Whose Culture Counts? Cultural Heritage, Tourism Development, and the Rights of Indigenous Communities in Indonesia

Abstract

The commercialization of cultural heritage through tourism creates opportunities for economic development while simultaneously generating risks of cultural appropriation, dispossession, and exclusion for indigenous communities. This article examines the tension between tourism development and indigenous rights in Indonesia's cultural heritage governance. The study asks whether existing legal frameworks adequately protect indigenous communities whose cultural practices, knowledge, territories, and symbols become incorporated into tourism industries. Employing a normative and socio-legal methodology, the research examines legislation concerning cultural heritage, tourism, indigenous rights, intellectual property, and local governance, supplemented by selected cases of tourism-related cultural disputes. The analysis demonstrates that legal protection often focuses on preserving cultural objects and promoting economic value while insufficiently recognizing indigenous communities as rights-holders with authority over the use and representation of their cultural heritage. Such an approach risks converting living cultures into commercial assets while weakening community control over cultural meaning and benefits. The article argues for a rights-based model of cultural tourism that recognizes prior participation, community consent, equitable benefit-sharing, and collective cultural rights. It concludes that cultural heritage governance should move beyond preservation and commercialization toward a framework that protects indigenous agency and prevents tourism development from reproducing historical patterns of marginalization. The article contributes to minority justice scholarship by connecting cultural rights, economic development, and indigenous self-determination.