A post-frontier in transformation: land relations between access, exclusion and resistance in Jambi province, Indonesia

by Barbara Beckert
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2017-02-02
Date of issue:2017-03-02
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Christoph Dittrich
Referee:Prof. Dr. Christoph Dittrich
Referee:Prof. Dr. Heiko Faust
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-6171

 

 

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Abstract

English

Since the early twentieth century, forests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra are converted into large plantation areas for the cultivation of boom crops, such as rubber and oil palms. This land use transformation goes along with land conflicts. Local actors are often deprived of access to land by new actors entering the scene, searching for land access. However, land conflicts do not only occur in the context of deforestation, at the edges of rainforests, in so-called frontier areas. They also occur in areas that have been converted from forests to agricultural land decades ago, so-called post-frontiers. Jambi province, located in the center of the island of Sumatra, stands as an example for such a highly dynamic post-frontier. Access to land is constantly negotiated between different powerful actors on different scales, leading to exclusion and resistance. In this dissertation, conflictive land relations in the post-frontier are analyzed and explained based on three research questions: (1) How did Jambi province transform into a dynamic post-frontier? (2) Which processes lead to conflictive land relations between access and exclusion in the post-frontier? (3) How does resistance against adverse land relations influence the post-frontier? In order to tackle these questions, a novel conceptual framework on conflictive land relations in the post-frontier is developed, which builds on political ecology and post-frontier research, on the theory of access and powers of exclusion framework and the terrains of resistance approach. Empirical qualitative research was conducted in seven research villages in two research areas in Jambi province, located in vicinity to the Bukit Duabelas National Park and the Harapan Rainforest conservation concession of PT REKI. Research revealed that since the Dutch colonial era plural legal orders exist in Indonesia, which means, that codified state laws and customary laws exist in parallel. Land has been allocated to concession areas in an uncontrolled manner in the past decades and today there is an overlapping mosaic of resource governance and territorial control in Jambi province, which characterizes the post-frontier. Different kinds of actors are struggling for access to land, and conflictive land relations between access, exclusion and resistance are fostered by plural legal orders and the non-recognition of customary land. However, reclaiming customary land has become a powerful tool for indigenous resistance, especially when local actors are supported by national and international NGOs. It is argued that the post-frontier will be further transformed in the next couple of years by indigenous land claims and resistance.
Keywords: land use transformation; land conflicts; post-frontier; theory of access; powers of exclusion; terrains of resistance; qualitative research; Indonesia; Jambi
 
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