In Searching Law on The Indonesian Diaspora: Lessons Learnt from South Korea and India Experiences
In Searching Law on The Indonesian Diaspora: Lessons Learnt from South Korea and India Experiences

Author(s): Wicaksana Dramanda, Ali Abdurahman, Bilal Dewansyah, Susi Dwi Harijanti
Subject(s): Politics, Geography, Regional studies, Policy, planning, forecast and speculation, Nationalism Studies, Migration Studies, Politics and Identity
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Indonesia; law; diaspora; ethnizenship; South-Korea; India;
Summary/Abstract: The existence and movement of diaspora across the world, challenge the existing legal norms on citizenship and migration. The responses from the law-makers from origin countries vary. Most of European, Latin America and African countries adopt dual citizenship law to their diaspora for the different reasons: immigrant integration, maintenance of loyalty to ex-citizen or because the closeness ethnic relation. However, most of countries in Asia-Pacific region - which gain the independence through decolonization process - do not favor dual citizenship towards their diaspora, including Indonesia, mostly because of the ideological perception of citizenship. In this sense, many countries grant the special status or scheme to their diaspora (neither citizens nor residents of the country) as an external quasi-citizenship based on ethnic descent as coined by Bauböck as “ethnizenship.” In Indonesia case, while the rejection of dual citizenship proposal is unavoidable, it leads idea to adopt a kind of ethnizenship status as an alternative regulatory model for Indonesia diaspora. In order to search the suitable and realistic regulatory scheme for Indonesian diaspora, this paper compare experiences from India and South-Korea which adopt a quasi-citizenship for their descendants overseas. The result from this comparison will be considered as a benchmark to develop regulatory model for Indonesian diaspora.

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