From Wim to Wene: Bakar Batu as a Performative Epistemology of Conflict Classification in Indigenous Papuan Peacebuilding

Abstract

This study introduces Wene–Wim—an indigenous conceptual distinction in the Nduga language of the Papuan Highlands between Wene (matters amenable to dialogue) and Wim (states of armed enmity)—as a theoretical framework for understanding indigenous epistemologies of conflict classification and resolution. Drawing on in-depth interviews with eighteen key informants across Wamena, Mimika, and the Nduga negotiation network, this article argues that the Bakar Batu (stone-burning) ritual functions not merely as a ceremonial reconciliation mechanism but as a performative epistemology through which the Wene–Wim classification is contested, tested, and authorised. Using Stuart Hall's circuit of culture and Victor Turner's ritual process theory as complementary analytical lenses, the study reconstructs the epistemic architecture underlying Bakar Batu, including its five-stage interpretive system, divinatory dimensions, and temporal horizon of seven generations. The 2023 Mehrtens hostage case is examined as a paradigmatic instance in which the reframing from Wim to Wene opened a culturally legitimate pathway to the 593-day resolution that formal mediation could not achieve. The findings yield three theoretical contributions: first, Wene–Wim constitutes a non-Western conceptual vocabulary that warrants inclusion in international peace studies alongside ubuntu, gacaca, and bashingantahe; second, Bakar Batu operates as an embodied epistemology in which conflict classification is enacted through ritual signs rather than asserted through propositional statements; third, indigenous epistemologies offer mechanisms for testing the authenticity of peaceful intent that formal mediation procedures structurally lack. The study contributes to ongoing debates on the decolonisation of peace and conflict studies, vernacular peacebuilding, and the epistemological autonomy of indigenous knowledge systems in asymmetric conflicts...