The confession of a timber baron: patterns of patronage on the Indonesian–Malaysian border

Abstract

This article explores the socio-economic significance of patronage at the edge of the Indonesian state. It argues that marginal borders and adjacent borderlands where state institutions are often weak, and state power continuously waxes and wanes, encourage the growth of non-state forms of authority based on long-standing patron–client relationships. These complex interdependencies become especially potent because of traditionally rooted patterns of respect, charismatic leadership and a heightened sense of autonomy among borderland populations. The article contends that an examination of these informal arrangements is imperative for understanding the rationale behind border people's often fluid loyalties and illicit cross-border practices, strained relationships with their nation states and divergent views of legality and illegality. The article contributes to recent anthropological studies of borders and believes that these studies could gain important insight by re-examining the concept of patronage as an analytical tool in uncovering circuits of licit and illicit exchange in borderlands.

Keywords:

• patronage
• illegality
• borders
• borderlands
• Indonesia
• South East Asia

Acknowledgements

This article is based on 30 months of field research in the Indonesian–Malaysian border region conducted during serial visits in the period from 2002 to 2011. Field research was academically sponsored by the Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, with permission from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and the Indonesian Ministry for Research and Technology (RISTEK), Jakarta. The conclusions drawn here are not necessarily those of the above agencies, the author alone being responsible.

Notes

1. The term cukong – financier, boss or entrepreneur – is often used as a negative connotation to describe Indonesian/Malaysian businessmen of Chinese descent who work in the grey zone of legality.

2. In the years after the crackdown, Apheng managed to persuade the border communities to return most of his machinery after receiving a protector's fee.