Local knowledge matters

Front matter

KHARISMA NUGROHO, FRED CARDEN, HANS ANTLOV

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS

Power, context and policymaking in Indonesia

Contents

Preface one two three

Introduction: local knowledge matters!

Knowledge in policy processes

Foreword

National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Indonesia

Indonesia is a plural nation-state made up of communities with diverse social backgrounds: ethnicity; customs; culture; language; and religion. Pluralism is the very fabric of the daily life of every Indonesian, and it is the basic capital for Indonesia to grow and develop into a strong nation. All elements of Indonesia’s plural society need to work together to build harmonious social relations, strengthen cohesion and give priority to equality — not exploit differences — in order to realise the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity).

The breadth and depth of knowledge and aspiration that emerges from local communities in Indonesia should become the basis for development policy formulation and implementation in this plural nation. Nevertheless, this has not always encouraged policy makers to a better understanding of the importance of knowledge about the local context for the planning cycle. References to policy implementation are mostly from empirical studies that often lack local context and relevance to the policy being discussed.

The mid-term evaluation of the Indonesian National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2015-2019 conducted by Bappenas in 2017 shows that two key issues that hinder the achievement of

Vil economic growth targets are low absorption of government spending and slowing private sector activity; these two are related to the structural barriers of policy implementation in technical and subnational agencies. The results imply that despite implementation failure being the main problem, knowledge about implementation is still missing and needs to be further explored. The empirical experience in implementing government flagship programmes points to the importance of taking local context into account for the success of development initiatives.

Bappenas welcomes the publication of this book because it is relevant to addressing the increasingly complex development challenges we face in Indonesia, and to building our understanding of the role of local knowledge in the critical stages of the development cycle, especially in policy formulation and implementation. This book also represents collaboration between local communities as knowledge producers, local civil society organisations as managers and crafters of knowledge and district governments as the implementers of public policies at the sub-national level. In a joint effort to strengthen knowledge-based policy processes in Indonesia, this book is a product of a partnership between the Indonesian Government and the Australian Government, which are represented by Bappenas and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

The main contribution of this book is the presentation and processing of ten case studies on the link between practical discourse and social policy; on how local knowledge is produced, communicated and used to influence the overall policy cycle. Coupled with references to the rich literature on the topic, the authors invite us to reflect on the kinds of knowledge we often use to assess the reliability of knowledge in the policy-making process. Through presentations of empirical evidence in the policy cycle in the real world, the case studies demonstrate the knowledge-to-policy process at the local level, who is involved and how local knowledge can be effective in influencing public policy-making processes.

The main hypothesis of this book is that development policies will be more effective when using a variety of sources and types vill

FOREWORD of knowledee, whether generated from academics, professionals or communities. Local knowledge is a valuable asset that contributes to national development, emphasising the close and interconnected relationship between culture and development. Development policies will be easier to implement if the local context and local knowledge are taken into consideration, because local knowledge anticipates technical feasibility, political dynamics and the socio-cultural dimension at the local level. This principle is important and highly relevant to the diverse development context in Indonesia. Bappenas hopes that this book will contribute to promoting the use of local knowledge in policy making in Indonesia.

Preface

In late 2014, KSI, the Knowledge Sector Initiative (Indonesia) hosted a research competition inviting proposals to look at cases where local knowledge had been used to influence public policy. There was an overwhelming response to the call with over 500 proposals submitted. We realised that we had hit on an untapped and under-researched area in the knowledge to policy process. We had funds for only ten projects so we chose those carefully from among the very best. They cover a wide range of subject areas and a broad range of cultural groups, political economies, and geographic regions within Indonesia.

In a one-day conference in April 2016, the researchers presented their cases to a broad audience of policy makers, researchers and civil society organisations. They made a compelling case that knowledge does not only come from the scientific studies that are carried out, but that stories of local knowledge that are well documented and well communicated also produce data that policy makers can and indeed need to use for effective implementation of policies. This was acknowledged by the Minister of the Indonesian National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), citing a positive example of the use of local knowledge in road construction in North Sulawesi. A senior bureaucrat at the conference challenged one of the research teams that they did not actually have any data to back up their findings. The team very persuasively made the case that photographs documenting local knowledge are indeed sources of knowledge: each photograph includes many data points that help us understand and communicate local knowledge in ways that can reach policy makers.

Xl

Other partners pointed towards their use of drama, songs and stories. We realised then that we had an unusual treasure: a set of cases about how local knowledge plays a role in policy processes and how it, with other forms of knowledge, can co-create policy advice. While many policy researchers and academicians note the importance of other forms of knowledge in policy processes, little has been written with actual case material, particularly in Indonesia. Hence this volume.

We are deeply indebted to the researchers and institutions who developed the cases and engaged in dialogue about them. We thank the teams from PIKUL in East Nusa Tenggara; Poros Photo, for its work in East Nusa Tenggara; PUSKA-UI, the Centre for the Study of Anthropology at the University of Indonesia, for their study in West Nusa Tenggara and West Java; PATTIRO, the Centre for Regional Studies and Information, in Central Maluku; LK3, the Institute for Islamic and Society Studies, in South Kalimantan; BIGS, the Bandung Institute for Governance Studies, for their work in Central Java; PKPM, Centre for Education and Community Studies, in Aceh; YKU, the Foundation for People’s Welfare, in Aceh; POLGOV-UGM, the Research Centre for Politics and Government at the University of Gadjah Mada, for their work in East Nusa Tenggara; and LAHA, the Institute for HIV/AIDS Advocacy, working in Southeast Sulawesi.

We especially want to thank the communities and government agencies with whom our partners engaged to complete their studies on the efforts made by those communities and government agencies to influence public policy. The process of writing the book was greatly facilitated by the clarity and level of detail in the cases that allowed us to identify the issues we present in the chapters.

We are also indebted to the participants in the conference where the researchers presented their findings. It was their interest and their responses that triggered the idea that these cases warranted more analysis and a much wider audience. We hope that our book can trigger more funding and support for looking at how all forms of knowledge can co-create better policies in support of social development, and that public officials at the national and subnational level can better appreciate citizen-generated knowledge.

XII

PREFACE

We would be remiss if we did not also express our sincere appreciation for support from Bappenas and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of the Government of Australia, who together guided the KSI project and encouraged the idea of this grant scheme and this book. And of course, we thank RTI International, the implementers of the KSI project for their support in the endeavour. We are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the manuscript in important ways. Last, but not least, we thank the editorial team at Policy Press for their encouragement and support. All remaining errors are our own.

KN, FC, HA

Bangkok, Ottawa, Jakarta 15 November 2017

XIII

ONE

Introduction: local knowledge matters!

“The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds or books on ornithologists written by birds’ (Naseem Nicholas Taleb, 2010: 77)

Indonesia, a diverse archipelago of 17,000 islands and more than 300 ethno-linguistic groups, has many rich sources of knowledge that are produced and communicated outside of formal research institutions. Local knowledge enriches policy making by providing context and improving targeting. Local knowledge channels new forms of knowledge to local policy makers. It can also revitalise traditional cultures and their expressions. However, it is easy to believe that scholarly research is more important for influencing public policy. We will suggest in this book that it is a mistake to ignore local knowledge, as it plays a key role in improving public policy at both local and national levels. Without local knowledge, science can find it difficult to influence policy. There is extensive disagreement about classifications of different types of knowledge (Agrawal, 1995; Briggs, 2005). We review and take a position on classification that focuses squarely on bringing local knowledge to the fore in policy processes. This volume seeks to identify how local knowledge has been developed and used in policy processes in Indonesia, and to situate local knowledge with other forms of knowledge that influence public policy. Our hypothesis is that the use of evidence in the public policy process will be more effective if all parts of the knowledge sector are actively engaged, and that building the functions of the knowledge sector and progressively linking them will enhance the use of high quality evidence produced and communicated by researchers, and used by policy makers. A sustainable knowledge sector! is based on research that is of high quality, is locally contextualised, and that can be used effectively in the public policy-making process. Developing policy responses to the complex social and economic challenges that Indonesia faces means that government agencies require access to increasingly sophisticated data and nuanced analysis from multiple sources to inform policy decisions. Democratisation is increasing demand from civil society for greater openness in the policy-making process, and decentralisation is providing local governments with the space to experiment with policy solutions relevant to local contexts and needs. This presents an important opportunity to integrate local knowledge in policy processes.

This volume represents an attempt to document the use of local knowledge in policy processes in Indonesia and as such we hope that it will be useful to practitioners seeking to understand and integrate local knowledge into their efforts to influence policy. In 2014, the Jakarta-based Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI)? began exploring

1 Which has usefully been defined as ‘the institutional landscape of government, private sector, and civil society organisations that provide research and analysis to the development of public policy’ (AUSAID, 2012, p iii).

The Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI) www.ksi-indonesia.org/en/home is a joint programme between the governments of Indonesia and Australia and works to improve the lives of the Indonesian people through high-quality public policies grounded in rigorous research, analysis and evidence. The KSI approach is system-wide and builds the knowledge-to-policy process by strengthening the delivery of high quality, policy-relevant research, the demand for evidence by policy makers, the ability to communicate evidence

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

local knowledge and how alternative forms of knowledge could influence and enrich public policy. We define ‘local knowledge’ as the knowledge that people in given communities or organisations have accumulated over time through direct experience and interaction with society and the environment. Local knowledge often deals with the same subject matter as scholarly research. However, local knowledge embodies different perspectives, meanings and understandings that are informed by local contexts and shaped by human interaction with the physical environment.

A competitive research grant scheme was announced in late 2014. The aim was to understand the role of local organisations in the production of local knowledge, channelling alternative knowledge to local policy makers, the mechanisms they use and the constraints and opportunities they face. The aim was to capture and promote innovation in knowledge-to-policy processes to encourage a broad range of players, a diversity of ideas, and novel means of communicating information to policy makers. Innovation was also expected in the creation of space for dialogue between coalitions of unlikely actors, on strategic public policy issues. The grant scheme targeted Indonesian civil society and community-based organisations, policy research institutes, and university-based research centres with direct experience in the use of local knowledge in public policy processes.

This current book is based on ten case studies selected competitively through this scheme from a pool of more than 500 proposals. The overwhelming response indicates the interest and demand for support for research on local knowledge. These cases were presented at a conference in Jakarta in April 2016, and subsequently turned into this book by the authors, who all worked at KSI at the time.

The ten case studies (presented in more detail in Chapters Four to Six) are listed in Table 1.1.

effectively to the policy process, and highlighting the critical barriers to the effective use of evidence in an enabling environment. All three authors worked for KSI at the time the Local Knowledge Scheme was launched.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

Introduction

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This book is based on the personal experiences and expertise of the authors, combined with knowledge gained through the ten case studies. The cases are diverse: they are from Aceh, Java, Southeast Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Kalimantan and Maluku (see Map 1.1 on page 7). They address forest management, water resources, maritime resource management, financial services, resistance to mining and other community topics. The cases represent influence in many domains. We will learn about the impact of documenting traditional forest management practices on reducing erosion, efforts to revitalise the traditional river culture, and the importance of poetry and songs in educating people on conservation and preservation.

Knowledge in policy processes

We start with a few words about what we mean by policy processes and evidence-based policy making, situating this conversation in the broader knowledge-to-policy debate (Pawson, 2006; Carden, 2009; Cartwright and Hardie, 2012). The most common depiction of this knowledge-to-policy process is as a cycle (see Figure 1.1) in which policy makers seek evidence; intermediaries — policy analysts, policy research institutes — interpret the question to researchers; if new research is needed, researchers set about producing it, otherwise they provide the intermediaries with the evidence; and the intermediaries in turn interpret it back to policy makers in ways that they can use for their specific purposes. Sometimes the connection is directly between a researcher and a policy maker, but the more common model uses intermediaries, reflecting some inability among researchers to communicate effectively with policy makers.

In reality, however, the process is not simple, nor a neat cycle. Many political, social and economic factors come into play, and there is seldom pure and direct influence of knowledge on policy. Figure 1.1 assumes that requests originate from policy makers, while researchers fulfil the requests and people with communication skills make sure that the policy makers understand so they can use the evidence. It is a model that largely ignores externalities: does the evidence interfere

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

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Figure 1.1: A simple knowledge-to-policy cycle

Policy Makers (Demand)

Intermediaries Intermediaries

Research Organisations (Supply)

with the power of the policy maker? Does it fit the values of the political party in power? Research shows that often an issue is raised through research first and then brought to the policy process, so we need to allow for a range of starting points when considering the influence of evidence on policy processes (Carden, 2009). Further, this simple model assumes a clean and simple set of relationships, when in fact there are often many actors who play a role both directly and indirectly. Intermediaries who interpret may also have evidence to present themselves; local communities have knowledge, as do bureaucrats, religious leaders and others.

While this set of complications is increasingly recognised, there is still the tendency to accept the fundamental assumption that the knowledge that influences public policy is scientific knowledge. We set out to demonstrate that this is a narrow view that ignores the realities of knowledge generation and use. Without this broader view of knowledge, scientific knowledge can fall on deaf ears. The policy process is not the neat, clean process illustrated above. Rather, it is more like the messy image shown in Figure 1.2, in which multiple actors

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

Figure 1.2: The knowledge-to-policy cycle revisited governments —

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Used with permission from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

with multiple value propositions and different bases of knowledge all interact in processes that ultimately lead to policy formulation.

This means that the role of evidence and knowledge is not just (or mainly) a technical process. In a technical process, such as building a bridge, knowledge about the construction and safety of the bridge affects the design and construction processes directly. Knowledge applied to policy processes is quite different. Instead of standing on its own merits, it must interact and compete with political values and cultural beliefs. As Parkhurst (2017: 66) notes, ‘seeing policy making as defined by competition over interests and beliefs, and conceptualising the policy process as the arena through which that competition occurs, has fundamental implications for our understanding of the politics of evidence’. He goes on to make the point that we ‘should expect to see strategic use of evidence by interest groups pursuing policy positions rather than seeing it as an aberration or somehow surprising’ (Parkhurst, 2017: 67). Knowledge is used (often selectively) to advocate positions and argue a point of view. The former head of Australias best-known government think tank calls this process ‘a maelstrom of political energy, vested interests and lobbying’ (Banks, 2009: 9). Carol Weiss referred to this as the ‘percolation’ of evidence (Weiss, 1979). As we will argue in Chapter Three, policy influence is strengthened when scientific, professional and local knowledge work together, coproducing influence.

Policy making is inextricably linked to policy implementation. In a wide-ranging review of policy implementation literature, Najam (1995) makes the point that policies are made where power resides (which could be at national, provincial or local level). And these policies are often implemented at other levels, in differing contexts and conditions. So, policy implementation is about managing the tensions between legally mandated instruments and resources and the environments in which the people meant to benefit from the policy live. Policy formulation at the highest levels of decision making, and policy implementation at street level, are not always synchronous.

This already challenging situation is further complicated when policies are nothing more than isomorphic mimicry, a common operating style to maintain the status quo. Isomorphic mimicry is defined by Pritchett, Woolcock and Andrews (Pritchett et al, 2010; Andrews et al, 2012) as a process whereby policy reform is limited to form and does not touch function. That is, no actual change takes place in how things are done, even though new policies are put in place in response to external pressure. Policies, whether based on some form of knowledge or beliefs and values, are not implemented and ultimately waste the resources of the state (while protecting the interests of some) and play against effective social and economic development.

A good example of challenges with knowledge — and the dangers of imposing a dominant understanding of local experience — is the recent book, Papua versus Papua (Suryawan, 2017), published in Indonesia about Indonesia’s eastern-most province. The argument of the author is that there are two ‘Papuas’: one mainstream, as portrayed in academic literature (initially foreign but more recently also Indonesian), the other one as experienced, lived and defined by people in Papua. The

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

author argues that the academic image of Papua has for decades been flavoured by ethnocentrism, orientalism and, in the end, imperialism. The reason the ‘Papua question’ is still unresolved after more than 50 years is that the central government mainly refers to the mainstream and imperial image of Papua and does not understand what is going on in the field. It thus imposes a naive view of modernising Papua that has no local currency or makes the wrong policy decisions.

This is part of a larger problem. In a powerful book about indigenous research, Tuhiwai Smith (1999) argues that ethnocentrism and romanticism are common in western studies of indigenous people, often leading to misrepresentation through orientalism (Said, 1978). Western culture becomes the norm through which other societies are interpreted. As we will discuss, this is one of the limitations of ‘scientific’ sources of knowledge, based as it is on (non-indigenous) positivism. What we argue here is that the beliefs and lived experiences of a community — local knowledge — need to complement and perhaps even be the starting point for research about local cultures and communities.

Types of knowledge in policy processes

Local knowledge is one of three major types of knowledge that influence public policy (Figure 1.3). As with many classifications in the social sciences, the borders between knowledge types are porous, and no one tends to hold exclusively one type of knowledge. The most well understood and most common is academic research and scientific knowledge. Although it is often implicit, academic research is ‘loaded with cultural, racialized, gendered, political and class assumptions’ (Holmes and Crossley, 2004: 208). Providing opportunities for other types of knowledge to inform policy is thus inherently democratising and implies the participation of a broader group of legitimate actors to generate information. Because they often use different means of communication than academic research, other forms of knowledge can capture different meanings (Holmes and Crossley, 2004; Bryant, 2002). While this is generally an advantage, it also presents challenges in terms of communicating with policy makers. Officials may prefer modes of communication associated with academic research as legitimate for informing decisions. Further, groups providing local or professional knowledge may have different standing in policy makers’ eyes, given their political identities and positions in the local social context, to the perspective on ‘objective’ information provided by researchers (Bryant, 2002). It will therefore be important to understand how officials receive other sources of knowledge, and how they choose to use them. Chapter Two presents a closer investigation of the types of knowledge indicated in Figure 1.3, namely: scientific knowledge, professional knowledge and local knowledge.

Figure 1.3: Types of knowledge and the policy influence space

Scientific Knowledge Professional Knowledge

Experimental Bureaucratic Quasi-experimental Intermediary Ethnographic Activist Case-study

Local Knowledge Citizen Religious Cultural Experiential

Throughout this book, the typology refers to the different sources and methods of knowledge generation while acknowledging some overlapping boundaries among them. This conception is distinguished from other categorisations of knowledge/evidence that are based on their utility, for example, evidence-based management, which is focused more on the different types of evidence used in decision

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

making processes (Briner et al, 2009: 22) or Parkhurst’s concept of the elements of the good governance of evidence (Parkhurst, 2017: 123).

The strength of understanding and using multiple forms of evidence is in how it can help navigate treacherous political economy terrain. As Najam argues, because there are multiple actors operating at different levels of the systems and in different contexts, ‘actors must be the unit of analysis’ (Najam, 1995: 32) for understanding policy making and its implementation. Our book explores the role of local knowledge in that process and makes the case that local knowledge is a powerful tool in improving policies and their implementation, as it brings more actors into policy-making processes. We fully recognise the point that Parkhurst (2017) makes: which evidence ultimately gets promoted is a political choice. We argue, though, that political choices are mutable and can be affected by actors within the system if they are aware of the political nature of a decision and can identify ways and means of bringing other forms of knowledge to the table. This book attempts to build an understanding of how that takes place through an analysis of cases from across the archipelago, highlighting the importance and potential of local knowledge, something that is often mentioned in the policy literature (for example, Jasanoff, 1990) but is seldom explored in depth. Much of the international literature reflects the view in Hernandez (2012: 153) that, ‘there is little to no evidence that indigenous knowledge systems have received meaningful inclusion in public policy development’. At the same time, there is growing recognition of the potential of local knowledge to contribute, and efforts are underway to figure out how (FAO, 2004; Nordic Council of Ministers, 2015; Thaman et al, 2013; ICRAF 2014; Simpson et al, 2015).

As generated through iteration and adaptation in day-to-day practices, local knowledge is highly relevant for a community’s life. However, due to its locally specific context, it is inherently challenging for local knowledge to inform public policy, as public policy’s coverage addresses the general population, and seldom addresses a specific context. Local knowledge, like other forms of knowledge, is most effective when multiple forms of knowledge interact to influence policy. Citizens seldom act based on one type of knowledge. Rather, their lived experience incorporates (to a greater or lesser degree) local, professional and scientific knowledge. While we as academics and scientists fully agree with the panel of eminent social scientists who put forward the case for the importance of science, and particularly social science, and for promoting its better use in public policy (National Research Council, 2012), we do not believe that this can be accomplished without a better understanding of other ways of knowing and other forms of knowledge that influence policy and policy makers.

Knowledge hierarchies

Knowledge evolves in a pervasive landscape of hierarchies that in different ways shape the journey to policy influence (Figure 1.4). First are the perceived unequal forms and domains of knowledge where scientific knowledge (often thought of as the natural sciences) traditionally occupies the leading position; the less ‘exact’ forms of knowledge (professional and local) are relegated to lower levels of prestige (Weiler, 2009).

The second hierarchy is in the realm of institutional arrangements for the production of knowledge. The credibility of knowledge is sometimes organised in terms of prestige, resources and influence of the institutions that generate the knowledge, and where they are located (in the global north or the global south), rather than by the quality of the knowledge itself. Under this same category falls the hierarchy within knowledge-related institutions, between professor and student, between institute directors and staff, between senior and junior faculty and, more subtly, between administrators and faculty.

The third hierarchy is in research methodology. Knowledge that is generated through a ‘gold standard’ methodology (randomised control trials, experimental research) is considered the top of the knowledge hierarchy. This view is strongly held in many quarters, but we dispute this type of classification of research methodologies and rather take the position that the best method is the one that is most suitable to the research question at hand. A report from the International

INTRODUCTION: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MATTERS!

Development Research Centre (IDRC) argues that research quality cannot be divorced from its social relevance (Ofir et al, 2016: 4). Even scientific information is likely to be disregarded if it is seen as irrelevant to the needs of particular decision makers. In this process, taking socially relevant knowledge into account in social research will improve scientific relevance, legitimacy and stature.

The fourth is a hierarchy of knowledge based on the forms of its manifestation. In a world where science, civilisation, intelligence, wisdom and education are measured in terms of functional literacy and written documents, such as the number of books published and publication in peer-reviewed journals, local knowledge and oral wisdom would be permanently on the bottom of the knowledge hierarchy. This presents a challenge for an oral knowledge-based society like Indonesia. Ariel Heryanto (2015) argues that Indonesia would be a permanently sad story of the progress of civilisation or quality of education if the measurements were exclusively in terms of scholarly performance? or number of academic publications (Nugroho et al, 2016).

While the production of local knowledge is unstoppable because it is how a community makes sense of life, all of these hierarchies and relationships have been a disincentive for using local knowledge to influence policy. These hierarchies shape the basis for status and authority of local knowledge in the knowledge-to-policy realm; they have put the credibility of local knowledge in influencing policy at the lowest level. In this situation, local knowledge has little ability and credibility to legitimate power, so public policy makers have little interest in supporting a rise in the influence of local knowledge in policy making. This also means lower interest in investing resources for local knowledge development and application by policy makers. This might be understandable, as knowledge and power are connected by a relationship of reciprocal legitimation — that is, knowledge legitimates i In 2015, Indonesia ranked 62 out of 72 countries in the Programme for