prosper community. The Indonesian n

prosper community. The Indonesian national unity was held together and directed toward this ideal. Development becomes the channel to reach this goal and the guideline for state’s policies. It is a national project in which all citizens are expected to participate in. If we go back to my argument on the relation between state-building and the state’s territorialization strategy, one question should be raised: where should we put the modernity-derived nation-building argument in the picture? How should one analyze the relations between development and nation-building? Does development make nation- building possible by increasing state’s capabilities? Or can we argue that the process of development itself play a role in nation-building as participating in the national project of development unite the nation in their quest for prosperity? And what is the role of “development” in the state’s territorialization strategy? Aspinall’s argument on how modernization discourse was used in the New Order’s cultural homogenization process provides some insights on how one can link development, nation-building, and territorialization. Aspinall argues that in the Indonesian nation-building process we can see a perceived contradiction between a “modern” Indonesian nation and “traditional” locals. Thus, to achieve the ideal national community, it is necessary for the state to transform local traditions into a “modern” culture, an Indonesian national culture. But the process through which this transformation took place, e.g. the resettlement (housed) of these “isolated tribes” is also part of state’s territorialization strategies. As described previously, the discourse of “development deficit” is frequently used to justify land usurpation of traditional communities. According to government agencies, these communities are resettled into “modern” villages to help them overcome their “backwardness” (Li 2000, 154). In my previous illustration, resettlement projects were intended to facilitate the state’s village transformation. It gives the state more control over rural population, while, at the same time, creates “empty” forestlands over which the state has claimed ownership and managerial rights. The literature claims that it is common that resettlement of “isolated tribes” to be followed by the designation of village lands as areas for transmigration,