Internal Migration and Resource Conflict: Evidence from Riau, Indonesia

A vast body of literature suggests that resource exploitation is linked to armed conflict. However, the role of voluntary internal migration in resource conflict has been overlooked. Does internal migration interact with resource exploitation and contribute to violent conflict in resource-rich regions of multinational states? And if so, how? Using a comparative ethnography approach, I inductively developed a four-part theory based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in resource-rich Inner Mongolia, China, before evaluating my theory against empirical evidence from Riau province, Indonesia. In contrast to the current literature that either sidesteps the role of voluntary internal migrants in resource conflict, or portrays them as mere negative externalities of resource exploitation, I show how migrants’ ownership of, and employment in, many of the companies that exploit and destroy local resources have marginalized local people and threatened their lifestyle and economic subsistence. As local elites resort to nativist frames to resist such practices and mobilize local people around these issues, companies hire brutal non-locally born, security guards or thugs to protect their assets, escalating the violence. Finally, states’ reliance on domestic population movements for resource exploitation and national development projects also affects their ability and willingness to intervene in resource conflict, contributing to their protracted nature. This article illustrates the problem with studying resource conflict in isolation from migration dynamics, as the two processes interact with one another, intensifying grievances and providing added motives and opportunities for violence.