Global HIV Interventions and Technocratic Racism in a West Papuan NGO

ABSTRACT

In the era of scale up, global donor-driven HIV activities are transforming NGO work by demanding administrative, technical, and data-oriented activities. Drawing on interviews and participant observation in an NGO in the West Papuan city of Manokwari between 2011 and 2014, I attempt to understand why Indigenous Papuan NGO employees were steadily replaced by non-Indigenous migrant settlers, mainly of Javanese heritage, to deliver HIV services. I show that new rivalries, technical roles, performance targets and efficiency rhetoric intersected with existing racialization to produce a preference for Javanese employees, who were assumed to be more compliant and professional than their Papuan counterparts and to operate more easily within the technocratic regime imposed by donor expectations. I use the term technocratic racism to describe the way that global HIV rationalities intersect with ethnic stereotypes and gendered racial ideas to make possible certain HIV workers and not others. I contribute to anthropological literature on the delivery of HIV services by showing how a technocratic approach to HIV/AIDS intervention intersects with a settler-colonial context to gradually exclude Indigenous employees. Approaches that allow for relational, independent and flexible services would assist to decolonize HIV responses in West Papua.

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KEYWORDS:

• Indonesia
• West Papua
• health workers
• HIV services
• settler colonialism
• technocratic racism

Acknowledgments

First, I acknowledge John, his colleagues, and the people with HIV with whom they worked, who allowed me to listen to their stories and learn about their experiences. Work in West Papua presents regulatory complexities, and the legality of this work was important to avoid ramifications for myself or others. This work was made possible by a civil society strengthening initiative directed by Pacific Peoples’ Partnership, a Canadian non-profit organization. This initiative allowed me to visit and spend time with John’s NGO to understand and assist with health challenges, including how NGOs can best support Indigenous mothers with HIV. My placement was thus a development activity that required me, among other things, to speak with NGO workers, clients and others in the HIV sector. I was advised by the Indonesian embassy in Ottawa, Canada, that the correct visa for this activity was a social visit visa. This was granted to me by the Indonesian consulate in Vancouver and extended after 60 days by immigration authorities in Manokwari. This research received ethical clearance from the University of Calgary’s Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (24276). I thank Professor Emerita Lynn McIntyre who guided and supported this activity at its inception. This article benefited immensely from those who commented on earlier drafts – including Sarah Hewat, Traci Sudana, Richard Eves, and the anonymous reviewers. I appreciate the editorial guidance of Medical Anthropology’s editor Lenore Manderson and editorial assistant Victoria Team.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms. I use the term West Papua to refer to the whole western half of the island of New Guinea, which the United Nations ceded to Indonesia against Indigenous wishes by ratifying the New York Agreement 1962, pending a referendum that has not yet eventuated (Ondawame 2010; Webster 2013).

2. Since the 1960s, over 1.5 million non-Papuan migrants have settled in West Papua, initiated by Indonesia’s agendas of governance, development, administration, and military occupation. They are the majority or equal to Papuans in all the large cities.

3. Between 2005 and 2018, the urban population almost doubled from 50,000 to 96,000 and hundreds of new non-Papuan traders arrived, dominating the marketplaces, the new shopping venues, and most economic sectors (Suryawan 2011). The government designated the Arfak peoples as traditional inhabitants of the city, and their rising claims for political power and economic advancement threaten the stable Papuan-Indonesian middle classes.

4. This view was reinforced by higher-level donor employment practices. John and others pointed out that expertise was not a prerequisite for a powerful position in the HIV sector: “Like Besi, she’s the head of [a donor program] and she’s the boss, but she doesn’t speak any Indonesian. This is her first time to Papua.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Pacific Peoples’ Partnership in conjunction with Global Affairs Canada. I received additional support from a University of Calgary postdoctoral fellowship linked to Professor Lynn McIntyre’s Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair in Gender and Health. Linked activities received funding from a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Planning Grant and the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific.

Notes on contributors

Jenny Munro

Jenny Munro is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Queensland, Australia, and author of Dreams Made Small: The Education of Papuan Highlanders in Indonesia (2018). Address correspondence to: Jenny Munro, School of Social Science, Michie Building #9, University of Queensland, St. Lucia QLD Australia 4072. E-Mail: [email protected]