ABSTRACT
The genealogical project Equipped with theoretical lenses, in this chapter we will investigate the genealogy of torture that means the genesis, development, institutionalisation and perpetuation of torture in Papua. We will interrogate how in the Papuan context, torture as a form of governmentality has produced and reproduced both Indonesia as the imagined subject, and the disavowed Papuans as the abject. Inspired by Foucault (1984), the term ‘genealogy’ does not focus on tracing back historical development as a linear and singular process to find origins, the essence of things. Rather, it will help us ponder the development of multiple processes of power relations that have produced an object as it is. ‘A genealogy should be seen as a kind of attempt to emancipate historical knowledges from that subjection, to render them, that is, capable of opposition and of struggle against the coercion of a theoretical, unitary, formal and scientific discourse’ (Foucault 1980: 85). This ‘capability of opposition’ of a genealogical method refers to the Foucauldian notion of resistance as a capacity to creatively generate something new, or even to the Kristevan notion of revolt to renew ‘the life of the mind and society’ (Kristeva 2002: 85). In five stages, we will dismantle all layers of power relations that generate the co-production of the imagined subject, the abject, the dynamics of the Papuan memoria passionis, the revolt and the ways in which all these elements render an opportunity for change. First, we will explore the ways the Dutch colonial power produced and colonised the space by inscribing sovereignty over the Papuan space. Then, we will analyse torture as a mode of governance in Papua during Sukarno’s regime. Third, the analysis will be followed by an examination of the proliferation and institutionalisation of torture during Suharto’s New Order. Fourth, we will explore ambiguous and ambivalent relationships between the imagined subject of Indonesia with the abject of Papua during the reformasi era. Finally, we will identify why the networked governance of torture continues during the Special Autonomy (Otsus) period in the present day despite an opportunity for change towards the better as offered by the Papua Land of Peace framework.
