Nusantarazation

Liberating Malaysia and Indonesia through Decolonization and Indigenization of the Societal and Environmental Paradigms

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the Nusantara Malay Archipelago’s history, the colonial legacy and the hegemony of colonial paradigms continue to dominate the present trajectories of social and political-economic realities. If this were to persist, Indonesia and Malaysia as a community of communities will continue being subjugated by these shackles of the colonial masters and can never be truly liberated to re-imagine and to realize their fullest potential based on their own mold. In this article, I examine three societal and environmental paradigms — namely the paradigm of space and property, the paradigm of knowledge, and the paradigm of development — critically examining the colonial legacies in each. I propose Nusantarazation as a discourse of decolonization and indigenization to counter the subjugating constructs by reintegrating solutions and practices from local wisdom and indigenous heritage, especially from socio-environmental ecology. In opposition to the Westphalian world-order, capitalist definitions of property, privatization and exploitation of resources, concentration of wealth, and epistemicide, I call on Nusantara perspectives of stewardship, shared spaces, commons, cultural heritage and local wisdom.