‘I can play football at school but not at home’: Refugees, schooling, and lived citizenship in Indonesia

By Arwanto  | OMC 2026

Photo by the author   

‘I can play football at school, but not at home’ (Romi, Afghan refugee in Indonesia)

His name is Romi, and he is an Afghan refugee child living in Pekanbaru, Indonesia. He had been staying in Pekanbaru for more than 5 years. Romi made the statement above when I asked him how his school differed from his accommodation. I met Romi during my PhD fieldwork at the school in 2024. Back then, he was in year 4. During my fieldwork, I saw him and his friends play football multiple times during break time. He looked like he was enjoying playing with friends. Once, he told me he wanted to be a football player, he was inspired by Lionel Messi. 

Dreaming of being a football player, or at least playing football, doesn’t seem to be a big issue for ordinary kids. But Romi’s case is different as he is a refugee and lives in refugee accommodation in Pekanbaru, Indonesia. The concern is not only that he lives in a refugee community house with its own specific rules created by the Pekanbaru refugee taskforce and accommodation management, but also that he is in Indonesia. The community house itself was a small hostel that was converted to a refugee accommodation. Within the accommodation, refugee children’s play is limited not only by time but also by the kind of games they can play. Football is one of the sports prohibited because the accommodation play area is narrow, and there is concern that it could damage the accommodation facilities. 

Indonesia, as a refugee-hosting country, positions itself as a transit country that is not a party to the Refugee Convention. This puts refugee governance mostly in the hands of non-state actors. Furthermore, the non-ratification of the Refugee Convention had consequences for refugee rights, including employment (though some work in the informal sector) and education. It wasn’t until 2019 when the national government issued a Ministry of Education Circular Letter that permitted refugee children to attend public schools under certain conditions. Under this policy, since 2019, refugee children have been able to attend school and receive a formal education in Indonesia; one of them is Romi. 

Indonesian government officials perceive that opening education access for refugees aims to assist and prepare them for resettlement. It helps the refugee to have a formal educational experience, which can be beneficial for the resettlement process and help with adaptation after resettlement. However, for the refugee children themselves, like Romi, access to education enables them to also claim rights to play, which they did not get at their accommodation due to the strict regulations. The schooling enables Romi to experience and enact lived citizenship. Lived citizenship emphasises how individuals experience and enact belonging, participation, and recognition beyond formal legal status (Lister 2007, 2017; Kallio, Wood and Häkli 2020). 

Romi’s statement above indicates that school can become a space of entitlement where Romi can exercise his right to play. Usually, Romi plays during Physical Education lessons and break times. This means that those periods become mechanisms that formally allow Romi’s participation in sport. This is different from what happens in his accommodation, where his opportunities are restricted, and the accommodation’s regulations prohibit his preferred activity. This underlines the contrasting identities Romi occupies in different spaces. Within the accommodation, he is positioned as a refugee subject to rules and limitations; meanwhile, at school, he is recognised as a member of the community. 

The schooling effects, however, are not limited to children. For refugee parents, school also reorganises the rhythms of family life and offers a fragile sense of normalcy during prolonged waiting. Sending children to school enables refugee parents to plan for their family’s future amid uncertainty. For eight years, Iman and his family have resided in Pekanbaru. When I met him, he expressed his depression and frustration about having to deal with uncertainty in Indonesia. 

‘I’m thinking, I might have lost my life and my time. I am quite depressed. When you could do nothing, everything seemed dark. Thus, when my daughters can go to school, it makes me happy. I want my daughters to go to school. If not, they will lose time and their youth. If they go later, it becomes more difficult for them. I am happy about the school because my children can go there. I can relax knowing my children are at school. I can work, and my wife can take a break from the children.’ (Iman, Afghan refugee parents)

Iman was a little relieved that his girls could now go to school. It can be seen that, for Iman, a feeling of normalcy has been established by sending his kids to school. Schooling seems to transform the family’s transition from stagnation and inaction to advancement and future readiness. The family is in charge and can shape the future. Iman’s experience shows how education enables the family to operate differently: the mother takes a temporary break from raising the daughters, and the father can work. The family can reorganise home responsibilities by sending the kids to school. Regaining space in daily civic life is made possible for refugee families through the tiny step of attending school. Additionally, it makes one feel like a “normal” citizen, even when they have no official rights.

When I asked refugee families if their kids could participate in my study, they also made similar remarks, saying that sending their kids to school has given them more time to relax and to arrange household chores more methodically because of a fixed school schedule. It seems that the refugee parents can find purpose in their daily lives as they wait for relocation. 

The refugee family’s lived citizenship experience raises questions about how refugees live throughout the waiting period. It appears that waiting was an active activity rather than a passive pause between occurrences (Rotter 2016). Waiting is an active action that involves reflection and resistance in the everyday places that migrants encounter (Conlon 2011). Waiting offers opportunities to reclaim rights, expand social connections, fortify roots, pursue legality, and anticipate possible futures, such as finding legal representation, developing skills, earning money, processing the past, or preparing a case (Griffiths 2024). 

In this case of Iman and Romi, waiting may be active in the sense that, under certain circumstances, people might occupy their waiting time with a variety of activities that are both future-focused (resettlement preparation) and present-focused (daily life). School access gives refugee children and families in Indonesia small but meaningful spaces of ordinary life amid legal uncertainty.

Arwanto

I am a PhD Student of the School of Geography, University of Leeds, funded by Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia Education Scholarship). I have been a lecturer at the Faculty of Governmental Politics at IPDN since 2020. I completed my BA in Politics at IPDN in 2012, followed by an MSc in Public Policy at the University of Bristol in 2016. Research interests lie at the intersection of politics, policy, and migration. My thesis examines refugee education policy in a transit country, Indonesia, and its implications for refugees and local students’ everyday school lives.