The return of the muro: Institutional bricolage, customary institutions, and protection of the commons in Lembata Island, Nusa Tenggara

Abstract

The Lembata region is known for complex environmental conflicts between local institutions and external interests to protect endangered species such as the dugong and sperm whale. In this paper, we examine how the Tokajaeng community applies traditional rules (muro) in the face of environmental threats to the commons, such as depletion of forests and mangroves, and degradation of coral reefs. Critical Institutional Analysis is applied to examine institutional arrangements governing the commons. The approach acknowledges the complexity of institutions entwined in everyday social life, power relations that animate them, their socio-historical formation, and interplay between formal and informal institutions, as well as the convergence between modern and traditional arrangements. Fieldwork involved in-depth investigation on how the Tokajaengs create and applied rules (muro) and how they actively participated in the process of establishing new rules. We find that the muro responds reflexively to both internal and external dynamics in protecting the commons. They at once adapt to changes that threaten the commons in a way that each new threat corresponds with a new rule. Therefore, although the muro is a longstanding institution for local conservation, once suppressed for almost three decades during the New Order era, new arrangements have emerged since 2005 following political reforms in Indonesia. In the context of state efforts applying top-down conservation instruments, the muro shows the value of local institutional authority rooted in local belief systems that can take on new shapes through adaptive mechanisms. The muro therefore offers new opportunities for rethinking conservation in the Wallacea region, in ways that can actively engage local authority to devise and enforce rules to protect the environment.

Community and conservation in Wallacea: Making the case for the region, a methodological framework, and research trends

“…These three categories are helpful as part of a larger heuristic, but they are not separate from one another. As this special section clearly shows (Batiran and Salim, 2020;Sirimorok and Asfriyanto, 2020), the notion of adat as indigenous leadership can manifest as local socio-religious rules and ceremony or as part of institutions shaped and defined by colonial policies and the state. Therefore, in some cases adat complements colonial and state driven extensions, and in other cases it invokes positions and authority antithetical to state authority.…”

Placing the Commoning First: Getting Beyond the Patronage Trap in Natural Resource Decentralization Policies

“…This is essential, for example, in securing their rights, which are often aspects that remain vague or inadequately enacted. This implies that informality can eschew citizen's rights, but that citizen collective action offers an antidote, and further provides a degree of autonomy to work within policies (Sirimorok & Asfriyanto, 2020). In some cases, collective action can translate simply into taking matters into their own hands (DeVore, 2019).…”

“…Interactions between decentralization (formal state initiatives) with commoning practices (initiated by citizen groups) to negotiate for local resource management at different levels have been recorded across Indonesia. Sirimorok and Asfriyanto (2020) note how a local coastal community in East Nusa Tenggara organized participatory mapping and a series of meetings to devise rules for local resource protection and use, then negotiate with the village government to formalize resulting maps and rules. Sarmiento- Barletti and Larson (2019) reported local citizens in a regency in Kalimantan whom, among others, organized enough people to successfully perform a vote pooling to ensure that the elected local official is responsive to their demands and grievances in relation to palm oil companies operating in the regency.…”

Autonomous Change Processes in Traditional Institutions: Lessons from Innovations in Village Governance in Vanuatu

“…This paper builds on critical institutionalist analysis of the interplay between traditional and non-traditional institutions (cf. Cleaver, 2012;Cleaver and de Koning, 2015;Quimby, 2021;Sirimorok and Asfriyanto, 2020) by using institutional bricolage in relation to autonomous change processes of traditional institutions. The concept of institutional bricolage was developed for and is still predominantly used in the context of institutions for natural resource governance (Basu et al, 2015;Cleaver and de Koning, 2015).…”

“…Across many parts of the world, traditional institutions remain a cornerstone of village or community governance and the delivery of public goods (Neupert-Wentz and Müller-Crepon, 2021). Far from being static, traditional institutions are dynamic systems of rules, norms and beliefs that continuously evolve to remain relevant when faced with changes in the broader environmental, social, economic, and political context (Feola, 2017;Mowo et al, 2013;Sirimorok and Asfriyanto, 2020;Wallis, 2013;Yaro, 2013). In this paper, we adopt a critical institutionalist lens and the concept of institutional bricolage to explore mechanisms that cause the type of change we observed in traditional institutions in response to governance challenges.…”