Stepchildren of progress: the political economy of development in an Indonesian mining town

Abstract

Soroako, a village In Sulawesi, Indonesia has undergone dramatic changes in the last decade as a consequence of the establishment of a foreign-owned nickel mining and processing venture. This thesis focuses on the consequences of the new development, principally in regard to the 1,000 indigenous Soroakans whose former agricultural land is now the site for the mining town. It presents an analysis of developing capitalist relations of production in the mining town, investigating changes not only in the sphere of production manifested in daily life as new forms of work, but also in culture and ideology. New ideological forms have arisen in the context of the evolving class structure. The metaphor used in the title derives from the evaluation which the Soroakans make of the new order: they are the 'stepchildren' of the progress occurring around them.