This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library] On: 01 June 2014, At: 19:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Indonesia and the Malay World Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cimw20 INSULARITY AS A CULTURAL VARIABLE? THE ISLAND SOCIETIES OFF THE WEST COAST OF SUMATRA GERARD A. PERSOON & MANON OSSEWEIJER Published online: 18 Apr 2012. To cite this article: GERARD A. PERSOON & MANON OSSEWEIJER (2002) INSULARITY AS A CULTURAL VARIABLE? THE ISLAND SOCIETIES OFF THE WEST COAST OF SUMATRA, Indonesia and the Malay World, 30:88, 225-237, DOI: 10.1080/1363981022000064339 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1363981022000064339 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/ terms-and-conditions
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This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library]On: 01 June 2014, At: 19:58Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Indonesia and the Malay WorldPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cimw20
INSULARITY AS A CULTURALVARIABLE? THE ISLAND SOCIETIES OFFTHE WEST COAST OF SUMATRAGERARD A. PERSOON & MANON OSSEWEIJERPublished online: 18 Apr 2012.
To cite this article: GERARD A. PERSOON & MANON OSSEWEIJER (2002) INSULARITY AS ACULTURAL VARIABLE? THE ISLAND SOCIETIES OFF THE WEST COAST OF SUMATRA, Indonesia andthe Malay World, 30:88, 225-237, DOI: 10.1080/1363981022000064339
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1363981022000064339
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms& Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 30, No. 88, 2002 4a Carfax Publishing •Jf" Taylor&FranctSGroup
INSULARITY AS A CULTURAL VARIABLE? THE ISLAND SOCIETIES OFF THE WEST COAST OF SUMATRA
GERARD A. PERSOON1 AND MANON OSSEWEIJER2
Introduction: small islands In this contribution we present an overview of the way various disciplines have dealt with the study of islands focusing on the way anthropologists view island societies and cultures. We use the chain of islands off the west coast of Sumatra as an example. The cultures or societies of this chain of islands show remarkable differences, which are rarely put in a comparative perspective. We will briefly discuss some of these aspects and end with a number of questions that relate the social science research on islands and island societies to this chain of islands.
(Small) islands3 have been given a lot of attention in both the distant and recent past. The theoretical literature on relatively small islands is highly varied and can be classified according to its disciplinary origin. In the nineteenth century, the scientific discipline of biogeography, or the study of the facts and the patterns of species distribution, gave islands special attention. In that period, naturalists tried to explain the evolution of species and used islands to achieve more clarity. After Charles Darwin had given the initial impetus to the study of islands and how species evolved on islands, it was Alfred Russel Wallace who elaborated the theory to its full content (Wallace, 1986).
Different types of island were distinguished and what was usually stressed was that they occupy a special place because of their ecological vulnerability. On the one hand islands usually have a high degree of endemism but on the other hand threats to the resources are more likely and irreversible. Effects of disturbance are more clearly felt; regeneration is more difficult. It is particularly since island biogeography was linked to ecology (MacArthur and Wilson, 1967) that islands have become more important in environmental science (Quammen, 1997).
In environment and development studies, substantial attention has been paid to small island states and their problems. The discourse of sustainable development, too, has been linked to small island societies. In 1992, the economic and ecological vulnerabilities of small islands were highlighted during the first global conference on sustainable development and the implementation of Agenda 21. However, to what extent do small islands really form a distinctive class when environmental issues are concerned? Are islands, more than land continents, particularly vulnerable to disturbance and destruction by human activities? Or is what happens with small island societies different in degree but not in kind from what happens in changing rural societies elsewhere in the world? Perhaps islands and continents all experience the vanishing of endemic species, and replacement by new biota, but what is special about (small) islands is the impact of modem changes (Brookfield, 1990; Nietschmann, 1984 ).
Current economic approaches are less interested in environmental problems but have chosen small island development states as their object of research. Emphasis is put on
the economic vulnerability of these politically independent islands. Factors such as remoteness in relation to transport and marketplaces, problems of supply, and the impact of natural disasters on the local economy are taken into consideration. Briguglio ( 1995) gives a list of economic disadvantages related to the size of the islands: limited natural resource endowment, small domestic market and dependence on export markets, dependence on a narrow range of products, limited ability to exploit economies of scale, and problems of public administration. He also argues that the pressure on the environment arising from the process of economic development tends to be much higher than in other countries (1995: 1616-17).
In more general and multidisciplinary publications on islands, authors devote ample attention to island cultures or islanders but these studies are descriptive and usually lack theoretical and comparative orientations (see e.g. Stevenson and Talbot, 1993, and Vigne, 1997). In studies with a predominantly regional character insularity may be an outstanding characteristic, but these studies usually operate from a historical and ethnographic and not from a theoretical perspective.
In contemplating these highly varied fields of island studies, it is somewhat surprising to note the relatively limited degree of integration between the different kinds of studies. Though islands through their physical limits seem very suitable for holistic and integrative study, in practice the results achieved in these fields are limited. Disciplinary interests carry their special characteristics and in particular social and cultural studies have refrained from devoting attention to the comparative study of island societies.
Anthropology of island societies In the field of social and cultural studies, insularity is certainly an important aspect in the description of island societies, of which the numerous monographs are the witnesses. However, at the more theoretical level, little effort has been undertaken to search for common and integrative characteristics of these island societies. Within anthropology, for instance, island cultures as such occupy a very modest position in theoretical discourses. There is a dominance of theoretical interest in more specific themes such as modes of subsistence (hunting/gathering, shifting agriculture, fishing, etc.) or ethnicity (e.g. Reader, 1990). But in these kinds of studies there is rarely special attention for island cultures as a distinct category with specific characteristics. This may be attributed to the fact that efforts to relate cultural characteristics to geographical circumstances, which originated from the school of cultural ecology and cultural materialism, became highly controversial a few decades ago. Based on a number of clear examples of too simplified reasoning, which were severely criticized, geographical determinism became a suspect line of reasoning within anthropology.
In anthropology textbooks, neither insularity nor the anthropology of islands is a specific approach within the discipline. The only anthropologists, as far as we have found, who have made a start in the direction of the study of islands, are Vayda and Rappaport. They were particularly interested in the influence of insularity upon the differentiation of one culture from another, or its influence on the founding or establishment of new cultures (1979:6). They contend that island cultures provide a special opportunity for studying the role of isolation. [Perhaps that explains why so many anthropologists have been drawn to small islands to undertake fieldwork and to try and 'map a whole culture'.] In their introductory chapter to a book on the cultures of the Pacific they pose quite a few interesting questions, such as to what extent the number of people influences the spread and establishment of innovations, whether small insular
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populations are particularly receptive to outside influences, and to what extent the presence or absence of a pattern of hostilities between competing social groups within the local population plays a role herein ( 1979: 11 ).
More recently, the anthropologist McCall, based on his work on Pacific islands, has taken a different look at island societies. He is not so much preoccupied with the evolution of island cultures, but is more interested in so-called 'nissology', or the study of islands on their own terms, thus taking islands as they are and not imposing continental notions on them. Using this point of view, one will 'understand islands better, comprehend their true nature and how they are perceived by islanders themselves' (McCall, 1998). McCall opposes the economic approach of viewing small islands as dependent economies, or so called MIRAB economies, whereby migration, remittances, aid, and bureaucracy are the four major components. If one only deploys this approach, he argues, 'the picture of dependence is stressed at the expense of understanding Islander strategies' (1998:9). Instead of taking the continental view, he prefers the participants' view, which often shows that remittances for example have an affective, emotional as well as an instrumental purpose.
Other anthropologists who have taken a similar kind of approach also work on the Pacific islands (see for instance Hviding, 1996; Hau'ofa, 1993). The Indonesian islands, however, seem to have been approached differently. They appeared in monographs and other publications, but somehow insularity as such did not play an important role, either in descriptions of singular islands or in comparative studies. The latter often emphasize certain cultural aspects, which occur in the whole of the Indonesian archipelago.
In addition, judging by the enormous list of publications on the anthropology of landscape, which also refers to Indonesian societies, one would expect that islands as a form of place would have been given attention. However, there has been hardly any study on how insularity engenders a feeling for place and gives a sense of identity. Should we conclude that anthropologists in general and those specializing in Indonesia in particular (as opposed to geographers, economists, and ethnopsychologists) are not interested in insularity as a cultural variable? Let us first take a closer look at the Indonesian archipelago and in particular the islands off Sumatra's west coast.
The Indonesian archipelago Indonesia, the realm of 13,000 islands, consists of several island groups: the continental islands of the Sunda shelf (mainland south-east Asia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Bali), those of the Sahul shelf (New Guinea, Aru, Australia), and the oceanic islands of Sulawesi, Maluku, West and East Nusa Tenggara in between the two shelves. This differentiation or categorization has been particularly important where biogeography is concerned. Following Wallace's theory, it is believed that Indonesia represents an evolutionary conjunction of Asian and Australian flora and fauna species. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Wallace drew a more or less strict line between these two regions, known ever since as Wallace's line. Today, the transition is regarded as more gradual, e.g. in the western part of Indonesia flora and fauna are clearly Asian and proceeding to the east, species become more and more Australian. Although for daily life and for development-oriented studies this classification of islands seems irrelevant, for environmental concerns including nature conservation it is relevant. This is shown, for instance, in the biogeographical regions distinguished by the WWF Indonesia programme using the terms 'Sunda' (west Indonesia), 'Wallacea' (Sulawesi, West and East Nusa Tenggara, and Maluku), and 'Sahul' (New Guinea and Aru). In archaeological theory, the
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region known as Sahul is considered interesting because of the prehistoric population of and migration of peoples coming from mainland Asia (Veth and others, 1998).
Within the Indonesian context, it has always been common practice, first among colonial administrators, later also among social scientists to differentiate between the central islands of Java and Madura on the one hand, and the so-called 'outer islands' on the other. This differentiation is based on population numbers and economic importance. It also referred to the dominance of the Javanese culture and the concentration of political power on the island of Java and in Jakarta in particular. 'Javanization' of the outer islands is also a concept used to describe a form of cultural imperialism. It is imposed upon the highly diverse cultures in the outer areas.
Within the category of the outer islands it was not common to differentiate much further. What is striking in the Indonesian context is that various kinds of categorizations based on culture, language, and religions do not coincide with each other (see e.g. H. Geertz (1963), Ave (1970), Suparlan (1978), Koentjaraningrat (1983). Different criteria lead to different clusters of cultures and to our knowledge little explicit reference is made to the individual island cultures.
On account of their size, one could say there are a few major islands: Sumatra, Kalimantan (or the Indonesian part of Borneo), Sulawesi, Irian Jaya. In between these major islands, all of which have an enormous ethnic variety, and the thousands of tiny islands scattered around the archipelago, there is another interesting category of relatively small islands of a few hundred up to a few thousand square kilometres. It is this category of islands to which we would like to draw attention.
In the geography and anthropology of Indonesia there is relatively little attention to this category of islands as a special group. Of course there are numerous studies of individual islands and ethnic groups inhabiting these islands but little comparative study has been undertaken with regard to their common characteristics, their histories, and their position within the larger Indonesian context, including their development aspects. Either they are treated as individual units for description or analysis or they are taken as part of the geographical or administrative regions, e.g. islands in the Moluccan region, or islands as part of individual Sumatran provinces. They are predominantly inhabited by one particular ethnic group usually different from the population of neighbouring islands. Examples of such islands are to be found both in the west and the east of the country.
Examples of this type of island in western Indonesia are Nias, Simalur, Batu Islands, the Mentawai Islands, Enggano, Sabang, Bangka, and Island Riau (which itself consists of various smaller archipelagos). In eastern Indonesia it is mainly within the Moluccas that such examples are to be found, like Tanimbar, Kei, Aru, Babar, Halmahera, Tidore, Banda, Ceram, Buru, and the Sula Islands. There are also examples around Sulawesi (Timpaus, Buton, Tukang Besi Islands) and east of Bali, the islands belonging to the provinces of West and East Nusa Tenggara.
A common characteristic of these islands is that they are relatively abundant in natural resources4
. They are generally rich in forest and marine resources and at the same time the inhabitants live in poor circumstances. This is for instance evident from the fact that in most cases the villagers on these islands have been classified as very poo~. In many cases, the population is also classified as an isolated community (masyarakat terasing) and for that reason subject to governmental programmes in the field of 'development and civilization'. In most cases the islands form only a small part of a province of which they are a marginal part in terms of population numbers and political representation. Physical infrastructure (roads, schools, polyclinics) is usually lagging behind compared to the provincial main (is)land. There is one exception to this rule, however, and that is the
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relative contribution to the region's productivity in terms of natural resources (timber, fish and other marine products, industrial crops like copra, and cattle). 'Hot spots' of biodiversity (phrased in degrees of endemism) are also often located on these isolated islands and for that reason many of these islands enjoy the attention of national and international nature conservationists. Contributions to the region's or even the nation's economy in terms of economy and nature conservation however do not necessarily generate equivalent amounts of attention or investment in the area, or respect for its local people. These are very different domains.
It is common to describe the resource use in frontier areas in terms of wasteful practices, with a low degree of law enforcement, operating from a short time perspective and with little respect for local systems of resource use. Small islands and their surrounding coastal zone areas are usually far from the centres of political power and the enforcement of rules and regulations is weak. They are on the edge of the reach of the bureaucratic system. This often leads to conflicts with the local populations. The most common forms of resource use are mining, logging, and fishing. Companies active in these fields experience little disadvantage from the insularity of the area. Apart from some logistic and infrastructural problems that often solve themselves, the companies' presence is only of a temporary nature before moving to the next frontier area either to another site on the island or to more distant places.
The islands off the west coast of Sumatra The chain of islands off the west coast of Sumatra consists of the following islands or island groups:
In all cases they consist of one or more relatively big islands and numerous smaller ones many of which are not permanently populated. Geographically they form a chain of islands even though it is suggested that there are big differences between the islands regarding their origin. The Mentawai Islands are supposed to have been connected to the mainland of Sumatra, through Nias and the Batu Islands, while Simalur is supposed to have been separated from the mainland for at least two million years. These differences partly explain some of the similarities and differences between the islands and the mainland. Simalur and Enggano have for that reason relatively impoverished faunas (Whitten and others. 1984).
Based on the two main bibliographies by Suzuki ( 1958) and Roth ( 1985), and a quick literature search for more recent work, it has become apparent that there are big differences in ethnographic or anthropological interest in the islands. Here we would like to present a short overview of this literature and research. For the most significant references we refer to the list at the end of this special issue.
Simalur The limited amount of scientific literature on Simalur consists for the greater part of studies of the structure of the language of the island by Hans Kahler, based on his
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pre-war fieldwork. Because of the strong influence of migrants it is generally assumed that not much of the original culture is maintained.
Nias There is a relatively abundant literature on Nias on all kinds of topics. Scientific interest started already in the nineteenth century and continues to the present day. In the initial phase missionaries wrote many of the reports and publications. There has been an interest in the social structure and exchange patterns of the island, the megalithic culture, missionary activities, oral literature, architecture, settlement patterns, indigenous religion, art forms and handicraft, music, language, archaeology, clothing, and many other subjects. Relatively little attention was paid to modes of existence, the agricultural cycle or the rural economy on the island. Demographic studies are absent too. Much of the early work was written by Dutch authors but in later decades German or German Swiss have contributed a lot to the wealth of knowledge of this island. In addition there are a few authors from the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States. Marschall, Viaro, Beatty, and Feldmann are the most important present-day authors.
Batu On Batu Island, there are only very few writings of scientific interest. Most of it is focused on the culture of Nias people who settled on the islands. In general the Batu islands are considered to be part of the culture of Nias to which the islands also belong administratively. No major work has been written on the Batu islands as far we know.
Mentawai Islands Regarding the Mentawai Archipelago there is a rich literature comparable to that on Nias. Scientific interest also started in the second half of the nineteenth century and continues to the present day. In addition to the missionaries and government officials there were also quite a few natural scientists who visited the islands and who made the first inventories of the flora and fauna. Though the Mentawaian Archipelago consists of four main islands anthropological interest is mainly focused on the largest island, Siberut. Particularly during the last three decades most of the literature deals explicitly with this island. This is certainly to be attributed to the fact that Siberut is the most traditional island of the group with a large part still covered by rainforest. For that reason it has also attracted tourism and the interest of nature conservationists. Just as in the case of Protestant missionaries on Nias, Italian Catholic missionaries have contributed too to the literature on the Mentawaian Islands. Almost all aspects of Mentawaian culture are covered, including kinship, material culture, traditional religion and ritual, architecture, music, modes of resource use, processes of change, oral literature, history, missionary activities, and government interventions. A number of specialized publications were written within the framework of some development and nature conservation projects (World Wide Fund for Nature, Asian Development Bank, Conservation International, and UNESCO). The authors of the anthropological publications originate from mainly Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Australia. Recently a few publications by Indonesian authors were published. Schefold is the most important author on the culture of Mentawai and Siberut in particular. In addition to the scientific publications mention should also be made of the relatively large number of documentary films that were made on Siberut and that were broadcast in most of the Western countries. Most of them picture the island as an area where a traditional and colourful culture still survives.
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Enggano The literature about this island is of a different nature. Again there are a number of studies on the language and oral tradition. However because the culture of Enggano has been described as a dying or disappearing culture, a lot of attention has been focused on the dramatic consequences of contacts with the outside world leading eventually to a sharp decrease in population. A number of publications try to reconstruct part of the lost culture on the island based on art objects that are kept in museums in Europe. Dutch, German, Swiss, Australian, and American authors have focused on this island. In recent years a number of Indonesian scientists have also published on Enggano. One of the unresolved issues is to what extent the people that are now described as the indigenous population of the island are the true descendants of the Engganese people. In the 1950s the indigenous people of the island were described as almost extinct (Keuning, 1955; Jaspan, 1973). It is unclear however to what extent the population might have revived or whether the people that are now classified as indigenous are already a kind of ethnic mixture.6
In Table I (p. 232-34) we have compiled statistical and descriptive characteristics of the islands.
Discussion In considering this body of literature it is striking to see on the one hand the amount of ethnographic detail that is achieved in some cases and the relative absence of attention in others. The absence of substantial studies on Simalur and the Batu Islands and the lack of studies on the southern Mentawai Islands are striking.
Apart from the bibliographies by Suzuki and Roth and apart from one or two chapters in Indonesian collective volumes on ethnic groups in the country, there are very few references to be found which really take a comparative point of view. Comparative issues, which could be related to all islands, are seldom dealt with in the books and articles. Questions related to the history and even prehistory of the islands, the striking differences in relation to population densities, demographic developments, the influence of outside interventions on the islands, variations in social structure, differences and similarities in the traditional religion, architecture, and material culture are rarely posed. And what about the differences in modes of exploitation of the natural resources: can they be attributed to the nature and abundance or scarcity of the resources themselves or are they only to be explained in cultural terms?
Another interesting question is related to the type of island people that they are: why has none of these islands a strong maritime tradition in the sense of large sailing or fishing boats suitable for long-distance travel in the open sea? Most of these island peoples were oriented towards the inland. In most cases, coastal villages and towns were only established after intervention of the colonial and Indonesian governments. This sharply contrasts them with numerous other island populations both within Indonesia and elsewhere. As far as we know these differences cannot be explained by physiographic conditions only. Extensive coral fields, tidal flats, and mangrove forests are to be found around most of the islands, but in spite of that marine resources were exploited only to a limited extent.
Are there differences in the ways the people of Simalur, Nias, or Mentawai organize or express themselves once they have left their homelands? What about their status and position in cities like Banda Aceh, Tapaktuan, Sibolga, and Padang? How do they relate
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Table 1. Overview of the islands off the west coast of Sumatra7
Size 164,139 ha 408,488 ha 123,400 ha 680,700 ha 40,260 ha
Density/km2 37 124 18 9 5
Administrative levels:
-Province Aceh N. Sumatra N. Sumatra W. Sumatra Bengkulu - Kabupaten Aceh Barat Nias Nias Mentawai9 Bengkulu U - Kecamatan 5 17 1 4 1 - Desa 101 657 (incl. 5 n.d. 40 6
urban desa)
Distribution Coastal Entire Coastal zone Entire islands Coastal of the zones island but zones population increasingly
along the coast
Missionary Islam German German Italian Italian activities and Batak Protestants Catholics, Catholics
Protestants German and and Italian Batak Prots. Catholics. Now: Ment. Now: Nias Church Church
Dominant Acehnese Batak Batak and Minangk. and Minangk. migrants Minangk. Batak
PKMT10 No No 4 project 22 project 2 project projects villages villages villages
to other ethnic groups in the provincial capitals? There is extremely little migration between the various islands and island groups. The main migrant groups come from the dominant population of the province to which the islands belong (that is Acehnese in Simalur, Batak in Nias, Minangkabau in Mentawai and Minangkabau in Enggano. In most of the islands the Chinese, who used to be a substantial community in the main harbour towns and villages, were forced to leave after 1965. They had to retreat to the provincial capitals and larger towns. Very few actually stayed. Only a number of people of mixed descent who also did not clearly identify themselves any longer as Chinese stayed on.
There are a few Nias migrants on Siberut who came here in the wake of the agarwood (gaharu) boom in the late 1980s. After the boom period (which suddenly collapsed on Siberut in early 1991, due to the Gulf War) they stayed behind and became general traders. Once in a while groups of people from Nias come to Siberut to help in the harvesting of coconuts particularly from the little islands just south of Siberut. They are said to be better tree climbers than the people from Siberut who just wait for the coconuts to fall down from the high trees.
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A few of the comparative studies that do occur in the literature are related to language (Nothofer), art forms (Marschall), migrants (Suzuki), and perceptions of souls (Leertouwer), but relatively speaking there are few in number, and comparison is a minor item in the scientific interest of the area (see bibliographies of Suzuki and Roth). Most of the studies have a high ethnographic level, providing a wealth of detail.
Many authors pay ample attention to internal or intra-cultural differences within one of the main islands or island groups. These include differences in languages between the various watersheds, differences in Nias between the northern, central and southern parts. Some authors also devote attention to the differences within the island of Siberut, or between Siberut and the southern Mentawai Islands. But these comparisons are in most cases restricted within this group and do not extend beyond one particular ethnic group. Because of the fact that these islands belong to four different provinces they are also not treated as one unit from an administrative point of view. As all four provinces are focused on the mainland, their islands and island societies are of only minor interest. The only report we have found is one in which the suitability of the area is discussed with regard to possibilities for transmigration. At that time this was still a strong line of reasoning based on politico-military considerations. Jakarta started to look at this chain of islands as a whole and not just as marginal parts of individual provinces (Esmara and others, 1983).
In addition to these questions regarding the general conditions of the islands, the anthropologist, we believe, should wonder to what extent islandness has influenced the lifestyle and identity of the islanders. One aspect of islandness can be described in terms of people's experience of insularity, such as through their isolation, their separateness, their language(s), the degree of inclusiveness and exclusiveness, their feelings of superiority and/or inferiority, and the outsider or mainlander perceptions of islands and their inhabitants. This aspect not only shapes the islanders' identity and spirit but also their economic and political choices as well as their sense of place in the world. Another aspect is based upon the genealogy of an island, or what has shaped and still is shaping an island society. This genealogy can be split into the creation of the society through successive and sometimes competing waves of colonization (migrants, adventurers, conquerors); the complex two-way traffic between the mainland (main island) and the small island, as well as temporary migration in the form of tourism. In the wake of the movement of people between islands and mainland ideologies, perceptions, and ideas spread.
Using the 'islandness' approach will give a better insight into the (environmental) economics of an island society, such as the potential of small-scale economies in a world of global markets and the possibilities (and limitations) faced by the island in transnational co-operation (Baldacchino and Milne, 2000). In addition, the approach enlightens the political ecology of an island society by focusing on problems connected to political or regional autonomy as well as the intersections between politics and policies on the one hand and the island's environment on the other.
At present island studies are being developed and gaining in scientific achievements (Hsiao and others, 2002; Royle 2001 ). Research programmes have been established at various universities in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and Asia. Internationally, UNESCO has had an island research programme running for a number of years (Ward, 1991) and through the IS ISA 11 network, scientists from various disciplines and countries seek co-operation and promote an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to island studies. Somehow, to our surprise, within this field of study little attention has been paid to Indonesia while this country seems an almost ideal case in this context. Being the
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largest island state in the world in terms of its population numbers as well as its land and sea mass, it presents an interesting field for the comparative study of island cultures, current processes of regional autonomy, identity formation, and changing patterns of resource use and distribution of its benefits. We are convinced that the development of a more explicit island perspective will yield positive results in the study of the culture, politics, and economy of Indonesia.
Centrum voor Milieukunde Programma Milieu en Ontwikkeling Universiteit Leiden Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden Postbus 9518, 2300 RA Leiden Netherlands
Notes
Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Reuvensplaats 2, 2311 BE Leiden Postbus 9515, 2300 RA Leiden Netherlands
l. Centrum voor Milieukunde, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: persoon @cml.leidenuniv .nl. 2. Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]. 3. Small islands are defined as islands with a land surface of less than 10,000 km2
(UNESCO). 4. In contrast with the general idea that small size of islands often implies poor natural resource endowment (cf Briguglio, 1995), in Indonesia many small islands are rich in natural resources. 5. For a number of years the Indonesian government has run a special development programme for poor and isolated villages, the so-called Inpres Desa Teninggal Programme (IDT). The village community obtained funds from the government in order to stimulate economic activities and investment among the local people. 6. Enggano was severely struck by the strong earthquake west of Bengkulu on 8 June 2000. According to the newspapers almost all houses and public buildings were severely damaged. It is unclear to us what has happened on Enggano since that dramatic event (Republika, 29 June 2000). 7. This overview is based on a large number of sources which are not always consistent. 8. Only the indigenous people, no migrants included. 9. Until October 1999 Mentawai was part of the kabupaten Padang Pariaman. Since that time however the islands have become a kabupaten. I 0. This PKMT (Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Masyarakat Terasing) programme refers to a special programme of the Department for Social Affairs for 'isolated groups' or tribal people. Right from the beginning of the programme most of the Mentawaians were included in this categorization but projects were only implemented on the island of Siberut. Several thousand people on Nias were classified as tribal people in 1990 and a group of 261 people on Enggano were classified as masyarakat terasing in 1995. In Simalur and the Batu Islands this programme was never implemented. 11. The International Small Islands Studies Association is an interdisciplinary network of scientists aiming to advance the study of islands and island-related matters such as insularity, resource management, culture, and the nature of island life.
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