The Children in the Fisherman's Neighborhoods in the Indonesia Archipelago

• In Event: 75.042 - MTCC Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: 75.042-2 - Research for Social Justice: Multimodal Narratives of Struggles of Ethnic-Minority, Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Students in China, Indonesia, and the United States

Abstract

The study focuses on the social and historical contexts surrounding the schooling practice and educational opportunities of the children in the fisherman’ neighborhoods of three ethnic groups in Indonesia archipelago. The research explores the experiences of the children in relation to schooling and educational practices with the intent to understand those diverse children by critically analyzing the taken for granted schooling practices, educational policy rationalities, and discourses on these particular ‘marginalized’ group as being “less educated,” “unmotivated to learn,” or “less disciplined.”

Indonesia comprises of more than 17,000 islands. With two thirds of the area as sea area, Indonesia has one of the largest maritime resources in the world. Nevertheless, its fisherman population is one of the poorest (Malik, 2017). From the census for the last ten years, number of fisherman households has decreased from 1.6 millions to 800,000 households as a result of multiple factors. One of the major factors being the problematic maritime policy and resource management (Pudjiastuti cited in Dinillah, 2017). The dynamic of the fisherman families’ lives keeps changing as they navigate local, social, political challenges and the job change caused by the fish market policy and maritime resource management. Specifically, the children in these neighborhoods have unique and significant experiences in relation to education opportunities as they navigate their daily lives and work, and perform daily familial responsibilities (Saragih & Ramanta, 2009) in the midst of challenges to fisherman living conditions. Their neighborhoods usually have only one public school and sometimes they have another community or non-profit initiative program or learning center. The intricacy of those children’ experiences in these fisherman’s neighborhoods is often non-existence in the larger discussion of schooling and educational opportunities for diverse children and is under-researched (Kasworo, 2016).

The study utilizes archival texts, policy texts, the writings of the teachers who work in the fisherman’s neighborhoods, and various texts from the community and/or non-profit initiatives. This is part of a larger archival research the researcher has been pursuing on the critical history of schooling in Indonesia: the making of an educated Indonesian subject (the early national curriculum project) and indigenous education in early Indonesia. This research project also results from the researcher’s performance and artistic/choreography work with international artists on theater documentary/play performance.

Author

• Dinny Risri Aletheiani, Yale University