Freedom in entangled worlds: Experiences of possibility in West Papua.

摘要

This is a study of a movement for merdeka (freedom) in West Papua, the half of New Guinea that has been under Indonesian administration since 1963. Here many indigenous visionaries inhabit both historical and messianic time. Living in this dual temporality can produce concrete political victories as well as surprising dreams of futures to come. Merdeka is now. And it is about possible tomorrows. Rather than waiting for any single Messiah, many Papuans anticipate a multitude---many future events, horizons of change, and potential saviors. Even as the startling possibilities of the messianic were revealed, close Papuan associates illustrated the importance of pragmatic strategies of "collaboration" with existing regimes of domination. At the same time many hope for deliverance from the injustices of the current world order, they maneuver for rights in situations that are compromised. The revolutionary complex of ideals contained in merdeka includes, and exceeds, the modular paradigm of nationalism. In West Papua freedom dreams articulate together all manner of heterogeneous, and seemingly contradictory, elements: hopes for capitalist wealth, socialist equality, human rights, Christian salvation, and indigenous sovereignty. At times the movement has taken on the form of the rhizome---burrowing and evading detection underground. Other conjunctures produced different political forms. The form of a banyan, the symbol of Indonesia's dominant political party, became a model for subverting and replicating existing structures of power.