Abstract
Abstract Indigenous peoples of the world, including those of Indonesia, were more potentially at risk for Covid-19, due to their being marginalized and thus their lack of access to necessary information resources. Despite being marginalized and vulnerably impacted by the pandemic, indigenous people of Indonesia had re-contextualized their indigenous strategies that enabled them to survive and even offer lessons worth considering: indigenous ecocentrism. Data on their ideas and responses to the pandemic were collected through weekly webinars, featuring representatives of indigenous people as the main speakers, personal calls, and supported by a series of fieldwork, including data on the situation before the pandemic. Their responses to the pandemic were commonly based on ecocentrism; that Covid-19 was an ecological disaster caused by human’s misconducts against humanity and human-nature relations. In response, they took responsibilities to perform eco-centric rituals, and called for a re-establishment of ecological human-nature relations to deal with Covid-19.
Highlights
Soon into the pandemic, the Indonesian government announced a national emergency due to Covid-19 on 2 March 2020; and especially those who were via free accessMaarif working with indigenous peoples were extremely concerned
They were worried as it would have been unimaginable were Covid-19 to reach indigenous peoples. Were they well-informed that the indigenous peoples of the world were potentially more at risk of being infected by Covid-19 – due to their being marginalized and having a lack of access to necessary resources,1 but they had witnessed that most indigenous people of Indonesia were still struggling to obtain state recognition along with their civil and political rights, as well as economic and cultural rights
In December 2020, the ninth month of the pandemic, the two organizations reported none of their members positive or infected by Covid-19. Some of their members informed in webinars that they had even been involved in community services helping those of their fellow citizens: the non-indigenous peoples or non-followers of indigenous religions infected by Covid-19
Summary
The Indonesian government announced a national emergency due to Covid-19 on 2 March 2020; and especially those who were via free accessMaarif working with indigenous peoples were extremely concerned. Some of their members informed in webinars that they had even been involved in community services helping those of their fellow citizens: the non-indigenous peoples or non-followers of indigenous religions infected by Covid-19.
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