The Creating Safer Space project “Civilian (Self-) Protection from Violent Conflict in Papua” has published the article “Violence and Civilian Strategy for Protection in West Papua, Indonesia“ in the Journal of Peacebuilding & Development. It is authored by Arfiansyah.
The article discusses findings of the project’s qualitative research in Jayapura, Sorong, and Wamena in November 2022 and June 2023. Building on the concept of agency and Joshua Barter’s classification of strategy for civilian protection, it finds that violence and strategies for civilian protection in West Papua are contextualized by local development, geopolitics, and demographic composition between transmigrants and indigenous Papuans, which also determine the agents’ capacity to respond to violence and to build protection strategies. The research contributes the concept of nonpartisan peace voice as a protection strategy. It highlights that a common feature of the protection strategy that the Papuans in the research locations share is the mobilization of both international and local networks.