A study of an Indonesian migration program has found second-generation migrants tended to become dominant players in their adopted farming area by being able to negotiate ‘both worlds’ but the system had elements of colonialism.
The research, by a team from The University of Western Australia, University of Sydney and Finland’s University of Turku, focused on the coffee and cocoa growing areas of Lampung province, on the island closest to Java and the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
Associate Professor Kirsten Martinus, from UWA’s School of Social Sciences, said the study looked back several decades and examined the patterns of transmigrants who passed through a country or place on their way to another place where they intended to settle.
The transmigrants, who were mostly Javanese, appeared to dominate and benefit from strong cultural links to the country’s central regions while also being embedded in the local communities their parents moved to, she said.
“Migration studies generally see migrants as belonging to a minority group which is often disadvantaged but transmigration produces a different migrant experience which is more akin to colonialism,” Associate Professor Martinus said.
“The study suggests it takes time before migrant families embed themselves in local migrant-receiving networks and that second-generation migrants were well placed to negotiate both worlds.”
Co-author Associate Professor Petr Matous, from the University of Sydney, said the study’s findings might have implications for current policies.
“The Indonesian Government is currently under the spotlight because of its proposal to move the capital to the largest island in Borneo,” Associate Professor Matous said.
“The mobilisation of thousands of government workers may change the demographics of the host communities in the surrounding areas and long after the transmigration programs end the marginalisation of the local communities may continue.”
The research paper was published in the Journal of Rural Studies.
