Indonesia

After emerging from the violence and chaos of the 1960s, when between 500,000 and a million Indonesians were killed in anticommunist purges, and the physical expansion of the 1970s, during which it completed the annexation of East Timor and Irian Jaya (western Papua), Indonesia under Suharto and his Golkar party was considered the economic miracle of Southeast Asia. Enjoying a dramatic increase in wealth due to the increase in oil prices in the 1970s, the Suharto state aggressively pursued growth in other sectors, including mining and timber, which expanded its reach in outlying areas including Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Irian Jaya.

At the same time, Indonesia dramatically increased its manufacturing base and its production role in the greater Asian economy; all this, in addition to population pressure in Java and the need to suppress separatist movements in many of the outlying islands, led to a radical expansion in the program of transmigrasi, or the state-driven emigration of Javanese and Balinese to less densely populated ethnic minority areas, particularly Irian, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. The articulated purpose of transmigrasi was to ease overpopulation in Java while providing opportunities for working class Javanese and much-needed labor for areas with underexploited resources.

Many in the targeted areas, however, viewed it as internal colonization and a deliberate attack on the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of Indonesia. Whatever the intention, the program did have the effect of manufacturing Javanese majorities in remote areas and aiding the exploitation of petroleum, mineral, and forest resources. Both of these trends had profound effects on the existing populations of the outer islands. In addition to dramatic ecological degradation, which in itself rendered the customary subsistence methods of many groups untenable, their religious and ritual lives came under increasing pressure by majority practices and by state regulations and programs that vigorously promoted cultural integration to Java-centered Indonesian norms. Some areas witnessed violent resistance to these pressures, but all underwent dramatic change during the time the Nelsons made their visits.