Editor's Note: To ensure this vital conversation transcends language barriers, kumparan is publishing this special report in English. It is our intent that all expatriates, digital nomads, and international visitors residing in Indonesia can fully follow this issue. We hope this serves as an invitation for the foreign community to reflect on the sentiments of the local public and help foster a more inclusive, respectful environment in Bali and across the nation.
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A running community in Canggu, Bali, has found itself in the spotlight after it emerged that only foreigners were allowed to join its run events, while locals hoping to take part were turned away.
The controversy blew up on social media, people were slamming the group as racist and discriminatory. It even caught the attention of Ni Luh Djelantik, a Bali senator in Indonesia's Regional Representative Council (DPD).
According to a post on her Instagram account, Ni Luh called on law enforcement authorities, including the Immigration Office and the police, to follow up on the matter.
And it wasn't just locals who found the club's exclusivity. A British influencer who goes by @joshberlari on Instagram spoke out too, calling the ban on Indonesians plainly discriminatory.
"There's a running club in Bali that won't let Indonesians join. We made this video to speak up, because for too long foreigners here have been setting up running clubs that take over whole streets, snarl up traffic and discriminate against people," he said.
"It's time we stood up for the Indonesian people we love," he added.
So what do academics make of a community packed with foreigners that shuts locals out?
Teraya Parametha, Ph.D., a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Humanities (FIB) Universitas Indonesia (UI), began by examining how foreigners and locals interact there. She noted that Bali has always thrown its doors open to newcomers, foreigners especially.
Infamous Balinese hospitality is a big part of the island's appeal. But Tera cautioned, with all that warmth and openness, don't mean anything goes.
"This has been the case for ages. Bali has always been very welcoming to outsiders, whether they're from elsewhere in Indonesia or abroad. But that hospitality, the whole 'oh, Balinese people are so friendly'," she told kumparan, Thursday (30/7).
She said this case is way too complicated. Gathering as a group is not the problem, the issues show up when public space gets swallowed up.
"The running itself is fine, anyone can jog or run. The problem is how much space it takes up. This taking over of public space, this control of it, whether deliberate or not, is the real issue," she said.
"So mutual respect matters. Balinese are very welcoming to foreigners who come here, whether on purpose for a holiday or other reasons, and that mutual respect has to be maintained," she added.
Beyond the question of public space, Tera said the club's exclusivity is closely linked to what she calls 'politics of space'.
"When you look at spaces like these, streets blocked off, or a community that closes itself off to locals who want in. It's really about the politics of space. That's where you can see how Bali, as a tourist destination, has always been tied up with power relations. You see it in how these spaces get 'contested'," she said.
"Or become places where friction between locals and foreigners takes place. So the concern isn't the community itself, or running in the streets. It's how they treat the spaces and the people around them," she concluded.
Tera emphasized that if that friction keeps going, the concern runs deeper than merely erosion of Balinese culture. Tera believes Balinese culture is resilient enough to withstand that. What really worries her is locals losing control over the spaces of their own lives.
"When more and more foreigners take control, and again this comes back to the fight over space, they're controlling the spaces in Bali. And that control comes in many forms. It could be ignoring local customs and traditions, that's a form of controlling space too or building villas without permits, or setting up businesses without permits, which is really seizing space as well," she said.
She reminded that, for the Balinese, a loss of control can also lead to the loss of land or culture.
"And of course it becomes a problem when these spaces are controlled to the point where, in daily life, locals lose their grip on Balinese land or Balinese culture. That's what's really at stake here. That's the real issue," she said.
Tera also drew a line back to Bali's colonial history and Indonesia's status as a postcolonial state. The fantasy of paradise. She argue, the idea of Bali as a "playground" for tourists and digital nomads is one of those colonial logics that still exist, whether people realize it or not.
"That idea of Bali as paradise is really a way of consuming Bali. Bali gets consumed by these people as a concept, as a fantasy. And that comes from colonial logic, a logic that extracts whatever it wants. They want the scenery, the food, they want to learn the culture, but only skin-deep, so it ends up as cultural appropriation. They just consume these things over and over," she said.
Cultural appropriation refers to taking or using elements of a culture from the outside without proper understanding, respect, or context. It differs from cultural appreciation, which involves genuine respect and deeper learning. The concept took root in academic debates about colonialism and the relationship between majority and minority groups.
Tera declared that the running group, which is currently in the spotlight, is seeking space to build a community. Yet in the process, whether consciously or not, they are actually validating the concept of Bali as a paradise, a concept created by colonial logic.
Anthropologist Dr. Dave Lumenta, a lecturer at Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) UI, sees the community that bans locals as a form of racism.
"This is where it gets problematic. What started as protecting a comfort zone, profiling who gets in, ended up forcing them into something deeply segregative, and we can legitimately say the basis is racism. Because what they're doing is screening for people they consider culturally compatible," Dave told kumparan on Thursday, (30/7).
he said the exclusivity reveals traits that are racist, discriminatory, and segregative all at once.
"So that's the core of the matter. What they might see as just protecting a comfort zone 'us, the like-minded', ends up, in the name of that comfort zone, becoming racist, discriminatory or segregative behavior," he said.
He added, there's a reason why they keep doing it. Rejecting people based on nationality becomes a benchmark for whether someone is deemed culturally compatible.
"It becomes discriminatory when, as you can clearly see from their posts, the moment they question someone and that person says they're Indonesian, they're rejected on the spot. That's textbook discrimination. But the moment someone's from Germany, say, they're welcomed in," Dave said.
"That's obviously discriminatory, because the measurement they're using for culture is really citizenship. They're assuming that citizenship determines whether someone fits their culture" he added.
Bali Welcomes 6 Millions of Foreign Tourists: Mostly From AustraliaBeyond the controversy within the running community, Bali regularly welcomes international tourists every year. The "Island of the Gods" welcomed 6,948,754 foreign tourists in 2025, the highest amount in the last decade.
Bali has long been a primary destination for international tourists visiting Indonesia. In 2025, 42,47 percent of 42,47 percent of foreign tourists choose Bali as their primary travel destination, alongside other tourist areas in Indonesia.
So, where do the international tourists come from? In 2025, Australia contributed the highest number of tourists, reaching 1.6 million tourists. Followed by India with 569,261 and China with 537,375. There are also South Korea with 346,679 and the United Kingdom with 317,523.
By regions, tourists from non-South East Asia(SEA0 Asian countries contributed the highest number with 2,033,460 tourist. Followed by Europe with 1,814,799 and Oceania with 1,797,623. SEA countries contributed only with 712,697 tourists, America with 427,944, and the Middle East 83,151, while Africa recorded the lowest number, only 14,738 tourists.
