Wonua as a Decolonial Threshold: Unsettling Boundary-Making in Religious Discourses and Development Projects among Indigenous Communities in Indonesia

This paper examines how Indigenous religions in Indonesia continue to face structural and everyday exclusions rooted in the state's modern-religious framework and the enduring colonial matrix of power shaping development projects. Although the category of "Kepercayaan" (Indigenous religions) has been constitutionally recognized since 2017, Indigenous religions remain politically and socially marginalized. This hierarchy, inherited from colonial classifications of world religions, manifests locally in systemic barriers to education, public services, and social recognition for Indigenous communities. Drawing on ethnographic research with Indigenous communities in Sulawesi (Bara and Cindakko) and Seram (Huaulu), the paper shows how contemporary development initiatives, including NGO programs, often reproduce colonial logics of modernity, capitalism, and secularism by overlooking Indigenous knowledge. It proposes "Wonua" (as a place where we live) as a decolonial threshold, framing Indigenous and World religions as intersecting, coexisting epistemologies, capable of co-living rather than colliding, and important for imagining decolonial Indigenous development in Indonesia.