Ethnic identity formation in local arena of political economy in the era of decentralization (political struggle of ethnic identity in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi)

Abstract

Despite of various previous researches on local political economy have been done in Indonesia, however, there still few studies which analyze the relation between local political economy as an arena and political realities of ethnic identity. Therefore, this study is aimed to analyze the formation of ethnic identity, ethnic domination practices, forms of strategy, struggle and ethnic identity formation in the arena of local political economy. By applying qualitative research which was supported by quantitative data, research which was conducted in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi showed that the formation of ethnic identity in the arena of local political economy is individual or ethnic groups habitus, on the line of objectivication and subjectivication continuum of actors who’re interacted each other. Afterwards, liberative democration as choice of democatic system in desentralization era, open opportunity for ethnic mobilization (identity) of actors (elite) on local political economy arena. Therefore, it’s not an astonishment when practises on local political economy arena are always ethnic bias, as shown in practises of symbolic power domination, political power domination practises, and economical power domination practises. In order to sustain the power domination, actors perform a series of strategies, such as: symbolic reproduction, symbolic investment, economical invansion, discourse support, power invansion, symbolic support, symbolic penetration, resistance, discourse reproduction, strategic alliances. Thereafter perpetuating the formation formed on local political economy arena, consisting of domination formation and dominated formation. []