli worked with musicians, poets, and playwrights who were committed to experimenting with traditional culture in order to address contemporary society. Three critical framing devices are used to analyze the meaning and impact of Roesli’s work: these are musical innovation, politics and censorship, and social criticism. Roesli helped shape a revival of Sundanese musical traditions during a period of rock andgamelanfusion, with the ultimate aim of inspiring a new generation of artists and political activists.

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate over Malaysia's brain drain by critically examining the role of education as well as the changing socio-economic pressures faced by younger generations. It is argued that specific features of Malaysian education and political economy, with their attendant racial fixations, are contributing to the country's brain drain. Although there is a lack of consensus about the actual economic impact of the brain drain, the Malaysian government continues to dedicate substantial amounts of time, energy and resources into 'talent' initiatives with the aim of training and retaining domestic talent, while simultaneously luring highly-skilled foreign migrants to Malaysia and enticing the diaspora to return home. Drawing on interviews and observations from public universities and the burgeoning civil society sector in Malaysia, and supplemented by content analysis of recent films and theatre performances, this paper argues that most government initiatives have been undermined by a lack of foresight attributed largely to the straightjacket of Malaysian electoral politics and perennially 'sensitive' communal relations. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

As this chapter shall demonstrate, indigeneity administration and power intersect in specific ways in newly decentralized Indonesia. The framework decentralization laws of 1999, and subsequent revisions (Laws 32/2004 and 12/2008), provide the procedural and normative basis for the revival of adat. While this can be viewed largely as a technical exercise in administrative reform, it has also prompted a surge of political activity in districts throughout Sulawesi. The right to self-govern according to historical antecedents is often thought to be a natural right based on received wisdom, although in Indonesia this must have a basis in law, which introduces the dilemma of official recognition. In pursuit of recognition, local communities (or those acting on behalf of local communities) must be represented, and political representation is by nature a contested process prompting various types of mobilizations based on disparate meanings and interpretations of adat.

In the next two chapters the politics of becoming indigenous is explored in relation to major extractive operations – Vale Inco Ltd’s nickel mining in Soroako and London Sumatra Ltd’s rubber plantation estates in Bulukumba. For the diverse groups acting in the name of adat, their struggles are located in the evolving context of decentralization and local constellations of power. Indigeneity as a selective and deliberate concept deployed in the field derives its meaning (legitimate, symbolic, substantive or otherwise) in opposition to mining and rubber companies. Internal disputes are equally salient, occurring within communities, between communities, government and companies, and among all stakeholders (both normative and derivative). The basis for remedial rights begins with legitimate grievance and ends with legal entitlement, and local politics in all its manifestations both enables and disrupts this process.