The State Does Not Govern Alone: Custom, Power, and Decolonial Local Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46507/jclp.v5i1.842Keywords:
Traditional Governance, Adat, Local Politics, Decoloniality, Epistemic JusticeAbstract
This article examines traditional governance as an epistemology of local politics in Indonesia from a decolonial perspective. Existing studies on adat and traditional authority often position traditional governance as cultural heritage, informal institutions, or supplementary mechanisms within the modern state. Such approaches tend to overlook traditional governance as a knowledge system that produces authority, legitimacy, territorial governance, ecological ethics, and collective order. Using a critical-conceptual method supported by comparative illustrative evidence from Indonesia, this article analyzes several forms of adat-based governance, including Ammatoa Kajang in South Sulawesi, Baduy in Banten, Desa Adat in Bali, adat institutions in Aceh, nagari in West Sumatra, and the national recognition of customary forests after Constitutional Court Decision No. 35/PUU-X/2012. The article argues that traditional governance in Indonesia should not be understood merely as a remnant of pre-modern authority, but as an epistemological source for rethinking local politics and governance. However, the legal recognition of adat through regional regulations, qanun, and state policies also reveals a persistent tension: adat is recognized, but often only after being translated into the legal-administrative language of the modern state. Therefore, decolonizing local politics requires moving beyond legal recognition toward epistemic justice, where adat is acknowledged not only as an object of regulation but also as a legitimate source of political knowledge and governance theory.
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