This document provides information about a workshop on mining in Indonesia that will take place from September 20-21, 2015. The workshop will examine how decentralization and legal reforms have impacted communities living near mineral deposits. Papers will address the differing scales and impacts of mining activities, as well as contemporary regulatory regimes. Speakers will present case studies from various universities and organizations in Indonesia and discuss topics like resource nationalism, labour exploitation, conflicts over mining, and the social and environmental impacts of artisanal and small-scale mining.

1. MINING IN INDONESIA:
LOCAL, NATIONAL AND GLOBAL
FRAMEWORKS
Sunday 20-Monday 21 September 2015 9.30-4,
Coombs extension Room 1.04
Does the Indonesian mining sector show impacts of the radical
economic and political shifts following the New Order in 1998?
Mining was a signature policy associated with the New Order ideology
of pembangunan and was characterised by large scale foreign
investment and abuse of human rights: of landowners and also
workers. In this period benefits from foreign mining investment
flowed to the centre. Decentralisation has led to dramatic changes in
mining investment and the entry of new investors, including an
explosion of small-scale ‘community’ mining, as well as new national
and international investors. The last three decades has also seen
important shifts in the global economy: the entry of new multinational
‘players’ (especially the so-called BRICs); and the emergence of global

2. NGOs with reach into both local communities and international
organisations
The papers in this workshop present case studies that address the
question: Have the rhetoric and practice of democratisation of the
political system, the decentralisation of political authority and the
2009 Mining Law impacted positively on the alibility of communities
living near valuable mineral deposits to benefit from mining?
Papers will address:
 Differing scales of mining activities (small scale, mid-size
investments regulated by districts; and large scale multinational
mining companies); the differential impacts on affected
communities; local political economies of mining; differing
community responses to mining.
 Contemporary regulatory regimes, associated with both
decentralization, special autonomy, the new mining law and social
and environmental protection.
The workshop is funded by an ARC Discovery Grant: Community
Rights in an Age of Footloose Capital: Mining in Decentralized
Indonesia (CI Kathryn Robinson, Anthropology CHL, ANU College of
Asian and the pacific, and Partner Investigator, Maribeth Erb,
Sociology, National University of Singapore).
Speakers Include: Nancy Peluso (Berkeley), Semiarto Aji (University
of Indonesia), Kuntalla Lahiri-Dutt (ANU), Hendrik Siregar (JATAM
Indonesia), Arianto Sangaji (York), Andrew McWilliam (ANU),
Fitrilailah Mokui (ANU), Eve Warburton (ANU), Omar Pidani (ANU),
Prof. Kathryn Robinson (ANU), Ryan Edwards (ANU), Romo Max
Regus (Erasmus)
If you are interested in attending, please register at Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/mining-in-indonesia-local-
national-and-global-frameworks-tickets-18504056130
Further information: kathryn.robinson@anu.edu.au /
omar.pidani@anu.edu.au
The workshop will be held immediately after the 2105 Indonesia
Update which is on the theme of ‘Land and development in Indonesia:
searching for the people's sovereignty.’
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/events/5918/indonesia-update-2015-
land-and-development-indonesia-searching-peoples-
sovereignty?tb=download

3. WORKSHOP PROGRAM
DAY 1
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Coffee and tea available from 9.30 AM and through the day in the
Coombs extension foyer
10.00 Welcoming Remarks
SESSION I
10.15 Eve Warburton (ANU)
Resource nationalism in Indonesia's mining industry.
10.45 Ryan Edwards (ANU)
Mining and social development in Indonesia: district-level patterns and
impacts
11.15 Arianto Sangaji (York University)
Labour exploitation in nickel mine industry in Indonesia
11.45 Q&A
12.30-13.30 Lunch
SESSION II
13.30 Maribeth Erb (NUS)
Mining talk and silences: Conflict and the possibility for development in
Eastern Indonesia
14.00 Max Regus (Erasmus)
The Age of mining: legitimacy, crisis and resistance
14.30 Kathryn Robinson (ANU)
Foreign investment in mining - an end to precarity?
15.00 Hendrik Siregar (JATAM, Indonesia)
Natural Resources is Still a Target Looting of Development
15.30 Q&A
16.00 CLOSE OF SESSIONS DAY 1
18.30 CONFERENCE DINNER

4. DAY 2
Monday, 21 September 2015
SESSION I
10.00 Nancy Peluso (Berkeley)
Agrarian transformations, territory-making, and small-scale gold mining in
West Kalimantan
10.30 Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (ANU)
Minerals, materiality and mining: Hybrid geographies of informal mining
in Indonesia
11.00 Semiarto Aji Purwanto (University of Indonesia)
The golden way: Institutionalization of illegal activities in Indonesia
Abstract
11.30 Q&A
12.00-13.00 LUNCH
SESSION I
13.00 Omar Pidani
Partnership for empowerment? : Critical assessment of the ‘mitra’ system
for small- and medium-scale gold mining in Bombana District,
SulawesiIndonesia.
14.00 Fitrilailah Mokui
Digging for “rezeki”: Health risk and ignorance in Bombana’s gold mining
14.30 Andrew McWilliam
Downstream legacies and multiplier effects: Social and environmental
impact assessments of ASM in Bombana, Southeast Sulawesi.
15.00 Q&A
15.30 Final discussiion
16.00 End of Conference

5. List of Abstracts
Erb, Maribeth (NUS)
Mining Talk and Silences: Conflict and the possibility for development in
Eastern Indonesia
Abstract
Conflicts over mining are an almost universal feature of the social landscape
where there has been an attempt to introduce mining in poorer communities as
a pathway to development. Various issues to do with support or rejection of
mining become matters which fuel potential strife among supporters and
protestors. This was pointed out by Bebbington et al, in an interesting paper
where they suggest that conflict often results in positive outcomes. This paper
will examine the various "interpretive repertoires" (Gilbert and Mulkay 1984)
associated with discourses of the pros and cons of mining in Nusa Tenggara
Timur province in Eastern Indonesia. Apart from "talk" about mining, this paper
will examine that which is "silenced", that which is feared and whispered about
in regards to conflicts over mining, that is the potential for religious conflicts to
emerge because of differing opinions about mining. This paper will examine the
unspoken and whispered anxieties which imagine the possibility of fault lines
that could destroy a community. These types of conflicts and anxieties will be
examined against the context of Bebbington et al's suggestion about the often
positive outcomes of conflict in mining communities.
Edwards, Ryan (ANU)
Mining and social development in Indonesia: district-level patterns and
impacts
Abstract
In this seminar I will present some new district-level evidence on the links
between mining and health and education in Indonesia. Using a large cross-
section of Indonesian districts in 2009 and controlling for average household
expenditures, district per capita GDP, and common province-specific factors, I
find that people in districts which are more economically dependent on mining
(i.e., a greater share of their district GDP is made up of mining and quarrying
income) are less likely to have births delivered by skilled health workers, less
likely to have their children enrolled in secondary school, and have children
attaining much lower test scores. I also find that households in mining-
dependent districts tend to invest less of their income in health and education
both in nominal terms and as a share of their income, but there is no statistically
detectable relationship between district social expenditures and mining
dependence. The second part of this seminar will be an overview of ongoing
work using “synthetic control analysis” to study the impacts of district-level
mining shocks, and some preliminary results. Synthetic control analysis is
systematic way to choose case study comparison units, allowing precise
quantitative inferences in small samples (often a single observation) so
researchers can put “qualitative flesh on quantitative bones”. To the best of my

6. knowledge, this is the first application of this approach to porous sub-national
data from a developing country.
Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala (ANU)
Minerals, materiality and mining: Hybrid geographies of informal mining
in Indonesia
Abstract
If we consider natural resources also as socially constructed, then geologies do
not become minerals in and by themselves, but are co-constituted by actors who
ascribe multiple meanings and values to them. Such a manner of thinking might
help to understand and explain the diverse array of mineral extractive practices
that are collectively known as ‘Artisanal and Small-scale Mining’ or ‘ASM’, and
that I have described as constituting a part of the, and extension of mining into,
the informal sector. It allows us also to think of minerals and mining as hybrid in
nature, leading us to engage more fully with what Appadurai and Breckenridge
(2009) outline as ‘wet theory’, in this instance of a theory of minerals and mining
that is able to accommodate messiness and contextual variations. Following this,
I will draw on my recent work (The Coal Nation 2014; ‘Beyond the land-water
binary’ 2014), to show how Indonesia’s informal mining can be explained
through the lens of hybridity.
McWilliam, Andrew (ANU)
Downstream Legacies and Multiplier Effects: Social and Environmental
Impact Assessments of ASM in Bombana, Southeast Sulawesi.
Abstract
The gold boom (and bust?) in Bombana, Southeast Sulawesi (2008-2015) offers
an exemplary demonstration of the mixed blessings and governance challenges
of ASM in Indonesia. This paper reflects on some of the initial results of applied
research undertaken in relation to the social and environmental impacts of
artisanal gold mining in the district. The research forms part of a DFAT funded
GPFD project entitled: Artisanal and small scale mining for development (eastern
Indonesia) [2014-2017]. It brings together researchers from ANU and Charles
Darwin University (CDU) in partnership with staff and students from regional
universities in eastern Indonesia (Unhalu and Undana) and local government
(esp. BLHD). The project is designed to strengthen social and environmental
impact monitoring and contribute to improvements in the governance of mining
practices across the region.
Mokui, Fitrilailah (ANU)
Digging for “Rezeki”: Health Risk and Ignorance in Bombana’s Gold Mining
Abstract
Since the gold rush in Bombana District, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia in 2008,
miners continue to participate in some unregulated activities across mining sites
for various reasons. Although they have been informed about the negative impacts
of mining, they have their own view of the health risks of ASGM activities based on

7. their own experiences. My central questions are: Why do people, in particular
women and children, in Bombana become involved in risky activities related to
ASGM? How do they perceive the health risks of their activities? What factors
shape their risk perceptions? I will be investigating how various structures, social
relations; gender relations, norms, culture and values shape the perceptions of
such risks?
The paper will focus on issues of health risk of gold mining in Bombana’s artisanal
small scale mining, I focus on local indigenous Moronene communities, especially
women and children; and try to understand how various agencies (lay people,
media, government, and experts) construct perceptions of health related risk
based on culture, social, gender and politics. I will also investigate further issues
of mercury use and environmental health related risks incouding water
contamination. The duty of care of the Bombana local government will also be
considered in relation communicating and managing the well-researched health
risks of gold mining.
Peluso, Nancy (Berkeley)
Agrarian transformations, territory-making, and small-scale gold mining in
West Kalimantan
Abstract
Through two global gold rushes, small scale gold mining has been a critical
component of agrarian transformation in western Kalimantan. In the 18th
century, gold was intimately linked to the emergent formation of the region as a
site of global capitalism, landscape transformation, and agrarian commodity
production. In the first half of this paper, I argue that gold, more than the trade in
forest products and swidden agriculture, drove the first major agrarian
transition in western Kalimantan. This pattern of transition has been turned on
its head in the recent past: since the 1990s the agrarian transition reconstituting
spatial, land, and labor relations in West Kalimantan has been one of the drivers
of extensive small scale gold mining in the province. Both cases help make the
case for a broader conceptualization of “the agrarian” that includes mining
within its purview.
In this paper, I compare the emergence, rise and decline of small-scale gold
mining in West Kalimantan, examining each period of gold mining’s ascendency
as a component of the region’s agrarian history. In both periods, though
separated by more some 200 years of colonial, post colonial, and neoliberal state
interventions, locally controlled, complex property and access mechanisms, as
well as specific forms of governance have generated and maintained the spaces
of the mines and mining sites as territories. I will explore the ways in which both
old and new practice, work, and claiming articulate with the development and
enforcement of local territorial controls that govern illegal mines in today’s
unlikely resource frontiers.

8. Pidani, Omar (ANU)
Partnership for Empowerment? : Critical Assessment of “Mitra” System for
Small and Medium Scale Gold Mining in Bombana District, Indonesia.
Abstract
The “Mitra” (literally means partner) system is a mechanism that allows residents
of villages, located adjacent to or overlapping with mining concessions, to work
within gold mining concessions under an agreed production-sharing
arrangements. Although the Indonesian Mineral Resources and Coal Law
No.4/2009 and its implementing regulations do not fully recognize these
arrangements, formal and informal mining operators in Bombana have adopt this
system which they argue, is necessary to empower (memberdayakan) local people.
In taking the case of PT. Panca Logam Makmur (PLM), the largest gold mining
business permit (Izin Usaha Pertambangan / IUP) in the district, this paper aims
to examine the “Mitra” system and the extent to which it achieves its stated
objectives of empowerment. The evidence derives from 450 direct interviews, 60
group discussions and participant observations conducted during ethnographic
field work in the village of Wumbubangka and other parts of the district over the
period of August 2014 to July 2015.
The paper begins by providing historical background of gold mining in the district
that led to the adoption of the Mitra system. It then offers a critical assessment of
the mining regulatory regime and the nominal status of the Mitra system with
particular emphasis on the use of the Mitra system by PLM.
I argue that the notion of the Mitra System as a local empowerment practice is
largely rhetorical. The arrangement is really a quasi-legal system that permits
mining elites to escape regulatory uncertainties that resulted from the new mining
law and overlapping land claims fuelled by random mining concessions allocated
by the district government. Yet, it is also a strategic approach that the district
network of power within the company and local landlord adopted to reap benefits
and avoid risks over the uneven distribution of gold deposits. The Mitra system
has widened the gap between landlords and the landless in the area, and thus may
instead contribute to increasing poverty, as access to land for livelihoods is
decreasing.
Purwanto, Semiarto Aji (University of Indonesia)
The golden way: Institutionalization of illegal activities in Indonesia
Abstract
The paper will describe how the practice of artisanal small scale gold mining in
Kalimantan, Indonesia -that mostly considered as illegal- continue to persist.
They do not have any permits issued by the government agencies; yet their
activities are openly conducted in the wide areas of gold field. The indigenous
Dayak of Central and East Kalimantan, of whom the cases are obtained, is well
known as people with a long tradition in traditional gold explorations. They take
the gold deposit out from the rivarian with traditional tools and technique, and
process it while doing swidden agriculture. The practice was enduring until the
outsiders came and interested in exploiting the gold for commerce. In line with

9. the national policies, as written in the constitution, all the mining deposit is
controlled by the state and that the explorations can be operated by a state or
private own companies.
During the Suharto’s Orde Baru, state control over natural resources was very
substantial. There is no room for the communities to easily extract the resources
even if it in their locality. Nowadays, after the reformasi, a lot of communities are
taking part in exercising the natural resources including gold mining, mostly
without any adequate plan, management and permits. Many of them labelled as
PETI or penambangan emas tanpa ijin (gold mining conducted with no permits).
Through the observations of artisanal small scale gold minings in Kereng Pangi
and Sepang (Central Kalimantan) and Kelian (East Kalimantan), I would like to
show that this can be performed because of the institutionalization of illegal
practice in gold mining. As Giddens has explained, institutionalization is related
to recurrent behaviour before it is then accepted as a norm. While permits from
the Mining Agencies are absent, the miners maintain good relations and
collaboration with other state agencies such as police, head of district and
subdistrict, and other formal agencies as well as community leaders. There is a
strong indication that this institutionalization today forms the basis of much
resource exploitation we see today.
Regus, Max (Erasmus)
The Age of Mining: legitimacy, crisis and resistance
Abstract
This paper intends to answer the main question; how can the mining industry be
explained from the perspective of sociology of development? For answering this
question, this paper focuses on the problems of the mining industry in
Manggarai, Flores Island, Eastern Indonesia. In short, the mining problems are
associated with decentralization discourse. Moreover, mining industry, in this
region, is attracting the attention of many parties in the last decade.
Furthermore, what is the most academic attention is the emergence of protest
from local actors against the presence of the mining industry.
This paper focuses on three important aspects related to the mining industry in
the last decades. First, the legitimacy of the mining industries as a form of multi-
facet process including social, cultural, legal and political; second, the crisis of the
mining, in connection with its legitimacy, is related to ‘operation’ and the
destructive impact of its activities; third, resistance/protest from local realm
mainly relate to the position and the key role of religious actors (church) in
producing resistance.
This paper is also based on research that is still in progress by using qualitative
case study. In addition, key concepts such as society, state and capital (market) to
be part of an analytical framework of this paper. This paper, then, will provide a
theoretical reflection on a discourse of development; and offers policy
implications particularly for the actors of development at the local level.
Key Words: Mining, Decentralization, Legitimation, Crisis, Protest,
Religion/Church

10. Robinson, Kathryn (ANU)
Foreign investment in mining - an end to precarity?
Abstract
Foreign investment in mining has been regarded as a pathway to economic
certainty for some local populations in Indonesia, an assumption challenged by a
nationalist mining law passed in 2009. This paper reflects on the history of the
nickel mine on Sorowako, South Sulawesi and its impact on community well-being.
How has the resilience of the indigenous population been tested and what have
they been able to achieve from this development?
Sangaji, Arianto (York)
Enclosure, Mineral extraction and Peasant struggle
Abstract
This paper offers a discussion of the ongoing process of state-led enclosure in
relation to the progressive expansion of mining industry after the introduction of
the new Mining Law, the Mineral and Coal Mining No.4 of 2009. I seek to draw
attention to the hallmark of mineral extraction that requires a highly secure access
to land and the mineral deposits below. However, the land is often tied to a complex
property rights including common and customary claims. In this respect, the state
plays a decisive role to employ ‘capitalist property’ policies on the allocation of
land and resource, excluding subsistence - and small-landholder peasants who
largely depend on the land for their livelihood. This then leads to the peasant
struggle against the enclosure. The paper examines empirically the nickel mines
in the provinces of South Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi.
Siregar, Hendrik (JATAM Indonesia)
Natural Resources is Still a Target Looting of Development
Abstract
The Jokowi government has a target of 100% electrification. The target is 35,000
MW with about 60 percent supplied from the coal. Coal production will be
encouraged to meet the needs of the plant. Demolition of forests, land grab and
environmental problems will follow along with mining operations.
There has been no significant change in the mining policies developed by SBY,
particularly on the downstream policy. From the pre-2009 Contracts of Work
(Law No.11/1967), there are approximately 3,000 mine’ permits growing rapidly
to 10,926 until 2014, after the enactment of Law No.4/2009 (the Act substitute
No.11/1967). In 2014 the anti-corruption commission KPK undertook
investigated mining permits in 12 provinces. They found that 41% (or 4,480) of
the 10,926 permits investigated did not have a tax identification number, even
though this is a legal requirement for every company.
This points to the relationship between entrepreneurs and state officials, making
development the camouflage looting natural resources.

11. Warburton, Eve (ANU)
Resource nationalism in Indonesia's mining industry
Abstract
This paper examines how politics has shaped the rise of resource nationalism in
Indonesia's mining sector. The term resource nationalism refers broadly to efforts
by state and non-state actors to exert greater government control over natural
resource sectors. The phenomenon is usually associated with commodity booms,
as high prices trigger states' efforts to increase value from their resource sectors.
But while the minerals boom is over, we are yet to see a retreat from nationalist
rhetoric or policy making in Indonesia. In this paper, I undertake a detailed
examination of nationalist interventions in Indonesia’s mining sector. More
specifically, I look at three cases associated with the 2009 Mining Law that are
consistently cited as evidence of rising resource nationalism: the government’s
decision to renegotiate foreign mining contracts, its introduction of new
divestment requirements for foreign mining companies, and a raw mineral export
ban it introduced in January 2014. These interventions eschew simple
classification as the work of myopic lawmakers or rent seeking politico-business
elites, as is often suggested in industry and scholarly analysis. In this study, I focus
on the actors promoting change, and identify their different motivating logics. I
argue there are three dimensions to resource nationalism: a broad
developmentalist dimension, where state actors increase government
intervention in resource markets to achieve a set of broad economic and industrial
goals; a political dimension, wherein political elites engage with and leverage mass
preferences for nationalist policies; and a narrow rent seeking dimension, which
captures how proponents pursue interventionist policies in order to create
opportunity for private economic gain. Each dimension captures a different
motivating logic in favour of nationalist change.