Beyond resistance: Indigenous counter-narratives on embedded extractivism in Indonesia

This study examines Indonesia’s extractive development paradigm as both an economic model and a discursive framework through which land, nature, and Indigenous life are governed. Since the New Order era, extractivism has been embedded in state narratives of growth and modernisation, presenting resource exploitation as a national obligation and moral imperative. This discourse frames land as “idle”, forests as “state assets”, and extraction as “national development” or “progress”. These terms circulate through state institutions, corporate actors, legal-permit systems, spatial planning, and policy documents, legitimising extraction and reinforcing the state-corporate nexus while marginalising Indigenous epistemologies. Using critical discourse analysis, this study finds that extractive logic persists across regimes, often concealed by the language of progress. Beyond material dispossession, extractivism operates as epistemic and ontological violence by erasing Indigenous ways of knowing land. The study shows how Indigenous peoples, including the Dayak, Awyu, and Moi, construct counter-narratives that reframe resistance as both discursive and epistemic.