Understanding West Papuan’s political reaction from below amid development of agrarian capitalism

This research aims to capture the variegation of political reactions from below of West Papuans amid the development of agrarian capitalism in the region. Specifically, this research explores how social identities shape and differentiate West Papuans’ politics through three ideal types of resistance. The first typology of resistance appears to engage to a more “mundane” and “predictable” kind of reaction from below: struggle against capitalism. Despite numerous studies have attempted to depict the tendency of locals to resist capitalism, I aim to further explore the underlying factors enabling the resistance. Drawing upon two cases of indigenous communities who seek the recognition via legal avenue, this research illuminates the interplay between the state-society dimension society, examining how interactions between state actors and institutions, social classes, and movements can result in political transformations that support the demands of resistance groups. The second type engages in struggles for and within capitalism. Spanning from the demand of Indigenous landowners to be incorporated in contract-farming scheme in palm-oil plantation to the demand of fair competition among contractual workers in timber plantation, this part deals with the emergence of uncommon and under-studied response by so-called “local community” and “indigenous people” in the context of agrarian capitalism in West Papua. It explores how landed classes benefit from alliances with the environmental justice movement to advance the demand and the role of illusive inclusion as the underlying mechanism in shaping their politics. The third type of resistance outlined in this chapter involves the conflicting political reactions of pro-independence groups. By examining the alliances between the liberation groups of the armed movement and the rural classes, the chapter aims to demonstrate that the struggle against capitalism takes a unique and complex form: it is a struggle against Indonesian or foreign-perpetuated agrarian capitalism, and it is also influenced by the groups' intersection of identity as West Papuans and their classes. The research will rely on primary materials collected during fieldwork in West Papua since 2019, and will combine these with secondary data and literature.