•  
  •  
 

Antropologi Indonesia

Abstract

This paper explores the role of narratives in (re)shaping human-environment relations as well as development agenda. This work is inspired by my research in 2017 on the traditions and daily life of the Korowai communities residing in neglected development areas in Southern Papua, Indonesia. My reflection during an architectural research tells that the Indonesian government efforts of on cultural conservation there overlap with tales of hopes and betrayals brought by development. In response to their historical disappointment, Korowai people developed a different narratives on the government, the settlement construction, tourism, and other “modern” interventions imposed on them. I argue the treehouse-related narratives employed by the current development initiatives in Korowai have contributed to continuation of cultural appropriation, the “noble savage” portrayal, and economic inequality. Drawing from the Korowai people's mythical past as tree people, ones created and maintained by external entities, I emphasize the critical importance of understanding the diverse environmental narratives for research engagement in development settings. By focusing on this particular encounter, this paper promotes a reciprocal collaborative understanding between government entities, experts, and communities in research and development engagements.

References

Alatas, S. F. H. (1977). The myth of the lazy native: A study of the image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the ideology of colonial capitalism. Frank & Cass.

Bury, J. (2005). Mining mountains: Neoliberalism, land tenure, livelihoods, and the new Peruvian mining industry in Cajamarca. Environment and Planning A, 37, 221-239.

Clifford, J. (1983). On ethnographic authority. Representations, 2, 118-146. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928386

Fairhead, J., & Leach, M. (1995). False forest history, complicit social analysis: Rethinking some West African environmental narratives. World Development, 23(6), 1023-1035. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(95)00026-9

Gow, D. D. (2002). Anthropology and development: Evil twin or moral narrative? Human Organization, 61(4), 299-313.

Grove, R. (1992). Origins of Western environmentalism. Scientific American, 267(1), 42-47.

Jepson, P. (2019). Recoverable Earth: A twenty-first-century environmental narrative. Ambio, 48(2), 123-130.

Li, T. M. (2007). The will to improve: Governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Duke University Press.

Li, T. M. (2011). Rendering society technical: Government through community and the ethnographic turn at the World Bank in Indonesia. In D. Mosse (Ed.), Adventures in Aidland: The anthropology of professionals in international development (pp. 57-80). Berghahn.

Puslitbang Pemukiman (2017). Rumah Kombay Rumah Koroway: Dari Tajuk Pohon Turun ke Kampung. Puslitbang Pemukiman: Makassar.

Stasch, R. (2014). Primitivist tourism and romantic individualism: On the values in exotic stereotypy about cultural others. Anthropological Theory, 14(2), 191-214. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499614534114

Stasch, R. (2016). Drama of otherness: “First contact” tourism in New Guinea. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(3), 7-27. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau6.3.003

Van Enk, G. J., & de Vries, L. (1997). The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their language in its cultural context. Oxford University Press.

Download

Share

COinS