The Role of Local Governments in Accommodating Refugees in Indonesia: Investigating Best-Case and Worst-Case Scenarios

Abstract

This article analyses the “local turn” in refugee governance in Indonesia through a comparative case-study of two cities: Makassar and Jakarta. It compares how these two cities have responded to the obligations to provide alternative accommodation to detention, imposed upon them by the Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016 concerning the Treatment of Refugees (PR). While the shift to non-custodial community shelters has been widely praised, we discuss issues that arose when the national government shifted the responsibility for providing accommodation for refugees to local governments, without the allocation of the required funds. The outcome has been a general lack of engagement by local governments. By locating this case-study in the wider global trend of “local turns” in the management of refugee issues, we argue that, in Indonesia, the “local turn” in responsibility for refugees is not fostering a protection approach, but has worsened the conditions for refugees.