Excursion to Labuan Bajo June/July 2019
The Institute of Social Anthropology conducted an excursion to Indonesia for the second time in 2019 - this year organised by Heinzpeter Znoj, Simon Weber, Cyprianus Dale and Rahel Jud.
The archipelago state of Indonesia consists of over ten thousand islands, one of which is Flores. In Labuan Bajo, the capital of Flores, also known as the city of sunsets, the excursion group of our institute arrived on 22 June 2019.
Labuan Bajo, for a long time a quiet fishing village, has become the starting point for many tourist destinations in recent decades. This is partly due to the fact that Labuan Bajo was chosen by the Indonesian government as one of the tourism centres in the "Ten New Bali Project". This project is an initiative to establish ten new tourism centres in order to multiply the economic boom through tourism in Bali nationwide. In the city of sunsets, a lot of money has therefore been invested in the construction of shopping centres since 2016, since the launch of the project, the improvement of roads has been strongly promoted and hotels are shooting up like mushrooms. We were able to witness on site how extreme this development is: When we arrived, there were still no global chain shops; when we left, three weeks later, the first Starbucks had already opened.
This rapid development and the hasty investments have great disadvantages: The local population faces a huge environmental problem in the name of economic development, the increasing amount of waste, which leads to a drastic increase in groundwater pollution, as well as land alienation and forced evictions in the coastal areas.
During the first days of the excursion, these rapid transformation processes in the region around Labuan Bajo were our focus topic: Thus, we discussed the socio-economic changes on Flores with the local NGO Sunspirit and exchanged ideas on various research projects. We visited a fishing village in the Komodo National Park area and heard about their experiences with and concerns about the increasing tourism in the region. And we attended a lecture evening by local activists. The full-length topic: new legislation that allows land purchases by private investors and favours land expropriation.
In addition to the lively exchange, the intellectual nourishment, there was also the opportunity to get to know the regional cuisine. We dined di pasar, di warung, atau di restoran (at the market, at food stalls or in the restaurant) mie goreng, gado-gado, rendang (fried noodle dish, raw vegetables with peanut sauce, spicy beef dish) and much more.
After this time, the six students set off in groups of two by bemo, ojek atau taksi (mini-bus, motorbike taxi or taxi) to their host families in the immediate or wider surroundings of the capital - to Wae Sano, Cecer and a district of Labuan Bajo itself. There, during two and a half weeks, they had the opportunity to conduct initial short research on a topic of their own choosing. The students researched the following topics and successfully completed their research or Bachelor's theses in this context:
- Wae Sano: Joëlle Ackermann researched lived medical pluralism and the factors influencing medical decisions. Sarah Wimmer used the case study of a geothermal project to investigate the argumentation of protest movements against renewable energy production projects.
- Cecer: Belinda Bösch and Vanessa Widmer conducted field research on internal and external perceptions of the ecotourism destination Cecer and explored the concepts of authenticity and sustainability.
- Labuan Bajo: Kurt Zurfluh and Nimal Bourloud researched symbols in the context of the everyday use of public transport on Flores and analysed their underlying meaning. Their research findings can be viewed on their website, which they developed specifically for this purpose: https://sites.google.com/prod/view/bemo-et-al/
At the end of the excursion, everyone met again in Labuan Bajo to reflect on their research together. Under the latter, the military presence in the port city had increased greatly. One evening, in the glowing red of the famous sunset, the rumours were confirmed. The police drove through the streets and informed that the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo himself, would be arriving in Labuan Bajo tomorrow and warned the population to behave for the days of his presence. (Imagine the police driving through the streets of Bern and giving the population instructions on how to behave. What kind of reactions would this provoke? Anyway.) Jokowi, as he is also called, enjoyed taking a bath in the crowd on his arrival, handed out his "I love Indonesia" T-shirts in best rock star manner, and then disappeared for the next few days in the luxury hotel of a good friend, for whose opening he made the journey.
Enriched with many experiences, it was then time for us to say goodbye to Flores: our group split up, some started their journey home and the others hopped from island to island. Selamat jalan dan hati-hati!
A report by Rahel Jud
