Besedin Egor

The situation of the inhabitants of Indonesian Papua in the 1960s - 2000s through the eyes of eyewitnesses

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2025, №4(69), 327-339

 
Annotation: This article investigates how indigenous Papuans perceived Indonesian governance in the western part of New Guinea from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Using a critical reading of five sets of ego-documents (personal memoirs, oral histories of Papuan administrators, and testimonies from women and protest participants) the study reconstructs local interpretations of political authority during the period of Indonesian consolidation. The analysis demonstrates that Papuan authors consistently describe state practices in terms of disciplinary control, securitized administration, and routine coercion, which together produced an enduring sense of structural violence. Testimonies also highlight political marginalization and unequal access to economic resources, reinforcing the view of Indonesian rule as a continuation of colonial domination. At the same time, the sources reveal how Papuans articulated their own position through narratives of moral steadfastness, religious framing, internal critique, and collective trauma. By bringing together these diverse first-person accounts, the article offers a bottom-up perspective on Indonesian state power in Papua and illuminates the complex ways in which governance, identity, and violence were experienced by local communities.

Keywords: ego-documents, ethnopolitical conflict in Papua, Indonesia, structural violence, cultural trauma, economic exploitation