This article examines how the idea of “finding potential” has structured colonial and postcolonial interventions in Papua’s wetlands. Tracing its genealogy from Dutch colonial science to Indonesian state-led development, it argues that potentiality operates as both an epistemic framework and a political tool that renders wetlands as idle and exploitable. 

Abstract

Through the concept of multispecies colonialism, the paper shows how this logic has materialized in the introduction of non-native species, agricultural research surveys even led by Indonesian leftists in the 1960s, and transmigration programs. While state and technocratic actors frame Papua as a future-oriented frontier of economic value, these interventions justify dispossession and the marginalization of both Papuans and their non-human companions.

Author

Hatib Kadir

Journal

History and Anthropology 

Open access

Yes

30-04-2026

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