Transmigration programs were heavily used in countries like Indonesia to move millions of people from densely populated parts of the country to rural areas. The programs were an attempt to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources.

The program has also been heavily criticized for prioritizing ethnic-minority interests. Research from the University of Sydney explores how communities that hosted transmigrants have fared in the decades after resettlement. The researchers were especially keen to understand the flow of knowledge within the communities.

Slow process

The results show a noticeable change in the composition of host communities, with the descendants of transmigrants growing to dominate the knowledge networks in the community and become extremely influential actors.

They benefit from strong cultural links to the country’s central regions and, having been born there, possess a strong embeddedness in the local communities.

“It takes a generation to integrate well into their adopted communities,” the researchers explain.

Unintended colonization

However, the macroeconomic shift in the country towards commodities exports led the government to push centralized agricultural methods, which is a process that’s more familiar to ethnic-majority people. This seemed to benefit transmigrants of the same ethnic group, which further strengthened their positions in their community.

“The native communities are now positioned at the margins of their local knowledge system. The resettlement of transmigrants in peripheral regions reportedly threatened the political power of native communities. They were potentially excluded from positions of control over authority, resources, and land,” the researchers continue.

With the Indonesian government currently considering whether to move the capital of the country to the largest island in Borneo, and therefore to force the movement of thousands of government workers, it will be interesting to see if any lessons will have been learned from past transmigration programs.

“The capital relocation strategy must consider and accommodate the local native population in light of the lessons learned from the transmigration program’s experiences decades ago,” the authors conclude.