Indigenous Papuan Research Articles

The Portrait of Noken As A Manifestation of The Existence of Papuans

The Portrait of Noken as a manifestation of the Existence of Papuans is seen from the perspective of the socio-cultural aspect, Noken, as a manifestation of the indigenous Papuan representation in its mandate, is only vague but its meaning is very deep. Its meanings can be both denotative and connotative. For example, the Noken called mesin, as a medium of transporting various types of goods, has a denotative meaning. In addition, it also has a connotative meaning, namely a person who is open and likes giving whatever he/she has in his/her Noken. The next connotative meaning is as a mother who carries the burden of life or as it is usually called ifaj uk aromat mowran (a women carrying a lot of burden), starting from the period of menstruation, conceiving, giving birth and breastfeeding, which is identical to a Noken called mesin. Unlike the case of Noken, which is called mecoi, this kind of Noken has two kinds of meanings, namely denotatively as a means of transporting goods and connotatively as a person who is closed or stingy. Both mesin and mecoi are used for reducing the amount of garbage that has been wrapped around the life of the nation and the state.

Regulating the Terminal Economy: Difference, disruption, and governance in a Papuan commercial hub

AbstractWhat kinds of governance agendas emerge at frontiers of commercial expansion, where routine economic relations traverse differences of ethnicity and degrees of formality? In the Balim Valley in the highlands of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province, mobilities and trade intersect at adjoining peri-urban markets and minivan terminals. The ‘terminal economy’ at the edges of Wamena, the region's bustling hub, is a threshold between rural and urban life, where indigenous livelihoods are subordinated to Indonesia's expanding commercial networks. Here, a cosmopolitan population—including indigenous Papuan highlanders and newcomer merchants from distant Indonesian regions—gathers to buy and sell local horticultural produce and imported commodities, transit between modes of transportation, and engage in a variety of formal and informal economic activities. This article traces the emergence of a multifaceted commercial regulation agenda, in the wake of demands for the recognition of indigenous contributions to the regional economy. It considers recent indigenous-formulated regulation policies in the context of the region's commercial history, one that is marked by a colonial devaluation of indigenous economic life and, more recently, by uprisings, inter-ethnic tensions, and government attempts to control and contain informal vending. The article conceptualizes commercial regulation as a convergence between efforts to contain disruption and demands for the revaluation of marginalized economic practices. It argues that commercial regulation is especially salient in regions that have been relegated to an end-point position in national and global commodity distribution paths.

The Arrangement of Investment Policy for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

The investment law policies have a positive influence on the interests and welfare of all Indonesian people. However, many legal problems arise due to overlapping regulations both at the central and regional government levels, and also in term of the implementation of decentralization. The results show that the arrangement of investment policy in West Papua against the recognition and respect for Papua indigenous peoples’ rights are still limited to universal policies. Nationally, the policy has not clearly revealed how the form of recognition and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and/or Papuan indigenous peoples rights related to the presence of investments in West Papua. On a regional scale, the provincial government policy in the form of regional regulations, only covers the scope of investment in West Papua, but does not fully explain how the form of recognition and respect for Papua indigenous peoples related to investment. Hence, related with the alignment of Papua indigenous peoples’ rights in the field of ideal investment arrangements in West Papua was began with the concept of Bottom-up Development Planning, by involving indigenous peoples as a whole. This concept is based on the Optimum Suitable Yield (OSY) where the amount of natural resources that can be exploited must be based on calculations from various perspectives such as biology, economics, and even socio-political perspectives.

West Papua, Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: competing logics in regional and international politics

ABSTRACTThe idea of a shared Melanesian identity has been consolidated over the last three decades or so through the most important subregional organisation in the South-West Pacific—the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The solidarity of this group has been strained over various issues from time to time, but none is as fraught as the Indonesian occupation of what is commonly known as West Papua, whose indigenous Papuan people are ethnically Melanesian. In addition to recounting the Indonesian takeover of West Papua in the context of the dynamics of decolonisation, the Cold War and early regional development, the article examines the emergence of Melanesian identity and the MSG, before considering more recent developments. These focus on a recent bid by West Papuans for MSG membership, key aspects of Indonesia's role in the Melanesian subregion, and the extent to which these developments highlight competing logics in regional and international politics.

'Forgotten': a personal comment and communiqué on West Papuan refugees.

To raise awareness of the ongoing human rights violations of the Indigenous residents of West Papua and their mental health consequences. The author, herself a refugee from West Papua, provides a summary comment from a presentation to the Leadership in Mental Health: Island Nations course, based on personal experience in West Papua and Papua New Guinea, and a telephone survey of West Papuan refugees resident in Australia. A communiqué in solidarity from all course delegates was produced and is included. Human rights violations continue in West Papua, and the plight of its indigenous residents and West Papuan refugees in Papua New Guinea and Australia are dire and should not be 'forgotten'.

Haemoglobin dynamics in Papuan and non-Papuan adults in northeast Papua, Indonesia, with acute, uncomplicated vivax or falciparum malaria

BackgroundHaemoglobin (Hb) recovers slowly in malaria and may be influenced by naturally acquired immunity. Hb recovery was compared in malaria immune, indigenous Papuan and non-Papuan adults with limited malaria exposure.MethodsHb concentrations were measured on Days (D) 0, 3, 7, and 28 in 57 Papuans and 105 non-Papuans treated with chloroquine, doxycycline or both drugs for acute, uncomplicated Plasmodium vivax (n?=?64) or Plasmodium falciparum (n?=?98).ResultsMean (SD, range) D0 Hb was 12.7 (2.2, 7–21.3) g/dL and was similar in P. falciparum infected Papuans and non-Papuans: 12.2 vs. 12.8 g/dL (P?=?0.15) but significantly lower in: (i) P. vivax-infected Papuans vs. P. vivax-infected non-Papuans: 11.4 vs. 13.47 g/dL [∆?=?−2.07 (95% CI: –3.3 – –0.8), P?=?0.0018], (ii) all patients with splenomegaly (vs. those without splenomegaly): 12.16 vs. 13.01 g/dL [∆?=?−0.85 (−1.6– –0.085), P?=?0.029], and (iii) all females vs. all males: 10.18 vs. 13.01 g/dL [∆?=?−2.82 (−3.97 – –1.67), P?<?0.0001].Multiple regression identified female sex (P?=?0.000), longer illness duration (P?=?0.015) (P. falciparum patients) and Papuan ethnicity (P?=?0.017) (P. vivax patients) as significant factors for a lower D0 Hb.Mean D28 Hb increased to 13.6 g/dL [∆?=?1.01 (0.5-1.5) vs. D0 Hb, P?=?0.0001]. It was: (i) positively correlated with the D0 Hb (adjusted R2?=?0.24, P?=?0.000), and was significantly lower in P. vivax infected Papuans vs. non-Papuans: 12.71 vs. 14.46 g/dL [∆?=?−1.7 (−2.95– –0.5, P?=?0.006).ConclusionsHaemoglobin recovery was related to baseline Hb. Vivax-infected malaria immune Papuans had persistently lower Hb concentrations compared to non-Papuans with limited malaria exposure. This haematological disadvantage remains unexplained.

The Testimony Project: Papua ed. by Charles E Farhadian (review)

Reviewed by: The Testimony Project: Papua ed. by Charles E Farhadian Eben Kirksey The Testimony Project: Papua, edited by Charles E Farhadian. Jayapura: Deiyai Press, 2007. isbn 978-979i96077-6-8; xvii + 179 pages, black-and-white photos. Paper, US$14.99. The straightforward prose used by Charles Farhadian stands as an example to all anthropologists who strive to make their source material available to people beyond restricted academic audiences. Transcripts of extended interviews with twelve [End Page 192] Papuan leaders contain stories about their religious faith, abuse by Indonesian security forces, and their resulting political struggles. These compelling narratives depict indigenous intellectuals who were forced to grapple with knotty moral problems while stuck in situations not of their own choosing. Testimony is a genre that is ripe for contemporary scholarly analysis in the Pacific, and this volume is a welcome reminder of the role individual experiences can play in revealing contemporary realities. Some of the accounts in this book are by many of my own Papuan mentors and interlocutors. Intimate biographic details, personal parables that were news to me, reveal intense experiences that shaped the moral life of these men and women who were struggling to live under a military occupation. Octovianus Mote describes violence he witnessed while he was a high school student in West Papua's capitol of Jayapura, from 1978 to 1981. "During those years," Mote recounts, "the military killed a lot of people in the gardens—like hunting wildlife. They would put the bodies in a large rice bag, with the feet of the victim showing" (104). After seeing these incidents as a teenager, Mote came "under conviction" in a process the anthropologist Susan Harding has described in The Book of Jerry Falwell as crossing "through a membrane into belief" (2000, 59). Mote became determined to help resolve longstanding political problems through tactical engagements with powerful institutions as an adult. "I tried to be a bridge between the government, churches, and parliament in West Papua, reminding them that we all were working together, that we all have the same commitments" (109). Benny Giay recounts how his imagination was captured by the teachings of foreign missionaries, even as he worked to understand the cosmologies of his own people. After advanced theological training in Manila, where he was transformed by encounters with liberation theology, Giay earned a doctorate in anthropology from Amsterdam. Returning to West Papua, after rejecting lucrative career opportunities elsewhere, he became swept up in the human rights movement. When a pastor was shot dead by Indonesian soldiers at the pulpit on Christmas Day, Giay began pushing the leadership of his church to take a stand. Gradually he began to leverage his position in the church to oppose human rights abuses and to advocate for a peaceful solution to broader political problems. Amidst Giay's account of political struggles, he also relates some of his personal struggles—offering intimate details about the relationship between politics and the contingencies of daily life. His first wife, Rukiah, died in August 1999—just as he was about to join an international team in investigating alleged crimes against humanity by the Indonesian government. The sudden onset of illness, an inconclusive diagnosis, and the timing of her death led many to conclude that Rukiah had been poisoned by government agents. "I was not at home when Rukiah died," Giay shares. "And that was very difficult for me" (32). After Rukiah's death, he temporarily withdrew from human rights advocacy [End Page 193] and political organizing to take care of his two daughters. Giay has since returned to this work and has stepped forward to lead the KINGMI church, a Protestant denomination with tens of thousands of indigenous Papuan members. The Testimony Project also contains colorful stories and surprising tales. Nicolaas Jouwe, Papua's self-styled president-in-exile, recounts that the deal to transfer West Papua to Indonesia was sealed during an intimate encounter between John F Kennedy and Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. Citing personal friends in the US State Department as sources, Jouwe reports: "In January 1961 Sukarno went to the US to see Kennedy, who was sick at the time. He had something wrong with his back...

SP5-11 Highland malaria outbreak in Homeyo District, Papua Province, Indonesia: an entomological investigation

The first highland malaria outbreak and associated deaths was reported in May 2010 from several villages in Homeyo District, Papua Province. Homeyo is 1900 M above sea level with 15–25°C...

TP53 codon 72 polymorphism in 12 populations of insular Southeast Asia and Oceania

Distribution of a single nucleotide polymorphism in the TP53 codon 72 (Arg/Pro) was studied in Southeast Asia and Oceania where information about this polymorphism was lacking. A polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism method was employed to genotype a total of 733 subjects from 12 populations in insular Southeast Asia and Oceania. These populations have been classified as either an Austronesian-speaking group or Papuan-speaking group. The p53Arg frequencies ranged from 0.06 in the Seramese to 0.62 in the Kahayan with an average frequency of 0.38. No significant correlation between the p53Arg frequency and latitude was observed in the 12 populations tested (P > 0.05), whereas a significant correlation was obtained for the relationship between frequency and longitude among 9 Austronesian or the whole 12 populations tested (P < 0.01). A longitudinal cline of the p53Arg frequencies may reflect the history of the Austronesian's migration and local admixture with indigenous Papuan speakers who had probably harbored low p53Arg frequencies.

Marginality, morality, and the nationalist impulse: Papua, the Netherlands and Indonesia: a review article. Discussie over Een daad van vrije keuze

P.J. Drooglever, Een daad van vrije keuze. De Papoea's van westelijk Nieuw-Guinea en de grenzen van het zelfbeschikkingsrecht (Amsterdam, Den Haag 2005). Marginality, morality, and the nationalist impulse: Papua, the Netherlands and Indonesia: a review articleDrooglever’s large and detailed analysis of the course of ‘West New Guinea problem’ demonstrates a mastery of sources and of the skills of synthesis, and will certainly become the definitive work on the subject. The book may be read at many levels, as a story of Dutch imperial decline and diplomatic failure, of Indonesian powerlessness, and of Papuan victimhood, as the Dutch refused to concede New Guinea, attempted to develop an indigenous Papuan political capacity, and were finally overwhelmed by a combination of Indonesian determination and the changing circumstances of international politics. The book’s greatest weakness, just like the post-war Dutch policy which is its subject, is its failure to appreciate the strength, depth and moral force of Indonesian nationalism, something reflected not only in the one-sided moral tone of the book, but also in its failure to analyse Indonesian sources and attitudes with sufficient seriousness. This review is part of the discussion forum 'Een daad van vrije keuze' (P.J. Drooglever).

The West Papua conflict and its consequences for the Island of New Guinea: Root causes and the campaign for Papua, land of peace

Large demonstrations in Papua took place on 12 August 2005, during which Papuans expressed their discontent with the failure of the government to implement the 2001 special autonomy law. Refugees will continue to leave West Papua, and discontent with Indonesian rule will continue to mount until the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous Papuan peoples are taken account of, the territory demilitarized and the human rights of the people respected. In the meantime, the efforts of West Papua's faith leaders to promote peace and prevent conflict deserve wider support and publicity. This article will highlight the twin stimuli that have led to the flow of West Papuan refugees to PNG as well as elsewhere. These, we argue, are the denial of the Papuans' right to self-determination in 1969 by Indonesia with the support of the international community, and the injustices committed against the Papuans by the Indonesian government and security forces from 1970 until today. The ongoing problems in West Papua lie in the denial of Papuans' basic human rights. We draw attention to the efforts Papuan faith leaders are making to both prevent and contain the ongoing conflict, which threatens to turn Papua into a second Aceh, as Jakarta continues to build up its military presence in the territory. The proposals for peaceful solutions put forward by peace activists will be analysed at the end of the article.