Producing Rightlessness: Rohingya Refugees in Indonesia’s Multilevel Governance Failure

Abstract

As a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Indonesia operates a restrictive transit regime that suspends Rohingya refugees, rendered stateless by Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law, in prolonged legal limbo. This article examines the systematic production of rightlessness within Indonesia's multi-scalar governance regime, employing a critical qualitative single-case study in Karang Gading Village, North Sumatra. Integrating Christian Joppke's tripartite citizenship framework and Hannah Arendt's ontology of rightlessness, the study analyzes how multilevel governance failure under Presidential Regulation Number 125 of 2016 produces localized exclusion. The findings reveal that rightlessness is structurally manufactured through a triangular misalignment of authority, responsibility, and fiscal capacity across governance levels, rendering UNHCR documentation administratively void and compelling local authorities to impose spatial containment and social quarantine amplified by digital xenophobia. This case refutes inclusive-cosmopolitan citizenship theory and demonstrates that territorial sovereignty remains structurally determinative. Indonesia must therefore transition toward comprehensive refugee legislation that realigns intergovernmental legal authority with operational and fiscal responsibility at the local level.