Indonesian Customary Law: Institutional and Socio-Legal Perspectives on Traditional Governance Structures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29407/zwbecf13Abstract
This study examines the institutional and socio-legal complexities of Indonesian customary law (hukum adat) within traditional governance structures, focusing on the systemic tensions between state-centered legal centralism and living local norms. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of legal pluralism and critical legal pluralism, alongside a decolonial critique of colonial legal constructions, this paper evaluates how customary systems navigate formal recognition under the 1945 Constitution, the 2014 Village Law, and the 2023 Penal Code. Through a comparative socio-legal analysis of three distinct traditional governance models—the Balinese Desa Adat, the Minangkabau Nagari in West Sumatra, and the Panglima Laot in Aceh—the research demonstrates that state recognition functions as a double-edged sword of control and empowerment. While formal legal subject status and statutory frameworks provide legal mechanisms for self-determination and territorial defense, they simultaneously subordinate fluid, cosmos-restoring living laws to rigid, bureaucratic state-centric criteria. This administrative co-optation weakens the autonomous dispute resolution and resource-governance capacities of traditional authorities, particularly in the face of neoliberal agrarian expansion. The paper concludes by proposing a deliberative, dialogical model of legal integration that safeguards the epistemological autonomy of adat, transitioning from subordinating weak pluralism toward a restorative, culturally responsive legal ecology
Keywords:
governance, legal pluralism, socio-legal, institutional co-optation, Indonesian customary lawDownloads
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