The West Papua Imagined Community: A Bondless Plural Society

Abstract

This study discusses the architecture of the society of West Papua (region) in Indonesia and explores how modernisation, democracy, and conflict shape its identity formation. The study challenges previous studies on West Papua that portray the society as homogeneous and tribal. It proposes that contemporary West Papua’s society is also characterised by multiethnicity. Further, this study suggests that a new phenomenon of a divided society is factual in West Papua, and the situation is sustained by political and economic competition among different groups. The map of the contemporary society of West Papua in this study can be used as a departure for further studies on West Papua.