Tourism, the New Capital, and Dayak Voices: Local Communities Claim Their Place as Subjects of Travel in Borneo

 

Development will only progress and thrive if it includes and positively impacts the surrounding communities.

By Jelayan Kaki Kuta

Debate over Indonesia’s new capital in Borneo has expanded beyond land issues, with Dayak communities criticizing IKN for sidelining Indigenous people and ignoring tourism models that place local cultures and arts at the center of travel and destination narratives. As a response, Dayak voices are calling for community-based tourism that treats Indigenous people not as objects on display, but as subjects who own, shape, and benefit from Borneo’s tourism future.

An article published today IKN in Borneo: Local Communities and a Growing Test for Tour and Travel”on a digital media platform has ignited a surge of debate across social media, resonating most strongly within Dayak communities in Borneo. 

The reaction has been swift and emphatic. Commenters argue that the Ibu Kota Negara, or IKN, is an oligarch-driven showcase project that overlooks local interests and marginalizes Indigenous peoples who have long served as custodians of the land. Increasingly, however, the debate has moved beyond land politics to a broader question: who defines tourism in Borneo, and who benefits from it.

For many Dayak voices, the controversy surrounding IKN is not merely about a new capital city, but about the future of development, justice, and representation. 

They argue that tourism and travel in Borneo cannot be reduced to infrastructure, hotels, or promotional slogans. Instead, it must recognize Indigenous communities as living subjects of tourism, not passive objects displayed for consumption.

A Unified Critique From Grassroots Communities

Across Facebook timelines, WhatsApp group chats, and community forums, Dayak commentators have expressed near-unanimous criticism. 

Many describe IKN as a “lighthouse project” that shines brightly for investors and political elites while casting shadows over local communities. In these discussions, the Dayak are frequently described as pemangku bumi, guardians of the land, whose historical and cultural ties to Borneo are being sidelined in the name of rapid modernization.

Participants argue that the project has been framed as a symbol of national progress, yet fails to address basic questions of local participation, land security, and cultural survival. 

Several posts note that while infrastructure plans are presented in glossy visuals, the voices of Indigenous communities remain largely absent from official narratives. This exclusion, critics say, extends to tourism planning, where local people are rarely positioned as decision-makers or primary beneficiaries.

Tourism Without Indigenous Subjects

Beyond land and politics, critics point to what they see as a fundamental flaw in the IKN vision: the neglect of tourism rooted in Indigenous life. 

Borneo’s appeal to travelers, they argue, lies not only in forests and rivers, but in living cultures. Dayak longhouses, rituals, music, weaving, tattoos, oral traditions, and ecological knowledge form a cultural ecosystem that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Yet many Dayak commentators note that these elements are often treated as decorative add-ons rather than central pillars of tourism development. Instead of empowering Indigenous communities as owners, narrators, and hosts within the tourism economy, planning has focused on physical infrastructure and administrative symbolism. 

For critics, this represents a missed opportunity to build a tourism model where local people are both the subject shaping the narrative and the object that gives the destination its meaning.

Modernity Versus Local Wisdom

One widely shared comment from a participant in Ketapang captured the dilemma succinctly. “The problem of development is this: modernity on one hand, and local people with all their richness on the other. So what are we supposed to do?” he wrote in a WhatsApp group. His remark echoed a broader concern that development discourse often treats local culture as an obstacle rather than as a resource.

The same contributor reflected on the changing fortunes of palm oil, once celebrated as the engine of regional growth. Before a series of environmental disasters in parts of Sumatra, palm oil was often described as green gold. It could be harvested year-round, delivered to factories, and quickly converted into cash. 

Today, that optimism has faded. Environmental costs, market volatility, and social tensions have complicated the narrative. As the commenter concluded in a local idiom, without cutting, there is no money, a phrase that now carries a sense of irony and loss.

Academic Voices and the Charge of Exclusion

Criticism of the IKN project has not been limited to grassroots circles. Academics have also entered the debate, lending it greater visibility and analytical weight. 

A lecturer in Pontianak wrote on Facebook that IKN in Borneo was, from the outset, conceived as an “eternal project” designed to eliminate citizens for the sole benefit of oligarchs. The post spread quickly, shared by students, activists, and civil society groups.

Scholars warn that when local populations are excluded from planning and decision-making, development risks becoming a zero-sum game. In tourism, this exclusion often results in Indigenous people being reduced to performers rather than partners. In this framing, the capital project and its tourism ambitions are seen not as shared national endeavors, but as mechanisms that concentrate power while hollowing out local agency.

Practical Advice and a Different Tourism Future

As the online discussions evolved, criticism gave way to concrete proposals. Many contributors focused on what local people can do to protect their interests amid uncertainty. The most repeated advice was clear: do not sell your land. Some urged landowners to wait until prices reach at least one million rupiah per square meter before considering a sale, framing this patience as a form of financial literacy.

Others encouraged diversification through locally owned enterprises such as tour and travel services, guesthouses, restaurants, cafés, and high-demand agricultural plantations. Tourism, they argued, should be community-based, culturally grounded, and economically fair, ensuring that Indigenous people remain subjects who control narratives and resources, rather than objects consumed by visitors.

There were also calls for policy interventions. Many advocated a moratorium on large corporations, while allowing smallholder palm oil plantations to continue as part of justice and shared prosperity. In the same spirit, they argued that tourism development linked to IKN should prioritize Indigenous ownership and cultural integrity.

Together, these exchanges reveal a widening gap between national development narratives and local visions of tourism in Borneo. They also reflect a growing determination among Dayak communities to reclaim their place not only as guardians of the land, but as central actors in shaping how Borneo is seen, visited, and valued by the world.