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Workshop

Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender


in Kalimantan, Indonesia
June 10-12, 2015
University of Passau, Germany
Venue: Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies Focus Southeast Asia
Dr. Hans Kapfinger Strasse 14b, 94032 Passau (Room 314a)

AGENDA
Wednesday
10.06.2015
16:15h

Welcome reception at the Chair of Comparative Development and


Cultural Studies Southeast Asia

16:20h

Welcome speech by Prof. Dr. Martina Padmanabhan (Chair of


Comparative Development and Cultural Studies Southeast Asia)
Introduction of workshop participants

16:30h

Welcome speech by Prof. Dr. Harry Haupt (Vice President of


Research/ Full Professor of Statistics, University of Passau)

16:45h

Key Note by Dr. Suraya Afiff, University of Indonesia, Department of


Anthropology
Discussion

18:00h

Gamelan Music Orchestra (University of Passau)

18:30h

Dinner at restaurant Goldenes Schiff, Unterer Sand 8, 94032 Passau

Thursday
11.06.2015
9:00h

Opening the floor: Introduction of topics & workshop format

9:30h

Session 1a: Development


1. Prof. Dr. Heiko Faust: Socio-cultural and institutional
transformation processes in rural Kalimantan
2. Dr. Soeryo Adiwibowo: Territorialization and Its Effect to Land
Use Changes and Rural Differentiation

10:30h

Coffee Break, Photo-session

11:00h

Session 1b: Development


3. Katriani Puspita Ayu: Tackling Deforestation through institutional
and policy means
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4. Dr. Semiarto Aji Purwanto: The Dynamic of Artisanal Mining in


Kalimantan, Indonesia
5. Dr. Satyawan Sunito: Beyond struggle for rights: Local responses
for self development
12.30h

Lunch (Buffet)

13:30h

Session 1c: Development


6. Dr. Suraya Afiff: What we can learn from the new forms of green
enclosure practice in Indonesia
7. Dr. Oliver Pye: Beyond the River Basin: the Transformation of the
Kapuas Riverscape in West Kalimantan

14:30h

Summary and Conclusion of Session 1

15:00h

Coffee Break

15:15h

Session 2: Gender

15:15h-16.15h

1. Dr. Michaela Haug: Men, Women and Disappearing Forests: the


Gendered Face of Development in Borneo
2. Dr. Rebecca Elmhirst: Gendered Impacts of the oil palm 'land
rush' in East Kalimantan: a material feminist political ecology
approach

5min break
16:20h

3. Melani Abdulkadir-Sunito: Gender and Resource Use Learning


Circle: Contextualizing Crisis, Empowering Women
4. Dr. Siti Amanah: Enhancing gender equality in environmental
management: the context of Kalimantan, Indonesia

17:20h

Summary and Conclusion of Session 2

18:00h

Dinner at restaurant Heiliggeist-Stiftsschenke, Heiliggeistgasse 4,


94032 Passau

Friday
12.06.2015
8:30h
8:30h-9:30h

5min break
9:35h

Session 3: Ethnicity
1. Dr. Stefanie Steinebach: Separating sisters from brothers:
identity politics and forest access in Jambi
2. Dr. Marko Mahin: Ethnic relations and identity politics in the
context of ecological transformation (Dayak in Central K.)
3. Dr. Kristina Gromann: Power and Imagination: Strategic
Essentialism and Social Practice regarding Ethnicity in Natural
Resource Use (Central Kalimantan)
4. Katharina von Braun: The role of ethnicity in Indonesian mining
governance

10.20h

Summary and Conclusion of Session 3

10:50h

Coffee Break

11:00h

Session 4: Transdisciplinarity

11:00h-12:00h

1. Prof. Dr. Yunita T. Winarto: Institutionalizing Agrometeorological


Learning through a Trans-disciplinary Educational Commitment:
Establishing Science Field Shops in Indonesia
2. Dr. Marion Glaser: Multi-level transdisciplinarity in socialecological analysis: From local to global sustainability

5 min break
12:05h

12:50

3. Prof. Dr. Martina Padmanabhan: Transdisciplinary research


tandems in international cooperation
4. Arachmaniani Feisal: Art and its possibilities
Conclusion/ Integration
Information on contributing to ASEAS
Closing

13:30h

Lunch (Buffet)

Participants
1.
Dr. Soeryo Adiwibowo
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Faculty of Human Ecology
Jalan Kamper, Bogor 16680; Ph.: +62-251-8627793; sadiwibowo@yahoo.com
2.
Dr. Suraya Afiff
Department of Anthropology, University of Indonesia
Kampus UI Depok 16424, Indonesia, Ph.: +62 815 8613 6389, surayaafiff@yahoo.com
3.
Dr. Siti Amanah
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Department of Communication and Community
Development Sciences, Faculty of Human Ecology
Jalan Kamper, Bogor 16680; Ph.: +62-816-1918795; siti_amanah@ipb.ac.id
4.
Katriani Puspita Ayu
University Palangkaraya (UNPAR), Faculty of Social Science
Jalan Yos Sudarso, Palangka Raya 7311A; Klamey@gmail.com
5.
Dr. Rebecca Elmhirst
University of Brighton, School of Environment and Technology
Cockcroft C635, Brighton, UK; Ph: +44-(0)1273-642387; R.J.Elmhirst@brighton.ac.uk
6
Prof. Dr. Heiko Faust
Georg August University Gttingen, Institute of Geography, Department of Human
Geography
Goldschmidtstr. 5, 37077 Gttingen; Ph.: +49-551-39-8094; hfaust@gwdg.de
7.
Arahmaiani Feisal
Nitiprayan 42A, Yogyakarta 55182; Ph.: +62-813-9242 2964, arahmaianif@gmail.com
8.
PD Dr. Marion Glaser
University of Bremen, Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology
Fahrenheitstr. 6; 28359 Bremen; Ph.: +49-421-23800-66; marion.glaser@zmt-bremen.de
3

9.
Dr. Michaela Haug
University of Cologne; Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology
Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Kln; Ph.: +49-221-470-5623; mhaug@uni-koeln.de
10.
Dr. Marko Mahin
Christian University Palangkaraya, Department of Anthropology
Jl. RTA Milono KM 8,5, Palangka Raya 73111, Kalimantan Tengah; Ph.: +62-536-3225316,
unkrip@gmail.com
11.
Dr. Semiarto Aji Purwanto
University of Indonesia, Department of Anthropology, Kampus UI Depok 16424
semapur@yahoo.com
12.
Dr. Oliver Pye
Bonn University; Department of Southeast Asian Studies
Nassestr. 2, 53113 Bonn; Ph.: +49-228-73-9735; Oliver.pye@uni-bonn.de
13.
Dr. Stefanie Steinebach
Georg August University Gttingen, Department for Cultural and Social Anthropology
Berliner Str. 28, 37073 Gttingen; Ph.: +49-551-39 20156; ssteine@gwdg.de
14.
Melani Abdulkadir-Sunito
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Faculty of Human Ecology
Jalan Kamper, Bogor 16680; melani@samdhana.org
15.
Dr. Satyawan Sunito
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), Faculty of Human Ecology
Jalan Kamper, Bogor 16680; Ph.: +62-251-8350605, awansunito@gmail.com
16.
Prof. Dr. Vincentius Winarto
Atma Jaya Foundation, Chairperson Board of Executives,
Jalan Jenderal Sudirman No 51, Jakarta 12930, Indonesia
Yayasan Pendidikan Universitas Presiden, Advisor to The Chair of The Foundation,
President University Jababeka Education Park, Jalan Ki Hajar Dewantara, Kota Jababeka,
Cikarang Baru, Bekasi 17550, Indonesia
Ph: +62 8161316470, vwinarto45@gmail.com, winartov@president.ac.id
17.
Prof. Dr. Yunita T. Winarto
University of Indonesia, Department of Anthropology
Kampus UI Depok 16424
Ph.: +62 815 13433677, yunita.winarto@gmail.com
Hosts/ Participants from the University of Passau
18. Prof. Dr. Martina Padmanabhan, Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural
Studies Focus Southeast Asia, martina.padmanabhan@uni-passau.de
19. Dr. Kristina Gromann, Assistant Professor at the Chair of Comparative Development
and Cultural Studies Focus Southeast Asia, kristina.gromann@uni-passau.de
Ph.: +49(0)851/509-2743, Mobile: +49(0)1771438131
20. Katharina von Braun, Research Associate at the Chair of Comparative Development
and Cultural Studies Focus Southeast Asia, katharina.braun@uni-passau.de
Ph.: +49(0)851/509-2745, Mobile: +49(0)1736758972
4

General Information
Venue:

University of Passau
Chair of Comparative Development & Cultural Studies - Focus Southeast Asia
Dr. Hans Kapfinger Strasse 14b, 94032 Passau
Room 314a
Ph.: +49(0)851/509-2741 (Sekr.: Regina Treipl)

Hotel:

IBB Hotel Passau


Bahnhofstrasse 24
D- 94032 Passau
Ph: +49 (0)851 9883000

Workshop: Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia


Key note by Dr. Suraya Affif, University of Indonesia

Indonesias agrarian-environment politics post-2014 Election


On July 2014, Indonesia voters elected Joko Widodo, popular by his name Jokowi, as the 7st
president of Indonesia. Unlike most previous presidents, he does not come from the top party elite
circle nor has a military background. He was seen as an ordinary Indonesian and an inspiring
bureaucrat, the image that made him received a strong public support, including from many civil
society groups in Indonesia. Many Indonesians expect him to implement a much better policy on
numerous demanding issues that required immediate government action, such as strengthening anticorruption measurements, improving human rights policies and implementation, resolving extensive
land conflicts, promoting a better environmental stewardship policy and action, implementing land
reform policy, and promoting other pro-poor development programs. Dr. Afiff will specifically focus
on Jokowis government agenda related to land and forest issues and some of the challenges to
implement the policy to improve the land tenure security for million Indonesian rural communities.
She is also planning to discuss the response from the civil society groups in dealing with this current
national political and economic change in Indonesia

Potential contribution to: InDSearch: Contested Development Ethnicity and Gender in


mining. The case of Kalimantan
Abstract: Socio-cultural and institutional transformation processes in rural Kalimantan
Research areas: Human Geography, Area Studies, Political Ecology
Principal investigator:
Faust,Heiko,Prof.Dr.,14.07.1961,German
GeorgAugustUniversittGttingen,GeographischesInstitut,AbteilungHumangeographie,
Goldschmidtstr.5,37077Gttingen
Phone:+49(0)551398094
Fax:+49(0)5513912140,Email:hfaust@gwdg.de
Outline:
Indonesiahasattractedincreasingglobalattentioninrecentyearsduetoconcernsoverlargescale
deforestationandrapidresourceexploitation.SinceDutchcolonialtimes,landtenureregulations
havegenerallyfavoredresourceuse.ThecurrentNationalDevelopmentPlancontinuestoseepe
ripheralislandsasatreasureforresourceuseandproductioninordertoeradicatepovertyand
acceleratenationaldevelopment.Thisdevelopmentalfocus,however,isaccompaniedbyecological
degradationandgrowingsocialinequalities.Takingahistoricalperspectivewecandiscloselayers
ofpastandpresentlandtenureregulationstounderstandongoingcontestationsoflanduse,re
sourceexploitation,andtheirsocialconsequences.RecentvillagecasestudiesfromJambi(Sumatra)
demonstratehowdifferentpoliticalerasandtheiraccompanyinglandtenureapproachesaremir
roredintodayslocalarena.Wefoundthatdejureregulationswhichwereaddedtocustomarylaws
createdlegalpluralism.Thefollowingdiverseinstitutionalregulationsopenednichesforinformal
approachesonresourceuseandcreatedcontradictingdefactoprinciples.Further,thedevelopment
contextisframedinlandtenureformalizationprocesses,amongstothersfacilitatedbyREDD+im
plementation,contributingtosocialconflictsthroughtheexclusionoflocalcommunitiesaccessto
resources. The legal plural orders dynamicallyrescale access and property relations in the local
global(ruralurban)continuumandchangethesocioecologicalsystem,exemplifiedtrougharising
discoursesonresourcegovernance.ThecollaborativeresearchinJambirevealsnewinsightsonhis
torical,political,socialandecologicalprocessesinpostfrontierarenas.Spatialandtemporalambiv
alencesandheterogeneitiesdominateresourceusepatternsandgovernancestructures.Thepre
vailingdiscoursesonlocalregimesoflandaccessandresourcegovernance,forinstance,reflectthe
ongoingstrugglesoverpoweramongandbetweenstakeholdersondifferentscales.Especiallynon
placebasedactorsbecomeincreasinglydecisiveintheoveralllocaltransformationprocess.Forin
stance,manyconcessionholdersactuallyliveinurbancentersbutholdconcessionsinruralareas.
For the intended interdisciplinary research project in Kalimantan we will focus on two central
objectives:theinvestigationofruralurbanlinkagesinfluencingtransformationprocessesinmining,
andtheevaluationofdecentralizationprocessesconcerningresourcegovernance:
i)Explanationofspatialandtemporalsocioculturalheterogeneitiesbyinvestigationofsociocul
turalandsocioeconomiclocalglobal(ruralurban)linkagesandrespectivesocioculturalflows(i.e.,
migration,ethnicity,norms,values,gender).Knowledgeisneededhowthesedynamicsareinflu
encedbysocioculturalprocessesinruralurbanrelationsandexchange,guidedbythehypothesis

thatintensityandvariationsoftransformationprocessesinminingaredependingnotonlyoneco
nomic,butonsocioculturalexchangewithregionalandsupraregional(urban)centers.
Localculturallandscapesmirrorpatternsofglobalprocessessincetheseplacescannolongerbe
consideredasisolatedunits.Thismeansthatrurallandscapesinternaldiversityandtheirconcep
tualintegrationintofarreachingrelationalnetworksevokesnewsubjectsfordiscussion(Schaichet
al.2010,Otten2015).Thegrowingurbandemandonresourcesreinforcesthecommercializationof
agriculturalandnonagriculturalproducts.Viceversa,ruraldwellers,whichwerepreviouslysepa
ratedfromregionalandsupraregionalcommoditychainsduetomissingmarketlinkageswereena
bledtobenefitfromnewlycreatedmarketingopportunities(Rigg2006).Inthisrespect,ruralurban
linkagesonlymirrorlocalpatternsofrelationaldynamicsinglobalspacesincelocalplacesbecome
more and more integrated in global processes. A vital driver of economic interaction, especially
withintherelationalruralurbanspace,issocialcapital.Relationsarebasedonmutualtrust,leading
todecliningtransactioncosts,butfurthermoreenhancetheexchangeofinformation,i.e.norms,
notionsandvalues.Thispromptstoreassesstherolesofgenderandethnicityinruralurbaninter
actionsandimplicationsforresourcegovernance,HaanandvanUfford(2002)concludethatalt
houghtradeisaneconomicactivity,ruralurbaninteractionsareembeddedinsocialrelations.
ii)Explanationofvaryingspatialandtemporalresourcegovernanceandplanningapproachesby
evaluationofgovernanceregimesandnegotiationsonresourceuseandtheireffectsongenderand
ethnicityconcepts.TheobjectivesarebasedonresultsfromJambionculturallandscapetransfor
mationwhichhasshownthattrajectorycreatedoverlappinglawsandregulationsproducemodern
antagonisms, foster social polarization, and favor ecological crises. These dynamics influence re
sourcegovernanceissues,thus,wefollowthehypothesisthatanincreasingintensityofsocioeco
nomictransformationleadstoanintensificationofconflictingsocioculturalandsocioecological
discoursesonresourceuse,exemplifiedongenderandethnicityinmining.
LocaldiscoursesonwatergovernanceinJambi(Merten2014)demonstratedthatlocalresource
governanceisembeddedinruralurbanlinkagesaswell.Further,thestruggleoverlanduseisoper
atedbydifferentstakeholdergroups.Withincomplexsocialecologicalsystemstheinfluenceoffor
malandinformalinstitutions,theroleofstateandnonstateactors,thenatureofmultilevelinter
actionsandtherelativeimportanceofbureaucratichierarchies,marketsandnetworksareidenti
fiedasmajorstructuralcharacteristicsofgovernanceregimes(PahlWostletal.2010,Barkmannet
al.2010,PahlWostl2009,Kochetal.2008).
Thepotentialinvestigationswillbebasedonextendedcasestudiesalongaruralurbancontinuum
andnetworkanalysis.Qualitativemethodswillbeappliedondifferentscales,fromthehousehold
leveltogovernmentinstitutions,includingnonplacebasedactors.

Project-related publications
Peer-reviewed articles:
Beckert B, Dittrich C, Adiwibowo S (2014) Contested land: An analysis of multi-layered conflicts in Jambi
province, Sumatra, Indonesia. ASEAS Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 7(1): 75-92
Hein J, Faust H (2014) Conservation, REDD+ and the struggle for land in Jambi, Indonesia. Pacific Geographies, No. 41 - January/February 2014
Hein J, Adiwibowo S, Dittrich C, Rosyani I, Soetarto E, Faust H (under review) Rescaling of Access and
Property Relations in a Frontier Landscape: A Case Study from Jambi, Sumatra/Indonesia
Klasen S, Meyer K M, Dislich C, Euler M, Faust H, Gatto M, Hettig E, Melati D N, Jaya N S, Otten F, Perez C,
Steinebach S, Tarigan S, Wiegand K (under review) Economic and ecological trade-offs of agricultural specialization at different spatial scales

Kunz Y, Steinebach S, Dittrich C, Hauser-Schublin B, Rosyani I, Soetarto E, Faust H (under review) The
fridge in the forest: historical trajectories of land tenure regulations in contested arenas in Jambi Province,
Sumatra, Indonesia
Tscharntke et al. (in prep.) Scenarios of ecological-socioeconomic tradeoffs in land use all bets are off
Other articles:
Faust H, Schwarze S, Beckert B, Brmmer B, Dittrich C, Euler M, Gatto M, Hauser-Schublin B, Hein J, Holtkamp A. M, Ibanez M, Klasen S, Kopp T, Krishna V, Kunz Y, Lay J, Muhoff O, Qaim M, Steinebach S,
Vorlaufer M, Wollni M (2013) Assessment of socio-economic functions of tropical lowland transformation
systems in Indonesia. Sampling framework and methodological approach. EFForTS Discussion Paper Series No. 1. GOEDOC: Dokumenten- und Publikationsserver der Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen
Hein J (2013) Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), Transnational Conservation and Access to Land in Jambi, Indonesia. EFForTS Discussion Paper Series No. 2. GOEDOC:
Dokumenten- und Publikationsserver der Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen
Merten J (2014) Land use change and rural water supply in the tropics. Perceptions and impacts of oil palm
expansion in Sumatra, Indonesia. Unpublished Master thesis, University of Gttingen, Institute of Geography
Otten F (2015) The Role of Market Access for a Secure Livelihood in a Scarce Environment A Case Study
among Smallholders in Wonokitri, East Java. Unpublished Master thesis, University of Gttingen, Institute
of Geography
Schwarze, S., Euler, M., Gatto, M., Hein, J., Hettig, E., Holtkamp, A. M., Izhar, L., Kunz, Y., Lay, J., Merten,
J., Moser, S., Muhoff, O., Otten, F., Qaim, M., Soetarto, E., Steinebach, S., Trapp, K., Vorlaufer, M. and
H. Faust (2015) Rubber vs. oil palm: An analysis of factors influencing smallholders crop choice in Jambi,
Indonesia. EFForTS Discussion Paper Series No. 11. GOEDOC: Dokumenten- und Publikationsserver der
Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen

References
Barkmann J, Burkhard G, Faust H, Fremerey M, Koch S, Lanini A (2010) Land tenure rights, village institutions,
and rainforest conversion in Central Sulawesi (Indonesia). In: Tscharntke, T. et al. (eds.): Tropical Rainforests and Agroforests under Global Change: Ecological and Socio-economic valuations. Springer. Berlin
Binder C R, Hinkel J, Bots P W G, Pahl-Wostl C (2013) Comparison of Frameworks for Analyzing Socialecological Systems. Ecology and Society 18(4): 26. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-05551-180426
De Haan L, van Ufford P Q (2002) About Trade and Trust. The question of livelihood and social capital in ruralurban interactions. In I. S. A. Baud (Ed.) Re-aligning actors in an urbanizing world: governance and institutions from a development perspective. Aldershot: Ashgate, 243 p
De Haan L, Zoomers A (2005) Exploring the Frontier of Livelihood Research. Development and Change 36
(1), 27 p
Koch S., Faust H, Barkmann J (2008) Differences in Power Structures Regarding Access to Natural Resources
at the Village Level in Central Sulawesi (Indonesia). Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, Volume
1, Number 2, 59-81
Pahl-Wostl C (2009) A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes. Global Environmental Change 19, 354365
Pahl-Wostl C, Holtz G, Kastens B, Knieper C (2010) Analyzing complex water governance regimes: the Management and Transition Framework. Environmental Science & Policy 13, 571-581
Rigg, Jonathan (2006) Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: Rethinking the links in the Rural South. World
Development 34 (1) DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.07.015
Schaich H, Bieling C, Plieninger T (2010) Linking Ecosystem Services with Cultural Landscape Research.
GAIA 19 (4), 269-277

Territorialization and Its Effect to Land Use Changes and Rural Differentiation
A Brief Proposal for The Workshop on
Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia
Theme: Development and Natural Resource Use in Kalimantan:
by
Soeryo Adiwibowo
Faculty of Human Ecology, Bogor Agricultural University

Context
Under the Soesilo Bambang Yudoyono administration, the future development of
Kalimantan corridor is designated for a center for production and processing of national
mining and energy reserve. The main economic activities of Kalimantan would be on oil and
gas, coal, palm oil, steel, bauxite, and timber. Almost 30 years ago the economic activities of
Kalimantan rest mainly upon oil and gas, and timber. Currently, oil and gas production in
Kalimantan is decreasing due to limited exploration of new oil and gas fields. Without
discovery of new reserve, Kalimantans gas production decline steadily around 7% since
2007 (Coordinating Ministry For Economic Affairs, Republic of Indonesia 2011).
As oil and gas production decreases, coal mining sector is identified as one of the main
economic drivers that can sustain the economic development of the Kalimantan region. In
2010, the amount of coal used for domestic consumption is 60 million tons or 18 percent of
the total national coal production of 325 million tons, most of which is consumed for
domestic electricity generation. The remaining 265 million tons was exported to several
main consuming countries such as Japan, China, India, South Korea, and other ASEAN
countries (Ibid 2011).
In 2011, area under oil palm plantations in Indonesia was 7.8 million hectares out of which
6.1 millions hectares were productive plantation under harvest. Around 75% or nearly 6
million hectares of plantation estates and CPO production are located at Sumatra and
Kalimantan, both in the form of large-scale estates as well as smallholder operations.
Smallholder farmers managed almost half of the plantation area. A paper published in
Nature Climate Change (2012) confirmed that the expansion of oil palm plantations in
Indonesia has come largely at the expense of the countrys forests. Between 1990 and 2010,
90% of oil palm plantations in Kalimantan were established on forested land (47% intact,
22% logged, 21% agroforest).
Kalimantan has the largest iron ore reserves in Indonesia. Around 84 percent of primary iron
ore reserves and 29 percent of laterite iron ore deposits are found in Kalimantan. Increased
trends of steel prices continue to take place and potential contribution of steel sector to the
national economy increased by two-folds. Main economic activities of steel in Kalimantan
are located in West Kotawaringin in Central Kalimantan; and Batulicin, Tanah Bumbu, and
Tanah Laut in South Kalimantan. Development projects in these locations include iron ore
processing and smelting and the development of downstream processing industries from
1

iron-ore smelting into raw materials (pellets and sponge iron) for the steel industry in
Indonesia (Ibid 2011).
Kalimantan is considered as one of the worlds major lungs due to its vast forest areas.
Kalimantan has the second largest forest area after the island of Papua, with its forest area
of 41 million hectares compared to 42 million hectares of forest area in Papua. According to
data from the Ministry of Forestry (2009), Kalimantan has the largest production forest area
with a total of 29.8 million hectares out of which 52.7 percent (or 15.7 million hectares) of
the area has been utilized for timber production forest with Timber Cutting and Wood
Production licensing (IUPHHK), both for commercial scale Industrial Plantation Forest, and
for Natural Forest. However, satellite studies show that some 56% of protected lowland
tropical rainforests in Kalimantan (or more than 29,000 km2) were cut down between 19852001 to supply global timber demand (blog.cifor.org).
All of the mentioned development pace are not only at the expense of the natural resource
degradation as well as deforestation and degradation of tropical rainforest of Kalimantan,
but also changing the constructions of ethnic identity, physical landscapes, and tree and
land tenures through territorialization process, which then further induced vulnerability,
violence, displacement, and dispossession of the indigenous people as well as local
community (Peluso 2008, 2005).
One of critical issues that important to underline here is land tenure. Land tenure is not a
sector-bound issue it is multi-dimensional in nature. Land tenure relationships are a
convergence of social, cultural, technical, institutional, legal, and political forces that push
and pull creating absolute tension or conflict resulting from overlapping land permits, and
exploitation of natural resources, women and vulnerable groups. In Central Kalimantan,
where the pilot project for REDD+ implementation took place, overlaps of licenses within
state forest revealed. Four million hectares of State Forest, or 25% of the province, has
overlapping land use certificates that are in-process or have been issued. Some 3.1 million
hectares of the state forest has overlapping regional government permits, with 560,000
hectares also have licenses from Ministry of Forestry on top of its regional permits.
Research Questions
With regards to the abovementioned context three research questions are developed:
1. What is the emerging trend of land use change in the past few years over Central
Kalimantan Province due to the territorialization of large-scale palm oil, mining
operations, logging operations, including the biodiversity conservation efforts such as
the establishment of protected area and biosphere reserve?
2. What is the nature and extent of rural social differentiationin terms of class, gender,
ethnicityfollowing changes in land use and land property relations as well as
organizations of production and exchange?
3. To what extent the territorialization processes and its following land transfer induced
vulnerability, violence, displacement, and dispossession of the indigenous people and
local community occurred? How and what are the implication for rural livelihoods?

Objectives
1. To portray and analyze the impact of territorialization and land transfer for development
and conservation to physical landscape of the agro-ecosystem and livelihood strategy of
the indigenous people and local community.
2. To analyze the effect of land use change and land property relations to the nature of
social differentiation (class, gender, ethnicity) including its vulnerability, violence,
displacement, and dispossession.
Concise Theoretical Framework & Research Methodology

Broad framework encompassing the political economy, political ecology, and political
sociology of land use changes and land transfer centered on oil palm, mining, forest
plantation, and conservation.

Guided by the territoriality and territorialization concept (Peluso 2008, 2005) and
agrarian political economy (Bernstein 2010; Borras et al 2011).

Combination of qualitative and quantitative type of research.

Applying spatial analysis to figure out the land use changes in the past few years over
Central Kalimantan.

Duration of research: three years.

Katriani Puspita Ayu, MA


University Palangkaraya (UNPAR), Faculty of Social Science
Jalan Yos Sudarso, Palangka Raya 7311A; Email: Klamey@gmail.com

Tackling Deforestation through institutional and policy


means
Forests, goods, rights, and owners
Forest is a symbol of prestige for Dayak people. Forest is also a source of life
since it has become a source of living, a place for finding food and medicine, a
place for getting materials to built houses and boats, as raw material for making
house furnitures and also as a sacred place for celebrating traditional ceremony.
Forest is a home and also as a means of land fertility recovery. Dayak pople is
very depended on the forest because it provides both their physical needs (food)
and spiritual needs (forest as a place for holding a traditional ceremony). The
problem that appears is that the width of forest is gradually diminishing. It makes
Dayak people looses the number of width of forest that they can develop.
According to data that is established by the forestry departement, the number of
deforestation in Kalimantan in year 2000 up to 2005 reached approximately 1,23
million acres. The width of forest and peatland area that is protected is reducing
significantly from 69.144.073 acres becoming 64.796.237 acres. It means,
approximately 673 acres of Kalimantan is deforested every day on that period.
The width of forest in the whole province reached approximately 40,8 million
acres. Meanwhile, according to Greenpeace, there are only 25,5 million forest in
2010. The most potential large forest is in Central Kalimantan which has
15.300.000 acres based on the appointment of forest area of Central Kalimantan
Province based on Minister of Agricultures decree No.759/KPTS/Um/10/1982
which is established on October 12th, 1982 regarding to the appointment of forest
area in Province level in Regional area.
Actual problems in Kota Waringin Timur
Kota Waringin Timur is one of the districts in the province of Central Kalimantan,
and the capital of this district is Sampit. The total area of this district is 16.496
km with approximately 416.200 inhabitants in 2014. The findings of WALHI
Kalteng mention, few business sectors that lead to increased deforestation in
Central Kalimantan, of which 4.1 million hectares of oil palm plantations and
mining companies 3.8 million hectares. This has led to losses due to forest
conversion, namely environmental degradation, ecological disasters, corruption
and inequality in land management causes more conflicts.
In the era of regional autonomy, the politics of ecology which is run by local
authorities so significant in promoting ecological damage within the area. The
authority of regional and the local political actors strongly affect the public policy
decision-making started from planning, implementation and control of regional
development, including the governance of natural resources. The regional
autonomy has been hijacked by a conspiracy between the investors and local
leaders to exploit natural resources without sustainability for public needs or
environment condition in the future.

Deforestation and Forest transition


The main reason of forest clearing that happened in 1950 was because the forest
usage as agriculture field. People were planting rice after clearing the forest. Then
in the early 1970s, the forest turned into wood commercial needs and was opened
massively. It increased the speed of deforestation and based on the report of
Forest Watch Indonesia regarding to potrait of Indonesians forest in 2001, the
speed of deforestation since 1997 had been constantly happened every year. There
were 7-8 million acres of tropical forest which was in process of cutting every
year. This condition triggered a massive forest fire in 1997-1998 which was added
by economic crisis and the ruin of political authority and the weakness of law
enforcement in the age of new orde. Under the government of President Soeharto,
Indonesia took economic growth paradigm such as spur oil sector, mining,
forestry, plantation and agriculture. On (Herman Hidayat: 2011:32), the
government is more open for the market by giving permission to the private
industries to operate in Indonesia. A number of great palm oil robs the the local
peoples land to open their plantatation area. The local people are complaining
about the state that makes boundaries between the local peoples land and
governments land. Therefore, the government establishes a law which forbids the
local people to take/cultivate anything from the forest since they belong to the
government. The law made the structure changed. Before, there was a traditional
law which protected the ownership of the land for the local people, then, the law
turned to positive law which was made by the government.
Problem of forest transition that happen in Kota Waringin Timur.
The fact is that the investor which explores the forest resources in Central
Kalimantan in particular Kota Waringin Timur has made the local people as the
one who must accept the result of forest over-exploitation. Further, the
government issued rules about forest classification and local people rights to
manage the nature around them. In fact, the state made policy on land divisions
and this created division between territory which is believed by the local people as
heritage of their elders and which is stated by the government as states land.
Conflics that appears is forest conversion because the ownership of the land is
unclear between the state and the private sector. On the other hand, the local
government budget politics was no indication of positive changes in the recovery
and improvement of the environment. The lack of budget allocation and poor
environmental protection with an average of three billion per district very far from
the commitment on environment recovery.
Combination between deforestation, land rights, and weak institution are the
aspects that become a predator for the Dayak people which makes forest issue
more interesting to be studied from multi-aspect. Therefore, this paper aims to
explain the massive forest degradation that affect powerless Dayak people in
managing its resources as well as the role of government which is not favor to
grass root and its further impacts to socio-cultural. It is also analyzing how far the
relationship between national and the regional government in implementing and
evaluating forest exploitation through political economic perspective. Further, the

paper is intended to re-analyze and evaluate the impact of deforestation in Kota


Waringin Timur in order to meet the needs of Dayak people. Finally, this paper is
aimed to find out and explore Kota Waringin Timur district governments options
in order to overcome the forest crisis.
Literature Review
Political ecology is an interdisciplinary, non-dualistic strategy that remains under
development, and perhaps deliberately so, seeking to describe the dynamic ways
in which, on the one hand, political and economic power can shape ecological
futures and, on the other, how ecologies can shape political and economic
possibilities. Often identified with political economy, political ecology frequently
takes political economys interest in the expression and influence of state and
corporate power on environmental politics and combines this with insights
derived from understanding and analyzing environmental influences on social
activity. Political ecologys ability to engage the philosophy and values of
ecological justice has made it attractive to many who expect analysis to facilitate
social change. A particular focus is on the way in which institutional change is
negotiated between different social actors, and the extent to which structural
factors influence the evolution of institutions and policy.
Political ecology studies how societies build and govern their environment, with a
special emphasis on power relations and critical thinking. It stands as a thriving
interdisciplinary domain of thought, which emerged at the intersection between
ecology, geography, political science, socio-anthropology, and ecological
economics. It builds on empirical case studies, particularly in situations that
involve local and indigenous populations. The phenomenon of environmental
damage can be seen from political ecology approach in which the environment
damage and the conflict within them can not be separated from economic and
political interests. According to Peluso and Watts (2001), the environmental
damage and the conflict of environmental governance is affected by the
calculation of the power aspect, fairness of distribution, the way of controlling, the
interests of local-national-global networks, historical, gender, and the role of the
actors.
Blaikie and Brookfield aim to shift attention away from inherent natural
conditions and social characteristics, arguing instead that a 'chain of explanation'
should be constructed, in which relationships between farmers and the physical
environment are considered in their 'historical, political and economic
context' (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987, p. 239). Referring to the main objective
of this proposals main issue, that is forest, the relationship which is meant by
Blaikie and Brookfield between farmers and physical environment is the forest
manager with forest physic situation itself from political economy point of view
and history of the forests condition. The reason of political ecology usage as
grand theory in this proposal is because this point of view can explain a complex
interaction between economy, politic, and social technology. This proposal point
of view can explain a complex interaction between the local economy condition,

politics and power, and social tradition as well as the condition of current
biological environment. This discipline is integrating ecological social sciences
with political economy (Peet and Watts 1999, p.6) in topics such as degradation
and marginalization, environmental conflict, conservation and control, as well as
environmental identities and social movements (Robbins 2012).
Three main aspects of regional political ecology are outlined in land degradation
and society by Blaikie and Brookfield. First, there is a call for an integration of
human and physical approaches to land degradation, combining the concerns of
ecology with those of a 'broadly defined political economy' (p. 17). The aim is
to highlight the interactive relationships between people and their environment,
described as a 'constantly shifting dialectic between society and land-based
resources (p. 17). Secondly, Blaikie and Brookfield argue for regionally-based
accounts of land degradation, which start with the decisions of farmers
themselves, and take into account variations in environmental resilience. This
locality-based approach is to be supplemented by work on a variety of scales,
so as to show for example 'the contribution of different hierarchies of socioeconomic organizations' (p. 17). Thirdly, a concern with political economy
implies an analysis of how structures external to rural society, may impinge on
it in a way that leads to land degradation. Thus attention is focused on the role
of international capitalism and the state, and the way these 'directly and indirectly
have repercussions on the land, and those who use it' (Blaikie, 1988a, p. 141).
Understanding the deforestation in Central Kalimantan along with Dayak society
condition needs more than cultural ecology and system theory emphasizes. It
needs the role of political economy as a force of mal-adaptation and instability
(Peter A. Walker 2005, p.74). He stated that political ecology will often utilize the
framework of political economy to analyze environmental issues
According to Blaikie and Brookfield, regional political ecology represents a
broad-based approach, encompassing a variety of scales, methodologies and
conclusions regarding the causes of land degradation. At the same time, their
approach has implications extending beyond the explanation of the particular
phenomenon of environmental decline. They are concerned with environmental
degradation in its broadest sense, which includes the loss of soil quality and
fertility, as well as the physical removal of soil. Specifically, in this paper, it does
not only aim to explain the phenomenon of forest degradation but also its effect
for the Dayaks people that is depended to the forest and moreover annual disaster
which happen because of deforestation. Moreover, the paper will explain the role
of institution which work together with the private sector in ruining the forest and
miss-manage the land.
Blaikie and Brookfield are also aim to develop a theoretical framework which
will explain why land managers sometimes act in ways that are detrimental both
to the environment, and to their own livelihoods. 'Regional political ecology' is
thus a theory about land management, not just land degradation. As such, it is
potentially useful in explaining the persistence of a range of ostensibly irrational

and unproductive land management practices, which might for example result in a
temporary decline in productivity, as well as in semi-permanent, or permanent
environmental degradation. The use of regional political ecology in this research
is aimed to explain the attitude of forest manager and a number of stakeholders
who are in need with the forest in managing the forests resources overexploitatively and unsustainably. The aim of this research is to identify factors
that are involved with both the political economy factors leading up to the
deforestation as well as how the impact of increasing number of Palm Oil
Company in Kota Waringin Timur affects environmental quality. These problems
call for analyzing dynamics through the theoretical perspectives of political
economy forming a concept specific to this research political ecology.

The Dynamic of Artisanal Mining in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Semiarto Aji Purwanto


Department of Anthropology, University of Indonesia
(semapur@yahoo.com)

In this paper I will describe the changing trend of mining activity conducted by the
communities. It is my opinion that it related to the weakening of government control over
forest area, the rise of indigenous and ethnic movement and local priority in the national
discourse, and the pressures from some insitutions and agencies after knowing that rivers
have highly been contaminated with mercury. The case studies I took from my former
research in Kelian River, East Kalimantan, which conducted in 2003, and several observations
in Central and West Kalimantan during 2010-2015.
The big Kalimantan island in Indonesia has provided the country with a lot of natural
resources. It is the place where natural forest, plantation and horticulture production has
been recognized for long time. Aside from the forest natural products like timber and non
timber products Kalimantan also rich with oil and mineral deposits which have been mined
both extensively by large mining companies and traditionally by the communities. Oil, gold
and coal are the main important mining products and in addition there are also silver, copper,
ferro, lead, molybdenum, antimony, and tin, and some non-metallic mineral consists
of granite, basalt, limestone, kaolinite and quartz sand (Nursahan 2015).
In Indonesia, the mining production is constitutionally managed under state companies or
private sectors with limited concession from government. These such monopoly management
has for some times put the communitys activities in mining became illegal. In Kalimantan, for
centuries, gold deposit is reported to be abundant in the river bank where alluvial and
sedimentation made gold can easily be found. Consequently, a lot of people have long
experience in exploring the gold by simple technology. They can be found in almost every
part of the island. However, their mining activity is not considered as productive; instead
categorized by the government as illegal, destructive and dangerous. It was during the New
Order of Suharto when this state monopoly became strong and dominantly control the
mining and other natural resource management as well.
Post-Suharto era, Indonesia has a new face of natural resource management. Through the
law of local autonomy, the lisence and operation of some natural resource exploitations are
now decentralized. Although the state is still hold the principal lisence for forest, plantation
and mining company, it becomes more open now for the local government to issue small and
limited concession for natural resource exploitation. In addition to the desentralization policy,
researchers have identified some of lacking in management, especially in control, the
governance of ntural resources. Central government used to have direct control to the local
government through kantor wilayah (branch offices) of all technical minister. Now, these
offices ar no longer exist and replaced by kantor dinas (local offices) controlled by local
governance. Practically, the local government is very strong in deciding to give permits or
even change the forest area into other purposes such as for plantatin or mining sites.
Paralelly, and simultaneously, the communitys responses over the law of local autonomy are
filled with enthusiasm and chaotic in other side. A lot of people living in and around forest,
who has, during the Suharto era, been merely spectators for the resources exploitation in
1

their homeland, take innitiative to exploit their land. In mining sectors, it emerged in the
quick spreading of gold rush in many places. Like the one that I have observed in East
Kalimantan (ILO 2004), migrants from South Sulawesi came to the Sungai Babi, a river that is
branch of the bigger Kelian river. The Kelian river is connected with a multinational gold
company Kelian Equatorial Mining that operated in Tering, East Kalimantan. The people trid
to find gold material in the river. They believe that the companys waste flew in the river still
contain with gold material. Some others think that there are huge deposits of gold in Sungai
Babi and Kelian river. They tried hard to find out the gold vein that running from the river to
the banks.
I identified that there are at two main techniques usually used by the community in Kelian
Dalam to mine the gold. The first is by digging the ground up to five meters, and then some a
tunnel is made to follow the gold vein. There can be some tunnels in the well-like hole called
lobang solong. The first way of digging material from the ground is also called sedot kering
where most of the activities are conducted in the dry ground. The second techniques is the
exploration in the river or on the river bank. This is believed to be easier because of the mud
can be easily sucked from the bottom of the river, channeling through hoses, and then
separated the gold from sandy soil or mud. People use rakit or rafts to put the pump machine
to suck the mud from the river. The first technique is the old way to get the gold material,
while the second is newer but then became very popular in all over places in Kalimantan.
In 1999, right after the down of Suharto, in only three regions in Central Kalimantan, there
are 1812 gold rafts operated in Kahayan river. My observation 10 years ago indicated that
along the Kelian River, in a sample plot of 2 kms, there are 45 rafts of gold miners. It is
reported at that tims, that the numbers of artisanal minings in the Kelian River are found in
107 spots. Now, in the past five years, the gold rafts are rarely found. Yet, the artisanal
minings are still can be found mostly inside the forest. Why did the artisanal mining activity,
nowadays, move to the forest areas?
I will describe first the two main techniques, how and why they choose those particular ways
to get the gold. Then I move to the more analytical description of the reasons why people in
Kalimantan now seems to leave the gold mining in the rivers.
Knowledge on artisanal mining may benefited for the effort of enhancing communitys
economic since it mostly conducted by people with limited access to land. It also help to
reduce the risk of chemical contamination and to prevent the miners from fatal accidents. In
the academic side, an understanding of artisanal mining especially in the context of
communities will provide us with explanation of cultural responses to the national political
changing in the local level. It is also hoped to contribute to the discourse and study of the
regional autonomy and natural resource management in Indonesia

Research Proposal
BEYOND STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS: LOCAL RESPONSES FOR SELF DEVELOPMENT1
Satyawan Sunito2
The land covered by large scale palm oil plantation is at present approximately 14,3 mil hectares and
still expanding. It involves more than 10 mil workforce, 70% of it are dayly laborors (Siaran Pers
Menyambut hari buruh sedunia 1 Mei 2015, Sawit watch, 30.04.2015) If the government realize
their plan to develop large scale plantation (dominantly oil palm) through the length of its
international border in Kalimantan, this will ad 1,8 mil hectares to the present figure. Adding to this,
are mining concessions and other large scale land use projects. With all Conversion-forests already
occupied and converted to other land use, every expansion of large scale land use such as oil palm
plantation and on diverent reasons mining, will be on permanent forest land or on land that is used
and claimed by local people. This expanding large scale land use changing radically the landscape,
ecosystem and the social and economical life of thousands villages inside and outside the
consessions areas.
This process of transformation is not a recent Neo-Liberal phenomenon. In contrary, it started with
the expansion of capitalism in mid-19th century colonialism, when the colonial state and economy
started actively shaping the local community and the natural resources to serve a new capitalistic
mode of exploitation. Starting in Java and later on in coastal areas of Sumatera, it was only far after
the independence, in the 1970th , when the process reached the interior of the large Sunda islands
(Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi) (Pelzer, 1978; Breman, 1997; Hariadi & Jhamtani, 2009). The
aggressive territorialization after 1970th was accompanied by massive government policy in
reorganizing indigenous system of settlement, village governance and cultural practices. Which Dove
explained as Politics of ignorance on the side of the central government (Dove, 1983). More
important for this proposal is the process of large scale forest concession and land acquisition by
corporations through government licenses, that went hand in hand with the process of
territorialization, that brought with it the exclusion of local communities from agrarian resources.
This processes of large scale transfer of access and control of natural resources into the hands of
corporations over and above the local communities, were explained by some as land-grab and the
process of through primitive accumulation.3
A double process of large scale land acquisition under government permit and the neglect of local
land rights and livelihood systems, result in massive land dispossession of small holders. Using
government permit (Ijin Lokasi/Location Permit) literally as weapon, large companies create a
condition in which small holders are placed under pressure to sell their land. These processes of land
grab (Borras & Franco, 2012; Seized!, 2008) had pushed local communities into a marginal position
1

Contribution for the Workshop Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan,
Indonesia from the 10th 12th June 2015 at the University of Passau, Germany.
2
Teaching staff of Department of Communication and Community Development, Faculty of Human Ecology,
Agricultural University of Bogor.
3
Primitive accumulation involves the dual process of dispossession of former claimants of their resources and
the radical change of the social relation of production forced by the new claimants. A free interpretation from
personal communication with Nancy Peluso. Bernstein following Robert Brenner (20010) suggested the term
commoditization of subsistence that imply the full integration of peasant into commodity relations without
necessarily being dispossessed of their land (Bernstein, 2010)

(Li, 1999). Local communities undergo radical transformation from users and the stewardship of the
natural resources and the environment to become dependent users of and labor for a total different
management and exploitation of the natural resources. From independent small holders practicing
complex agroecological systems often within a customary law community, into dependent small
holders and laborers integrated in large scale monoculture system owned by corporations serving
national and global markets. This transformation of local and indigenous communities are intimately
related with transmigrant villages as well as the influx of land hunger immigrants, and labor force
attracted by new opportunities and facilitated by the opening of forest and logging roads.
From a residual point of view (Borras, 2009), the integration of local and indigenous communities
into the modern large scale natural resource exploitation is the right trajectory that will free these
communities from marginalization and poverty. Part of this point of view is the assumption of a still
homogenous local and indigenous forest village community, which are marginal by definition.
This proposal rejects the notion of the homogenous and originally marginal local and indigenous
communities. In contrary, as the above exposition partly demonstrate, most local and indigenous
communities had already a long history of cultural discrimination and suppression, and economic
exploitation, that put these communities in marginalized condition. In other words, this proposal
takes the relational point of view (Borras, 2009) in relation to poverty and marginality. In addition,
local and indigenous communities are not the same. Local communities can be divided into
categories of social, economic and political complexity. Most of the larger communities have been
already socially differentiated, in ascribed as well achieved statuses. The larger Dayak tribes in
Kalimantan know already inherited social statuses, lay man and aristocracy, and until it was
prohibited by the Dutch colonial government these tribes know the institution of slavery. The influx
of different categories of mostly land hunger immigrants while resources are decreasing, the intermarriages and land transactions between autochthone and allochtone have their implication in
tenure system and distribution of resources. The combination of changes, in the ecosystem,
agrarian base, commoditization of almost everything, social-demography, and ethno pluralism, all
have their implication in social relation, social-relation of production, (indigenous) norms and values.
The numerous agrarian conflicts indicate that not all village communities have been integrated into
the system of large scale corporate activities. There are communities that refuse to be integrated
and as a consequence have to engage in prolonged conflict with large corporations. The focus of the
indigenous movement is on fighting for citizen rights, including rights on land and resources. Part of
this struggle is already achieved, when the state acknowledged the status of customary forest
outside the state forest area. However, the threat of dispossession of their land by corporate
interest does not decrease. One important aspect of the right on land and resources are their
productive use. The ability to demonstrate that people has the capability to use its resources.

From the above exposition, this proposal propose several research questions: 1) under the condition
of environment degradation, the ever decreasing availability of land, rising needs of income, the
changing and erosion of local customs, commoditization of land and agriculture in general,
increasing pluralism, and the still looming threat of dispossession of land what are the available
chances and possibilities local people have in developing their agrarian resources and other
activities; 2) How do people use, adjust and change local institutions, in coping with the social-

economic and environment complexities. Are there institutional innovations coming out of these
complexities?; 3) What are the role and effectiveness of external parties in supporting local
communities in their self-development?

LITERATURE USED
Bernstein, H., 2010, Class Dynamics and Agrarian Change. Agrarian change and Peasant Studies.
Fernwood Publishing.
Borras, Jr. S.M., 2009, Agrarian change and peasant studies: changes, continuitie and challenges an
introduction. In The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.36, N0.1, January 2009.
Borras, Jr. S.M. & Jennifer C. Franco, 2012, Global land Grabbing and Trjectories of Agrrian Change: a
Preliminary Analysis. Journal of Agrarian Change, vol.12, no.1, January 2012.
Breman, J., 1997, Menjinakkan Sang Kuli. Politik Kolonial pada awal Abad ke-20. Translation, PT.
Pustaka Utama Grafiti, KITLV, Jakarta.
Dove, Michael, 1983, Theories of swidden agriculture, and the political economy of ignorance.
Agroforestry Systems 1: 85-99.
Grain Briefing, 2008, Seized! The 2008 land grab for food and financial security. Grain Briefing,
October 2008.
Kartodiharjo, H and Hira Jhamtani, 2009, Environmental Politics and Power in Indonesia. Equinox
Publishing, Jakarta, Singapore.
Li, T. Murray, 1999, Marginality, Power and Production: Analyzing Upland Transformations. In Tania
Murray Li (ed.) Transforming The Indonesian Uplands. Hardwood Academic Publishers, 1999)
Pelzer, K.J., 1978, Planter and Peasant, Colonial policy and the agrarian struggle in East-Sumatra,
1863-1947. KITLV.

What we can Learn from the New Forms of Green Enclosure Practice
in Indonesia
Suraya Afiff
A Brief proposal for the Workshop on Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and
Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia
th
10 12th June 2015 at University of Passau

The focus of my presentation will be on the new emerging forms of control over
large-tract of land for environmental purpose in Indonesia. Some scholars refer
this type of land enclosure for environmental ends as green grab (Fairhead et
al., 2012). Green grabbing certainly was not a new phenomena in Indonesia (also
elsewhere). The colonial and post-colonial states alike have been actively
involved in allocating large land areas for various green development projects
such as for national parks, wildlife reserve, biofuel, watershed protection,
etcetera. The emergence of concern on the green grab issue as Fairhead et al.
(2012) argue, due to this recent large scale land control for environmental end is
different when it compares to the past history. Today green enclosure process is
new in terms of the actors,.....the cultural and economic logics and political
dynamics involved (Fairhead et al., 2012).
In this workshop I will briefly present the new emerging type of land enclosure
for a specific conservation scheme in Indonesia namely ecosystem restoration
(ER). In Indonesia, Ecosystem Restoration scheme is a new type of green
enclosure process that has targeted the ex-logging area. Once this ex-logging
area has been designated for ecosystem restoration management, it can prevent
the remaining forest cover to be cleared for other uses such as for monoculture
industrial timber or palm oil plantations.
The advocate for ecosystem restoration scheme are those who tried to combine
two different interests. Ecosystem restoration scheme fit with those who are
interested in finding the strategy to keep the remaining forest cover in the
production forest. In their view ecosystem restoration scheme would be a
perfect solution to establish conservation strategy since very few people will
support the initiative to turn a production forest into a nature reserve. The
emerging of international discourse on the need to support the effort to reduce
the emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and in
particularly the possibility for carbon trade has open up the possible for
conservationists to collaborate with those who are interested in the
establishment of a new form of economic investment over nature.
Those who are concerned with the green grab issue point out the potential
impact of the green grab process on the livelihood of indigenous and local
communities who lived surrounding the project area. Large land deal project as
in other development projects, some scholars argue, might induce violence and
displacement (Vandergeest et al. 2006), however, on the other hand, we cannot
assume that the establishment of ecosystem restoration project will result the
similar effect everywhere. My questions, therefore, how has a particular

ecosystem restoration initiative been played out at a specific site and how has
this project effect those communities who lived surrounding the project areas.
There is a good reason to explore these questions in Central Kalimantan
province. Since 2010, the national government has designated the Central
Kalimantan province as one of the pilot provinces for the national program to
reduce the emission from deforestation and forest degradation or known by as
REDD+. Of the total nine ecosystem restoration projects that have been
established by 2013, two of these projects were developed in Central
Kalimantan.
I will present my work-in-progress research that explore the implementation of
the ecosystem restoration project in Katingan district, Central Kalimantan. In
2013, the Ministry of Forestry has granted PT Rimba Makmur Utama (PT RMU)
about 108,255 hectare of land in the district of Katingan to be managed as
ecosystem restoration scheme. The fact that no local oppositions have been
publically reported against this company initiative, has attract my intention to
find out more about the way the villagers perceived the establishment of PT
RMUs ecosystem restoration initiative.
From the administrative term, PT RMU ecosystem restoration project falls within
the sub-district of Mendawai and Kamipang. It was reported there are 14 villages
that have located adjacent to the project. Besides PT RMU, there are two other
types of project schemes were implemented in the region. Two palm oil
concessions were established adjacent to PT RMU. It was also adjacent to the
Sebangau National Park. My initial finding shows that International standards
have shaped the company approach and strategy to engage with the local
communities. At the same time, few human activities could be found in the peat
land area, the area where PT RMU was established. As the result, instead of
oppositions, many of local communities wish to find jobs with PT RMU. Based on
my observation I could not find any evidence that local people livelihood have
been displaced from the project area. These maybe some of the reasons why we
could not find local resistance against the company. This is to show that
ecosystem restoration scheme in Katingan district might provide the different
effects with other ecosystem restoration project established in Sumatra. This is
to show that large scale land grab is not always caused the same pattern of
displacement effects for villagers.
Reference cited:
Fairhead, M., M. Leach, I. Scoonea.2012. Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of
nature? Journal of Peasant Studies 39 (2): 237-261.
Vandergeest, P., P. Idahosa, P.S. Bose [Eds.]. 2006. Gree gabbi g: Developments
Displacements: Economies, Ecologies, and Cultures at Risk. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Beyond the River Basin: the Transformation of the Kapuas Riverscape in West
Kalimantan
Oliver Pye, Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Bonn University
This paper introduces some key findings emerging from a DFG funded research project on the political
ecology of the Kapuas River undertaken by a team consisting of Julia, Irendra Radjawali, Oliver Pye (Bonn
University) and Martin Lukas and Michael Flitner (Bremen University). The Kapuas River is the longest
river in Indonesia. Emerging from the mountain ranges of central Borneo, its rushing torrents of the Kapuas
Hulu feed a large and muddy river that slowly meanders down from Putussibau to the sea at Pontianak. The
river, vast in itself, is connected to a much larger system of lakes, swamps and inundated forests that support
a wide diversity of fish, insect, bird and other species, many of which are still being discovered. Historically,
this ecological productivity was the source of livelihood for the peoples of West Kalimantan and the basis of
extended trade networks that linked forest peoples to China and beyond.
Today, the river is in crisis. This crisis can be seen in ecological terms in the deterioration of the quality of
water, the depletion of fish stocks and the destruction of those forest and swamp ecosystems connected to
the river. But the crisis is also an eco-social crisis, impacting and transforming the lives of its inhabitants.
This paper argues that the crisis has its origin in a model of economic development based on export-oriented
resource extraction that is changing the political ecology of the river and the gender relations and concepts
of ethnicity that are interwoven with it.
In trade-liberalised ASEAN, Indonesia has been awarded the role of resource supplier. The Indonesian state
has operationalised this place in a regional division of labour with a plan for accelerated development
the MP3EI in which different provinces are earmarked for different industries. In this vision, the
development of West Kalimantan will be led by the palm oil, bauxite mining and timber industries
(Rachman and Yanuardy 2014). These industries have at their centre a business model that is based on large
scale operations, resource extraction, cheap labour and the subjugation of nature. It is a business model that
brings it into direct conflict with the complementary dual strategy of smallholder production combining
subsistence and cash crop production (Dove 2011), leading to an increasing politicization of the Kapuas. It is
this politicization in connection to the transformation of the political ecology of the river that interests us
here.
Serious ecological deterioration of river systems across the world has been addressed by a interdisciplinary
approach known as River Basin Management, Integrated Water Management or variations thereof. The
basic idea is that the river should be seen as water and related natural resources (Watson et al. 2007)
within a complex ecological and social river basin system. Because land use change in the watershed affect
the river and activities upstream impact the downstream and so on, but each change is undertaken without
considering the impact to the river as a whole, IWM is essentially about improving the level of
coordination among the various agencies, government departments and other organizations that share
responsibilities for the management of the river basin (Molle 2007: 359). Such interconnectivity is apparent
in the Kapuas river basin. Palm oil and timber plantations replace natural forests that have intricate
connections to the river, particularly when swamp and seasonally inundated forests are drained and
converted. But palm oil mills also directly contaminate the river when palm oil mill effluent (POME) is
discharged into tributaries. Similarly, mining activities pollute the waterways by the use of large quantities
of water for the processing of bauxite and the discharge of tailings and sediments into the river.
An integrated river basin approach, while accounting for the connectivity of physical, ecological flows,
often falls short in terms of understanding the political ecology of these interconnectivities. One reason for
this is that the territorial spatial focus on the basin neglects that humanenvironment dynamics within a
river basin (e.g. land use changes, erosion, loss of biodiversity, marginalisation, migrations, etc.) are
frequently interlinked with processes or drivers that pertain to the national level (e.g. public policies) or
global level (e.g. climate change, market price for commodities, etc.) (Molle 2007: 359). Another problem
is that the focus on management and coordination between various government bodies neglect issues of
power, economic interests and social conflicts that underlay the eco-social transformations. The
ineffectiveness of the river basin management group FORUM DAS in West Kalimantan reflects the
shortcomings of this techno-fix approach.

To study the political ecology of the Kapuas riverscape, therefore, we developed a research project that
looked beyond the river basin by conceptualizing City-Rural-River-Transformation-Loops that looked at
how key qualitative transformations affecting the river were being driven by different networks linking
investment and political decisions in the city (and linked to the national and the global scale) to agrarian
transformations that then flowed back to the city via the river. On an aggregate level, we have expanded on
Bronsons idea of a dendritic system (1977) in which he conceptualized the pre-colonial river as a trading
route linking forest-based peoples extracting valuable forest products in the upstream tributaries to ricegrowing societies in the lowlands and to a trading centre at the mouth of the river. To this trade functionalist
view of the river we have added others to conceptualise the rivers multifunctionality as a scape of flows of
products, capital, power, livelihoods, and pollution.
To understand the qualitative changes accompanying the socio-ecological transformations, we combined this
functionalist approach with participatory action research in a series of place-based studies we called
Participatory Hydro-Political Appraisals (PHPAs). The PHPAs developed a series of research questions and
group discussions in conjuncture with citizen research groups and related to key change objectives and
spatialised interventions. A key innovative tool was the use of community drones to develop locally
controlled counter-maps (Peluso 1995). Seven PHPAs explored key transformations connected to palm oil
(Sintang), logging (Ambalau), bauxite mining (Tayan), gold mining (Serawai), fisheries (Meliau, Danau
Sentarum), conservation and REDD (Menua Sadap, Putussibau ) and urban water issues (Pontianak). In each
PHPA, the citizen researchers were encouraged to relate their key issues to the river and subsequently, in a
final workshop in Pontianak, to connect the dots and to relate their experience with that of the other
groups.
In the three PHPAs focusing on the three key development industries palm oil, timber and bauxite mining,
local communities encountered similar problems of land grabs facilitated by community leaders and district
level politicians and backed up by provincial and national governments. All three industries need licenses
for large scale exploitation for which a close political (and financial) collaboration between transnational
and national conglomerates and state political power is necessary. In all three cases, therefore, the
transformation loops are characterized by investment dominated by transnational capital at the global scale
in close collaboration with political power at the national (and provincial and district) scale. In the bauxite
mining case in Tayan, the mining company was a joint venture between Chinese capital and an Indonesian
firm of which the Dayak governor H.M. Cornelis is a shareholder. The river serves as a conduit of extraction
(palm oil, timber and bauxite is transported down the river) and as a pollution dump (POME, mining
tailings, chemical treatment of logs, and sedimentation). The local communities are impacted firstly by a
loss of land (and therefore livelihood), by political repression (farmers opposing the palm oil concession
were jailed in Sintang) but also directly by the environmental degradation of the river. In Sintang the
pollution of streams and tributaries was so severe that the locals no longer had access to clean drinking
water, while in Tayan, the mining company diverted a tributary and laid waste to a lake that had been the
main source of livelihood for fisherwomen.
In the highlands of Kapuas Hulu, the source of the Kapuas, land grabs are replaced by green grabs. The
imposition of a national park on to customary indigenous land in the upper reaches of the Embaloh tributary
does not have the polluting impact of the extractive industries, but had similar livelihood consequences, as
hunting, timber and swiddening rights are restricted by the state. The potential commodification of the forest
in the form of carbon credits within REDD schemes introduced by transnational conservation and
development companies (GIZ, WWF) has led to similar horizontal conflicts within and between
communities as in the extractive industries, as local leadership is divided over whether to sell their carbon
and potential benefits exacerbate territorial conflicts. The loop is characterized by a different set of actors
(conservation and development corporations and a different section of the state, with a lesser role for district
officials) but also ultimately connects to the global financial markets via the emerging speculative market
for carbon credits.
The ubiquitous allocation of large scale concessions (now covering - via overlapping licenses - 130% of
West Kalimantan) has meant that a large number of independent smallholders have been dispossessed from
their own land and that the dual strategy of subsistence and market production identified by Dove is no
longer viable. This is also related to the political ecology of the river, as the destruction of wetlands and the
deterioration of water quality has resulted in the loss of wild capture fish stocks. Highly valued fish species
such as the Semah and the Arowana have now become extremely rare. In Meliau, downstream fishing

activities with warin stow nets to catch fish fry for aquaculture fodder is leading to diminishing fish stocks
upstream and to a politicization of fisheries. Overall, a commodification of fisheries is taking place, with a
more capital intensive and male dominated aquaculture replacing subsistence fishery from the river. The
river is steadily losing its function as a site of needs-based subsistence production.
The proletarisation of formerly independent smallholders means that the younger generation necessarily has
to become more mobile in the search for jobs and income opportunities. One attractive alternative to the low
paid jobs in the plantation and mining sectors is gold mining. In contrast to large scale mining operations,
gold mining along the Kapuas is small-scale, with mining sites, ownership of operations, and trading
networks showing a dendritic spatial pattern up the river. While the financial markets at the global scale are
the ultimate drivers of demand and rising gold prices, and the connection to the global market is brokered by
trading families in Pontianak, gold mining offers lucrative opportunities for independent workers, start-up
operations and entrepreneurs with a small amount of capital. State actors play a key role firstly by
criminalizing the activity and then, via corruption networks, by facilitating them. Despite the small scale of
operations, the cumulative impact on the ecology of the river is substantial. Open pit mining near the river
banks leaves a scarred landscape behind, while inflow mining creates major sedimentation pollution and
poisoning by mercury.
The multifunctional use of the river as a site of production, transportation and pollution conflicts with its
function as a site of social reproduction, creating a crisis in the urban political ecology of the river,
particularly in the poorer areas of Pontianak. The urban poor use the river for washing, laundry, for sewage
and for drinking water. Mercury poisoning and contamination by organic effluent cause serious health
problems, and washing in the river can cause itchiness and skin diseases. The quality of water is so bad that
it can no longer be used for drinking. Municipal water supply is insufficient, particularly for people who
cannot afford the fee. Major problems are created by the urban use of the river as a garbage dump and a site
of sewage discharge. This has resulted in repeated campaigns to clean up the Kapuas, but these consist
mainly of voluntary garbage collection activities that do not address the political issues of the failure of the
provincial government and municipalities to provide an effective waste and sewage collection system and
publically accessible piped water for consumption. The failure to do so is partly related to difficulties in
purifying Kapuas water that is contaminated by increased pollution and sedimentation from upstream
activities.
The current development strategy in West Kalimantan, drawn up and implemented by an interplay of
national, provincial and district-level government bodies, is ultimately subservient to the global scale and to
the meta-network (Castells 1996) of the financial markets, by which flows of capital determine the speed
and nature of industrial expansion. While connection to and dependence on global markets also characterize
smallholder production, this always had the safety valve of the subsistence track and could react flexibly to
demand for new commodities. The current model, by contrast, is based on the subjugation of nature and of
the land claims and rights of the West Kalimantan citizens. As independent livelihood strategies are
squeezed out by large scale concessions, surplus population (Li 2009) becomes mobile, with
proletariatised smallholders searching for jobs in plantations and in gold mining. This transforms gender
relations, as women lose rights in the productive sphere and are given low paid and precarious positions in
the wage labour sector (Julia with Ben White 2012). Ethnicity is also being renegotiated and becomes a
political field where different development models are contested. While traditional adat structures are
sometimes mobilized to oppose the concession model, local indigenous leaders also use them to secure
development benefits for themselves and for electoral campaigns. Dayak ethnicity has become a dominant
political force in the province, one that promotes capital-led development strategies such as the MP3EI.
Taking the perspective of the river allows us to view the totality of the different industrial sectors. Each
sector, be it palm oil, logging, or mining, leads to environmental degradation and to social conflicts. Taken
together, and in relation to the functionalities of the river, the overall eco-social transformation becomes
clear. The functions of the river as a as a network of capital flows, as a conduit of resource extraction, and as
a pollution dump are prioritized over the functions of the river as a site of subsistence production, as a socioecological system and as a site of social and cultural reproduction. The City-Rural-River-TransformationLoops that underlay this prioritization are not restricted to the scale of the river basin, but include state
actors, corporations and capital flows at national and global scales.

However, the choice of the current development model is a political decision on how West Kalimantan
engages with forces of globalization, and can therefore be challenged. The action research component of our
study showed that the interconnectivity of the river can also be used as an organizing tool. By relating placebased experiences to the issues in other places, citizen researcher groups were able to scale-up their
comprehension of their own experience to include the river scale and to connect this to the national and
global scale. A practical expression of this was the use of drones for counter-mapping. A successful
deployment of this in Tayan, with community leaders even giving drone-map-based testimony before the
constitutional court in Jakarta, encouraged other groups to follow suit. New opportunities created at the
national scale, such as the new village law and the ruling that allows communities to claim and legalise
customary forest opens up new possibilities to pursue a development model that prioritizes people and the
river over profit.

Literatur
Bronson, Bennet (1977): Exchange and the Upstream and Downstream Ends: Notes Toward a Functional
Model of the Coastal State in Southeast Asia. In: Hutterer Karl L. (Hrsg.): Economic Exchange and Social
Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography. Michigan Papers on
South and Southeast Asia No 13, pp. 39-52.
Castells, Manuel (1996): The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dove, Michael (2011): The Banana Tree at the Gate. A History of Marginal Peoples and Global Markets in
Borneo. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Julia and Ben White (2012): Gendered Experiences of Dispossession: Oil Palm Expansion in a Dayak Hibun
Community in West Kalimantan, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:3-4, 995-1016
Li, Tania Murray (2009): To make live or let die? Rural dispossession and the protection of surplus
populations, Antipode 41(S1): 6693.
Molle, Francois (2007): Scales and power in river basin management: the Chao Phraya River in Thailand.
The Geographical Journal, Vol.173, No. 4, December 2007, pp. 358373.
Peluso, Nancy (1995): Whose Woods are these? Counter-mapping forest territories in Kalimantan,
Indonesia. Antipode 274, 383-406.
Watson, Nigel, Gordon Walker, Will Medd (2007): Critical perspectives on integrated water management.
The Geographical Journal, Vol 173, No. 4, December 2007, pp. 297299.
Rachman, Noer Fauzi and Dian Yanuardy (2014): MP3EI. Master Plan Percepatan dan Perluasan Krisis
Sosial-Ekologis Indonesia. Bogor: Sajogyo Institute.

Men, Women and Disappearing Forests: the Gendered Face of Development in


Borneo
Michaela Haug, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne

The insatiable hunger for natural resources and the increasing intrusion of global
markets have transformed Borneo and Bornean societies significantly during the last
decades. A fast growing mining industry, persistent (illegal) logging and the
expansion of oil palm plantations and other boom crops result in vast forest loss, a
radical transformation of landscapes and growing pollution. Only about 50% percent
of the once lush rainforests are left today and deforestation is progressing inexorably
with a loss of roughly 1, 1 Mio hectare per year. For local populations these changes
often imply a change from subsistence strategies to wage labor, from shifting
cultivation to intensive agriculture, from self-reliance to increasing dependency and
from village life to urban life. State visions of development further impinge on the lives
of local groups e.g. by promoting a sedentary lifestyle or a strong disregard for
swidden agriculture. All these changes (re-)produce in manifold ways economic,
political and social inequalities.
In my paper I want to look at these changes from a gender perspective and question
how these far reaching environmental and economic changes have impacted gender
relations among the Dayak, the indigenous population of Borneo. Unfortunately not
much has yet been published on gender relations among the various Dayak groups
in general and even less on changing gender relations. My paper should thus be
seen as an attempt to identify some emerging trends. Drawing on my own research
among the Dayak Benuaq in East Kalimantan I will try to point out some questions
that are of interest for future research on gender, environmental change and
changing gender relations in Borneo.
The various indigenous groups which are summarized under the term Dayak are
characterized by a great linguistic and cultural variety. Despite this diversity gender
relations among the Dayak are characterised by a tendency to minimize differences
between men and women and far-reaching gender equality. The earliest sources on
Dayak gender relations stem from colonial times. The records of Tromp (1889)
document for example a significant amount of female adat leaders in East
Kalimantan. Ethnographies of various Dayak groups describe far-reaching gender
equality among the Iban (Mashman 1991), Rungus (Appell 1988), Gerai (Helliwell
2000), Meratus (Tsing 1990) and Kenyah (Colfer 1981, 1991). It is interesting to note
that gender equality is thereby documented for rather egalitarian as well as for highly
stratified Dayak groups.
A small amount of studies looks at recent environmental and economic
transformations from a gender perspective. Their overall tenor is that these
processes tend to lead to an increasing imbalance between men and women.
Studies on mining in East Kalimantan for example (Lahiri Dutt and Mahy 2008 &

Lahiri Dutt and Robinson 2008) document the negative impacts of mining and the
specific conditions around mining sites on women and youth. Other studies show
how the migration to urban centers (Hew 2007), the expansion of commercial logging
(Colfer 1981,1985) and the expansion of palm oil plantations (Julia und Ben White
2012) produce new asymmetries between men and women - mainly due to
processes of exclusion from land (rights) and different ways of inclusion in new
economic systems.
My research among the Benuaq however shows that quite recent developments like
the increasing shift of transportation from river to road and the establishment of semiurban governmental and administrative centers in previously remote areas provide
new ways of mobility for men and women who can afford to buy a motorbike and new
working opportunities especially for young and educated people. This perspective
allows posing further questions about growing inequalities among men and women
and the stability of gender equality despite environmental and economic change.

Gendered Impacts of the oil palm 'land rush' in East Kalimantan: a material
feminist political ecology approach.
Rebecca Elmhirst (University of Brighton, School of Environment and Technology),
Mia Siscawati (University of Indonesia, Kajian Gender) Bimbika Sijapati Basnett
(CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia).
In this short paper we adopt a material feminist political ecology framework to
analyse gendered impacts of the oil palm land rush in East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Based on fieldwork in five contrasting communities in Berau (4) and in East Kutai (1)
we explore the ways in which differently positioned communities (in terms of socionatural history) and differently positioned actors (in terms of gender, ethnicity and life
course stage) within communities are being incorporated into oil palm systems, either
through their engagement with the corporate sector or through independent
smallholder investment. The complex interplay between gender, oil palm investment
and environmental transformation in these different communities has drawn us
towards material feminist political ecology, which we find useful not only for framing
gender specific materializations of socio-ecological change, but in revealing socioecological materialisations of gender in East Kalimantan.

Gender and Resource Use Learning Circle: Contextualizing Crisis, Empowering Women1
Melani Abdulkadir-sunito2 and Siti Maimunah3

The fall of Soehartos New Order regime in 1998 marked the shift in Indonesias political
structure from a centralistic into a decentralistic one, though not simultaneously change the force
of extractive regime. Kalimantan is one example. For over twenty years since 1967 Kalimantan
experienced timber boom and oil-exploitation. When logging industry faltered and oil supply
decreased, Kalimantan becomes the site for coal mining and expansion of oilpalm plantation.
The extractive industry continue, only the commodities change to suit the demand of global
capital and market. Meanwhile, decentralization is perceived as a larger authority and benefit
sharing to regional government. In the sixteen years since reformation, rate of natural resource
exploitation increase. Compare to Soeharto era, the number of mining permits increased ten
times (Maimunah 2014).
The conversion of land for foodcrops into mining concession, oilpalm plantation, economic and
housing centres are the causes of decreasing number of farmers and fishermen. Destruction of
forest-agricultural landscape, loss of biodiversity, environmental degradation, and prolonged
agrarian conflicts occurred in a larger area at a faster rate, and its impact are shouldered by local
communities.
To make sense of this ecological crisis, it is inadequate to focus only on large-scale, and often
violent actions of eviction that pitted the state against the communities. At local level there are
occurrence of piecemeal hand-overs of property with no apparent coercion, or in the words of
Hall, Hirsch and Li (2011), an intimate exclusion4. The attempt to understand the how and
why of exclusion at intimate level, is just as important.
One place to start, is on women and on change in gender relation. Why women, why gender?
Studies on gender division of labour reveals persistent inequality. Women are denied ownership
of land, and prevent from having greater roles in decision making. And because in most
community women are responsible for provision of water, food and energy (fuel), they have a
stake in environmental protection for their immediate survival. Disclosing gender inequality
1

Contribution for the Workshop Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia
from the 10th 12th June 2015 at the University of Passau, Germany.
2

Lecturer at the Department of Communication Science and Community Development, Faculty of Human Ecology,
Bogor Agricultural University; fellows at The Samdhana Institute.
3

Managing Board of JATAM (Indonesian Mining Advocacy Network), researcher at the Sajogyo Institute, and editor
of www.mineandcommunities.
4

Intimate exclusion is, practices that enable some people to accumulate land and capital at the expense of their
neighbours and kin include setting a price for land purchase or rent that the latter cannot afford; lending them
money or food at rates they cannot repay; renting or buying their land at fire sale prices; enclosing village
commons so they cannot use it; and finally, distributing development handouts (cheap credit, free inputs, licences
and access to land) to households that already have a competitive advantage (Hall, Hirsch and Li 2011:145-6).
For further discussion of type of exclusion/enclosure/dispossession, see Hall, Hirsch and Li (2011).

issues is, therefore, an attempt to uncover the hidden face of environmental crisis.
Interestingly, among Civil Societys Organizations (CSOs) working in environmental issue,
gender received little attention. As Marcoes and Rahman (2014) noted, gender are either viewed
as irrelevant to their program, or viewed as important but either (a) difficult to understand (or in
one activist words, adding complexities, see Abdulkadir-sunito 2010), or (b) important and
applied in framework as specific gender needs approach. Similarly, in light that gender is
mandatory by donor, advisors and partners of The Samdhana Institute5 propose either (a) projects
for women, or (b) consider gender as cross-cutting issues, meaning gender is to be addressed in
all project6. While the former got only a few proposals, the latter often lost in a maze of more
urgent and important problems (i.e., communal conflicts, resource mapping, large capital
threats, etc). It was obvious that there is a failure in seeing relation between gender
discrimination and larger change in community/womens ecological landscape.
As an attempt to bridge this gap, The Samdhana Institute and its partners put forward a plan of
activities called Gender and Resource Use Learning Circle. Participants of the learning circle
will consist of women from the community and activists from various places across Indonesia
who understand conditions of their area and willing to learn. Facilitators are to support the
learning process: explaining key concepts, assist participants in gathering information (story,
history) from the community, to edit writing-report, as well as to develop guideline on gendereddimension of destructive power (daya rusak) of extractive industry7.
The objectives of this are two. To the community, it is to learn and understand the story (and
history) of ecological crisis through womens experience. The story, not only of failure, but also
of survival and resilience. In the process, capacity of women will be increased. Women, the
often-sidelined member of community, will be empowered. The production of critical
report/readings will be an eye opener socio-ecological crisis has a gender dimension.
At present, the detail of process is being worked on, but stages will likely include (1) selection
the learning participants and community of target, (2) workshop on basic concepts and
ethnography, (3) participants doing fieldwork in their own community (observation, discussion,
writing), (4) facilitators visit, discussion on strengthening issues on gender justice and resource
management and/or other local issues, as required, (5) exchange of experience among
participants and reporting; development of guideline, (6) and into the next circle.

The Samdhana Institute is a regional non-profit organization working in seven thematic areas: indigenous people
and local community natural resource management, gender, safeguards in climate change, natural resource
conflict resolution, next generation leaders development, institutional strengthening, rural livelihoods and green
economy. Further information, see website www.samdhana.org.
6

Personal opinion of M.Abdulkadir-sunito is based on liberal interpretation from discussions with fellows, grant
managers, and partners of The Samdhana Institute.
7

Four changes in production and consumption modes are related to industries of chemical poisons (pesticides,
herbicides), life-style (fast food, etc) , automotive and financial/debt, and drinking water (purification).

Readings
Abdulkadir-sunito, M. (2010) Menambah Rumit? Menyertakan Isu Perempuan dan Gender
dalam Gerakan/Ornop Lingkungan Hidup (Adding complexity? Incorporating Issues of
Women and Gender in Environmental CSO/Movement) in E.S.Wahyuni and L.M.Kolopaking
(Eds.) Pemberdayaan Perempuan Pedesaan: Pengembangan Metodologis Kajian Perempuan
Prof.Dr.Pudjiwati Sajogyo. Bogor: PSP3 IPB
Hall, D., P.Hirsch and T.M. Li (2011). Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia.
Singapore: NUS Press.
Maimunah, S. (2014). Biaya Ekologis Demokrasi Indonesia: 16 tahun reformasi, biaya
ekologis, partai politik dan masyarakat sipil (Ecological cost of Indonesian Democracy: 16 years
of reformation, ecological cost, political party and civil society). Paper presented at Konferensi
Nasional Ilmu Politik, Dept. Ilmu Politik FISIP UI 25-26Ags 2014.
Marcoes, L. and N.F.Rachman (2014). Belajar dari Perjuangan Agraria Perempuan: keadilan
gender sebagai paradigma dan metode pengarusutamaan dalam kegiatan lingkungan.
Unpublished paper.
Saunders, K. (2004) Introduction in K.Saunders (Ed.) Feminist Post-Development Tought:
Rethinking modernity, postcolonialism and representation. London and New York: Zed Books.

Enhancing gender equality in environmental management: the context of Kalimantan,


Indonesia1
Siti Amanah
Department of Communication and Community Development Sciences
Faculty of Human Ecology, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB)
IPB Dramaga Campus, Bogor-West Java, Indonesia
Telephone/Facsimile: +62(0251)8627793
E-mail: siti_amanah@apps.ipb.ac.id

Introduction
Human behaviour has impacted to natural resources and environment status including the
way of coal mining industry operated the business. The impact of mining has increased in
many mineral-rich countries in Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and
India has led to environmental and social impacts, such as degradation of forests and lack of
access to water resources including fresh water Kobayashi (2009). On the other hand, coal
mining as source of economic growth has increased in Kalimantan to meet the rise in global
demand for coal, copper, and other minerals. As an example, written in the Guardian2 by
comparing Samarinda (East Kalimantan) in 2013 and 1983. In 1983, Samarinda was a
sleepy village surrounded by deep equatorial forest and known for its traditionally woven
sarongs. In 2013, population of Samarinda was nearly 1 million inhabitants, and as the
centre of the burgeoning coal industry, surrounded by more than 1,000 mines and
concessions. The same situation with East Kalimantan, has also been found in Central
Kalimantan2 where more than 8.5m tonnes of coal were dug in 2013 compared with less
than 1m tonnes in 2005; and by 2020 companies could be extracting more than 20m tonnes
a year. Indo Met, the largest concession in central Kalimantan, owned by BHP Billiton,
covers 350,000 hectares and is thought to have coal reserves of more than 774m tonnes.
Air pollution, water contamination, flooding, and land grabs are among the negative effects
of irresponsible coal mining. Meridian et al. (Mining Advocacy Network3, 2010) analyse the
severe effects of coal mining in Kalimantan that would be likely to destroy not only physical
environment but also socio-economics and livelihoods of community. Coal mining has
replaced fertile soil for agriculture, depletion of forest, water resources and environmental
services for people. In the long terms bad practise of coal mining will effect natural and
environmental resources, decreasing sustainability to support human needs. The impact of
polluted water has shown by the fact that women often suffer from itchy skin after washing
using contaminated water because of untreated tailing from mining. Women and lay people
find obstacle in sounding the voice to the key actors of the coal mining industry. Mining has
perceived as male dominant sectors whilst the effects of coal mining to women are needed
to be discussed. In this context, Carvalho and van der Veen (2011) explain the effects of
chemicals to women health and suggest the needs for gender mainstreaming in chemicals
management. The issues of untreated chemicals waste from coal mining would be very
harmful to men and women in all ages. Van Paddenburg et al. (2012) suggest that to ensure

Statement for The Workshop: Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender In Kalimantan,
Indonesia, 10th 12th June 2015, University of Passau, Germany.
2
The Guardian, 30 Oct 2013: Swallowed By Coal: UK Profits From Indonesia's Destructive Mining
Industry (Http://Www.Theguardian.Com/Global-Development/2013/Oct/30/Coal-Mining-Uk-ProfitsIndonesia)
3
In Bahasa Indonesia: Jaringan Advokasi Tambang (JATAM) Leading Indonesian NGO For Mining
Advocacy

green economy in Borneo4, all industries operate in Borneo need to improve waste
management treatment and reducing impacts on air and water quality. Advocacy to the
investors and the owners of coal mining industry is needed to improve the situation. The
process should apply multiple communication approaches, vertically and horizontally5 to
develop better understanding of multi stakeholders to gender needs, gender analysis, data
disaggregated by sex, and policy development in environmental management towards the
betterment of human beings.
The proposed topic
Men and women have different roles and responsibilities in the context of domestic and
public spheres including natural and environmental management. For example: Colfer
(2013) suggests that knowledge of women regarding the resources may vary from that of
men. Both men and women have different level of involvement in triple-gender roles. Some
research in gender and environmental transformation shows that men play dominant role in
all phases of environmental program compare to women. The highest level of womens
involvement in the environmental program is in the implementation phase and the lowest
level of women involvement is in planning phase. One source for gender analysis is
availability of sex disaggregated data in education, health, agriculture, community forest,
small-medium enterprise and leadership. Gender analysis based on sex disaggregated data
is not always done in the planning phase of the program.
Environmental management [transformation] requires engagement from all people
regardless their background. In this case, men and women have specific needs, knowledge
and experience that needed to be considered in all phases of environmental transformation.
We are now in year 2015, a year that all countries signing the Millenium Development Goals
(MDGSs) committed to reach the eight MDGs. To promote gender equality and empower
women is one of the MDGs. Up to date, the gender issue has become the issue that the
policy makers and related stakeholders need to address due to the gender gap existed
between gender and natural resources development; gender and economic development;
gender and environment. Having researched gender issues in the last five years including
gender and local development planning forum (Amanah et al., 2011), gender and
environmental services (Leimona et al., 2013), gender and climate change in river basins
(Amanah et al., 2014), the results show that gender issue exists in domestic and public
sphere including in decision making, control over resources, take benefits from the program,
and asset provision. In most case, women are lack of access to capital, asset, education and
training, and leadership position. In fact, capacity development for both men and women is a
key for sustainable future. Report on post 2015 (OECD, 2015) also suggests that womens
ownership of and access to assets, resources and services land, housing, income,
employment, water, technology, credit, markets, banking and financial services are critical
to womens empowerment, rights and wellbeing. In the context of environmental
transformation in Kalimantan, I propose the topic on enhancing gender equality in
environmental management as feed for thought that needs to be discussed in the
upcoming workshop on Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in
Kalimantan, Indonesia. There are four aspects need to concern: (i) why coal mining keep
continue in Central Kalimantan? (ii) how do the community (men and women) nearby area
adapt to the effects of coal mining? (iii) what need to be done [by who] to strengthen gender
equality to manage environment as well as to decrease its negative impacts of coal mining,
and (iv) what should be done if coal mining must terminate?.

The term Borneo refers to an island consists of three countries: Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, and
Indonesia. Kalimantan is Indonesias area located in Borneo.
5
The terms vertically and horizontally process refer to Bolwig et al. (2008) in explaining the strategy
to integrate poverty, gender and environmental concerns into value chain analysis

References
Amanah, S., T. Sumarti, A. M. Purnomo, Y. Indaryanti, 2011. Increasing Participation of
Women in Local Development Planning Forum in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia.
Proceeding Symposium on Policy Research on Gender Mainstreaming, Women
Empowerment and Child Protection Jakarta, 16-17 March 2011. Ministry of Women
Empowerment and Child Protection of Indonesia, Jakarta, 58 pp.
Amanah, S., E. Riani, A. Faqih, T. Herawati. 2014. Model Pengelolaan Limbah Domestik di
Sub DAS Cikapundung yang Berwawasan Gender dalam Merespon Perubahan Iklim
(A model on Gender Sensitive Domestic Waste Management in Cikapundung River
Basins in Responding Climate Change). Prosiding Hasil Penelitian 2013 (Research
Proceeding of Research Results Paper). LPPM-IPB, Bogor.
Bolwig, S., S. Ponte, A. du Toit, L. Riisgaard & N. Halberg. 2008. Integrating Poverty,
Gender and Environmental Concerns into Value Chain Analysis. A Conceptual
Framework and Lessons for Action Research, DIIS Working Paper 2008:16
Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies.
Carvalho, S., and H. van der Veen. 2011. Gender Mainstreaming Guidance Series:
Chemicals and gender. Energy & Environment Practice Chemicals Management.
Montreal Protocol and Chemicals Unit. UNDP Environment & Energy Group.
Colfer, C.J.P. 2013. The gender box: a framework for analysing gender roles in forest
management. Occasional Paper 82. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.
Fiyanto, A., H. Mulaika, N. Hidayati, N. Shahab, L. Guerrero. 2010. Batubara mematikan:
Bagaimana rakyat Indonesia membayar mahal untuk bahan bakar terkotor di dunia.
Greenpeace Asia Tenggara and WALHI. Publikasi: www.greenpeace.org/seasia.
Kobayashi, J. 2009. Making the Connections: Water, Forests, and Minerals Exploitation in
South and Southeast Asia. In Cronin, Richard and Pandya, Amit. 2009. Exploiting
Natural Resources Growth, Instability, and Conflict in the Middle East and Asia. The
Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC.
Leimona, B., S. Amanah, T. Sumarti, N. Purnaningsih, Defina, A.M. Purnomo, A. Purbathin,
2013. Gender dalam skema Imbal Jasa Lingkungan. Beria Leimona, Siti Amanah,
Rachman Pasha, Chandra I. Wijaya (editor). World Agroforestry Centre Southeast
Asia Regional Office, Bogor.
Meridian, A. et al., 2010. Mautnya Batubara, Pengerukan Batubara dan Generasi Suram
Kalimantan (Deadly Coal: Coal Extraction and Borneo Dark Generation Coal, Digging
Indonesias grave, p.12. Jaringan Adovaksi Tambang/JATAM. Jakarta.
OECD, 2015. Gender Equality and Womens Rights in the Post-2015 Agenda: A foundation
for sustainable development. Element 3, Paper 1 OECD and Post-2015 Reflections.
Van Paddenburg, A., Bassi, A., Buter, E., Cosslett C. and Dean, A. 2012. Heart of Borneo:
Investing in Nature for a Green Economy. WWF Heart of Borneo Global Initiative,
Jakarta.
.
3

Separating sisters from brothers: identity politics and forest access in Jambi (working title)
Stefanie Steinebach
In Jambi province, ecological transformation is inextricably linked with social transformation. Since
the 1970s vast stretches of tropical lowland rainforests have been replaced by large scale rubber,
industrial timber, and oil palm plantations. Thus access to agricultural land has become increasingly
scarce and heavily contested, resulting in often violent conflicts between communities and
companies, but also among communities, on the ground.1 Most of these conflicts have their origin in
the dispossession of local rural (customary) communities during the Suharto-era (1965-1998) in
which about 70% of Indonesias territory was declared as forest land and came under the jurisdiction
of the state. The mechanisms and impacts of the Indonesian legislation facilitated deprivation of
communal customary access to land.
Since 1999 AMAN Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago has been invoking the politics of
indigeneity by which they frame the Indonesian customary communities as indigenous peoples as
defined by international human rights instruments. One main goal of AMAN is the restitution of
customary territories. As a reaction of the virulent conflicts over land, the Constitutional Court of the
Republic of Indonesia has accepted the juridical review (MK 35)2 of some parts of Act No. 41/1999 on
Forestry submitted by AMAN in May 2013. The court shifted the status of customary forest from
state forests to forests that are subject to rights.3 This revision further implies that customary
communities (masyarakat hukum adat) are recognized as right bearing subjects. The Minister of
Forestry reacted to the courts decision by stating that determining the status of customary forests
requires the legal recognition of the existence of the indigenous people through a regional regulation
(Perda) to identify who the community members are.
This existence of indigenous people and the question of defining its community members is the
central point for this contribution. I introduce the conflict between local communities in and around
the Bukit Dubaleas National Park in central Jambi. In this case study ethnic identity has become a
crucial resource of power to the distinct parties. Processes of identification and belonging create
identities tied to rights and possibilities around land as contested resource.
The National Park was established in 2000 and encompasses 65.000 ha of tropical lowland rainforest,
surrounded by oil palm plantations and borders different kinds of villages, transmigration
settlements established by the Indonesian government, and villages that already existed before
Dutch colonial rule in Jambi since 1906. These `pre-colonial villages claim the conservation area as
customary forest (hutan deas, hutan lindung) and customary land (tanah adat). The National Park
area is also inhabited by about 2500 Orang Rimba people of the forest - , semi-nomadic rainforest
dwellers whose ethnic identity is inseparably interwoven with their rainforest surrounding. The
Orang Rimbas livelihood consists of hunting, gathering of forest products as well as shifting
cultivation and growing of jungle rubber. The Orang Rimba, like the villagers, claim the national park
area as customary territory. The village residents also hunt and cultivate rubber and oil palm inside
the National Park area. This activities cause serious conflicts not only with the park management but
especially with the Orang Rimba

In Jambi by 2011 44 conflicts on 222.688 ha were reported (Priyan 2012).


Mahkamah Konstitutsi Nomor 35/PUU-X/2012
3
This shift of status and categorization was reached by the courts decision to delete the word state from
article 1.6. of the Forestry Law No. 41/1999 that now reads: Adat forests are state forests located in
customary communities territory.
2

Both, Orang Rimba and village communities trace back their territorial claims to pre-colonial times
when Jambi existed as a sultanate. In times of the sultanate relationship and differentiation between
communities were perceived in in terms of locality and kinship rather than ethnicity as later by the
Dutch. Orang Rimba and sedentary communities also claim genealogical bonds with the sultans
ruling dynasties to legitimise their claims. The relationship between the Orang Rimba and the
sedentary communities is also explained in terms of kinship: The Orang Rimba, like the sedentary
Malay, combine matrilineality with uxorilocal/matrilocal residence patterns in relation with
matrilineal inheritance structures of land and forest access.
In case of divorce a man returns to his sisters place as she is held responsible for her brothers living.
According to local lore villagers and Orang Rimba are common descendants of a pair of siblings once
living in the forest. The pair parted and one continued to live according to the forest laws whereas
the other settled in a village and embraced Islam. The Orang Rimba are regarded as progeny of the
female sibling, and the villagers conceptualised as descendants of the male lineage.
During the process of post-colonial nation building the socio-political organisation of the Bukit
Dubelas Area was restructured. The community entities were transformed into villages (desa) and
given new political structures, hierarchies and institutions. They were allocated communal land and
village boundaries were defined that did not match with the communities former territorial claims.
Due to this act they were completely included citizens into the Indonesian nation. In contrast the
Orang Rimba were, like other communities all over Indonesia defined as Komunitas Adat Terpencil
(KAT) traditional remote community (DEPSOS 2003). These groups along the equitation forest
dwelling, nomadic, shifting cultivation = remote, uncivilised, backward - occupied the tribal slot (Li
2000) and became the constituting other of the modern Indonesian villager and citizen. The Orang
Rimba were categorically isolated of the social structure of the Bukit Duabelas area and turned into a
customary minority group. State policies and national legislation transformed local kinship based
socio-political structures and land tenure systems into administrative categories of citizenship and
legal rights that deprived both, Orang Rimba and villagers, equally of their customary land tenure.
In this situation the possibility of indigenous land titling seems a promising endeavour to regain
authority over customary land, especially to the Orang Rimba communities who started mapping
their claims right after the courts decision was announced. According to the Forest department and
AMAN the Orang Rimba can be easily identified as indigenous people in contrast to the Melayu
villagers and their competing claims: conditions to be acknowledged as indigenous people
(masyarakt adat hukum) is the existence of customary socio-political structures customary land
tenure regulations. If no functioning adat-structures can be detected, the status as customary forest
hutan adat will not be granted or can be annulled by the Ministry of Forestry.
Even though the village communities would fulfil the criteria as indigenous people according to the
ILO convention, due to the forced conversion of socio-political structures and territorial boundaries
by the Suharto regime, their claims will not be acknowledged by the governmental institutions.
Thus land tenure conflicts are the outcome of competition over power, ideology and local history,
leading to changing patterns of inequality (Peluso 1995) in which self-identification as indigenous
becomes a process and a positioning (Li 2000) that realigns the ways they connect to the nation, the
government, and the non-indigenous population. Cultural differences are highlighted and
territorialized and historical ties with the sedentary populace erased and replaced by antagonisms of
specialness versus citzenship based on politics of identity.

ETHNIC RELATIONS AND IDENTITY POLITICS


IN THE CONTEXT OF ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
By: Marko Mahin

At present, Dayak is the generic name of the indigenous people of Borneo. Dayak is the
identity and social entity that is different from the Malays, Javanese, Banjar, Manado or
Batak. Careful scientific studies show that the Dayak identity is the result of socio-cultural
and political processes in the long span of history. In the accessible literature, the word
"Dayak" first appeared in 1757 in JA van Hohendorff article entitled "Radicale Beschrijving
van Banjermassing" is used to refer to "the wild in the mountains" (1862: 188). Apparently,
the word is picked just from the way people call the Malay coast inland. JA Crawfurd in his
book entitled "A Decriptive Dictionary of The Indian Islands and Adjacent Cauntries"
(1856: 127) states that the term "dyak" used by the Malay people to show "wild race" who
live in Sumatra, Sulawesi and especially in Borneo.
Some authors state Dayak term probably derived from Malay "aya" meaning upland (Boven
beteekent) or native (Adriani 1912: 2, Scharer 1946/1963: 1, King 1993: 30). This naming
continued to be used until now as reported by Tania Li (in Harwell, 2000: 25) that at present
an official in the administration of government in Sulawesi Dayak keep using the word to
refer to isolated tribes-underdeveloped in the region of their government. Among the Dayaks
themselves, at first the word "Dayak" is absolutely not ethnic name. Hardeland Dayak
dictionary -German (1858) there is absolutely no mention of that word "Dayak" means "tribe
in Borneo" as listed in the Dayak-Indonesian dictionary today (Bingan-Ibrahim, 1996: 56).
He only uses the word in the sense Dajacksch Dayak or ethnic name on the title alone.
In the early stages, Dayak people did not call himself as Dayaks, did not even feel that he is
the Dayaks. They only know that designation came from the mouth of outsiders or
newcomers who used to degrade or humiliate themselves. When meeting with outsiders, they
prefer to identify themselves by rivers name where the village or the land of their birth are,
for example oloh Katingan (people of the watershed Katingan), oloh Kahayan (people of the
watershed Kahayan), oloh Kapuas ( people of Kapuas watershed) or oloh Barito (people from
Barito river basins).
Several studies (Klinken 2004, Hawkins 2009) showed that the formation of identity in
Central Kalimantan occurred in response to government or the state policies, both in the
colonial period and in the period of independence. Dayaks as cultural and political agents
with active construction and reconstruction of their identity, do the production and
reproduction of ethnic identity and bring it into the political arena, economics and culture in
order to live better and have equal footing with the other tribes. Therefore, the Dayak
peopletend to imagine, initiate, and maintain a form of boundary, a fence line, and a teritorial
space that surrounds him. Ben Anderson (1991) refer to it as imagined community which
eventually gave birth to an imaginative geography anyway.

At present, when there is a massive land conversion to oil palm plantations, mining or
national parks and protected forests, Dayaks also plays its identity as a political force. This
was done when they see and feel the loss of access to a stretch of land, open land, forests,
jungles, rivers, lakes, which had been a source of life and economic income. They see
themselves as the original inhabitants were deprived of their rights, indigenous people are
marginalized from the centers of power and economy.
This paper wants to explore how the Dayaks trying to be the "center" instead of "periphery",
to be "players" rather than "spectators". How they are doing construction and transformation
of identity associated with the change of ownership and spatial territorial is happening around
them. How do they do commodification and identity politics that still exist in the changes that
are taking place.

Bibliograpy

Adriani en Kruyt. 1912. De Baree-sprekende Toradjas van midden Celebes I. Amsterdam


Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread
of Nationalism. London, New York, Verso.
Bingan, Albert A., dan Ibrahim, Offeny A. 1996. Kamus Dwi Bahasa Dayak
Ngaju Indonesia. Palangka Raya: CV Primal Indah
Crawfurd, John. 1820. History of the Indian Archipelago. 3 Jilid. Edinburgh/London
Hawkins, M. (2009). Violence and the construction of identity : conflict between the Dayak
and Madurese in Kalimantan, Indonesia. In M. Sakai, G. Banks, & J. H. Walker
(Eds.), The politics of the periphery in Indonesia : social and geographic
perspectives.
Hardeland, August. 1858. Dajacksch-Deutsches Wrterbuch, Amsterdam: Muller
Hohendorff J. A. Baron van. Radicale Beschrijving van Banjermassing, zoo door den Heer
Raad-Extraordinair Johan Andries Baron van Hohendorff is bijeengebragt, en
overgegeven in Radevan Indien, op den 9den Junij 1757. BKI. IV (1862), pp. 151216
King, V. T. 1980 Structural Analysis and Cognatic Societies: Some Borneo
Examples. Sociologus: A Journal for Empirical Ethno-Socilogy and
Ethno-Psychology, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
van Klinken, Gerry. 2004. Dayak Ethnogenesis and Conservative Politics in Indonesia's
Outer Islands. In Indonesia In Transition: Rethinking Civil Society, Region And
Crisis, SchulteNordholt, Henk, Hanneman Samuel, eds., pp. 107-28, Pustaka Pelajar,
2004
Li, Tania Murray. 2000. Articulating indigenous identity in Indonesia, Resource
Politics and the Tribal Slot, dalam Comparative Studies inSociety and History,
volume 42(1), 2000, Institute Of International Studies, University Of California,
Berkeley
Schrer, Hans. 1963. Ngaju Religion: The Conception of God Among A South Borneo
People, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Kristina Gromann, abstract Workshop: InDSearch, Passau University, 10-12.6.2015

Power and Imagination: Strategic Essentialism and Social Practice regarding


Ethnicity in Natural Resource Use (Central Kalimantan)
Dr. Kristina Gromann, University Passau1
In my paper I analyze struggles and negotiations over control, access and
perceptions of natural resource use and development in the district of Murung Raya
of community members of two villages in the subdisrict of Uut Murung (Tumbang
Tujang and Kalasin), district government officials of the regional Development
Planning Agency (Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah, BAPPEDA) and
members of international environmental organizations (e.g. WWF, there are no local
organizations working in that area at the moment). I focus on the use, the impact, and
on traps of ethnical based strategic essentialism, stereotyping, and othering.
Moreover, I analyze interdependencies between social practices and strategic
essentialism. I want to analyze the interrelatedness/discrepancies of firstly ideas of
culture as well as ascriptions on the one side and secondly individuals belief,
behavior as well as practices in everyday lives on the other side. Identities are not
only relational but mutually defining, so every version of an other is a construction of
one self. Referring to Spivak, strategic essentialism (Spivak 1988) is imposed by
actors on others as a strategy to (re)produce power and authority. Ethnic affiliation
and identity became central in struggles over natural resources. Hereby strategic
essentialism includes identity politics entangled with processes of ethnic
revitalization in order that oppressed groups deploy strategic essentialism to gain
more power (which I want not to focus on) and includes as well that identities are
reinterpreted or even imposed upon actors, as a result of, perpetuating and
producing inequalities of power and authority (which will be my focus). I will analyze
the process of doing ethnicity following Giddens concept of the duality of structure.
This process constitutes, according to the concept of the duality of structure, the
interdependencies of agency and structure and shows that social systems are both
the medium and the outcome of the practices that constitutes those systems
(Giddens 1984). Bourdieus concept of the habitus is as well fruitful in analyzing
social reproduction of dominance and hierarchy. Bourdieu sees his concept of the
habitus as an important factor elaborating on social reproduction because it explains
the generation and regulation of practices that make up social life. Habitus can be
defined as a system of dispositions, that are lasting, acquired schemes of perception,
thought and action (Bourdieu 1977).
Ethnicity is associated with culture, descent, group memories and language, and
(similar to gender) enables as well as constrains social action, is a cognitive way of
interpreting the world and a biographically grounded way of living, experiencing,
perceiving and remembering everyday life situations (Karner 2007).
The villages Tumbang Tujang and Kalasin (about 500 inhabitants) are located along
the upper part of the Murung River or upper Barito, a region with high forest cover
1

I collected the data for this abstract during two ethnographic fieldwork phases in the year 2014 and
2015 for altogether two month in the district of Murung Raya.

Kristina Gromann, abstract Workshop: InDSearch, Passau University, 10-12.6.2015

and natural resource use as mining (gold, coal, gem stones), logging and the
exploitation of NTFP. The inhabitants of the two villages are ethnical heterogenous,
as Punan, Bekumpai, Siang, Otdanum and Kahayan (all call themselves Dayak) are
living there. Tumbang Tujans majority is Bekumpai (Muslim) and Kalasins majority is
Punan (Kaharingan). Researches emphasize symmetric gender relations, including
matrilineal structures for some ethnic groups amongst the Dayak (Tsing 1984; Colfer
1985). Dominated by patriarchal structures, gender symmetries are also found in
these two villages. The two villages have a common history (actually three villages,
but I will not focus on the third village Tumbang Topos due to lack of data), as their
descendants lived formerly in a village named Kasang Butung (as well situated on
the upper part of the Murung River). Some generations ago, the inhabitants migrated
to these three locations predominantly to exploit natural resources as birds nest
(Tumbang Topos) and gem stones (Tumbang Tujang).
As the villagers live in a resource rich area and are seen (and partly see themselves)
as remote and underdeveloped but an in an essentialized and romantizised way
wild and nature-closer community, they are approached as one access point and
variable to be considered in natural resource exploitation and are subject of
development programs from governments, environmental organizations and
companies alike.
The relationship between the district government and the village is characterized by
contradicting aims of exploitation, protection and development. The district (and
provincial and national) government has the uncontested power concerning largescale natural resources exploitation. There is no participation of community members
in the planning of large scale exploitation (e.g. licensing as AMDAL is only a formal
process) and the government deploys a no-information and no-transparency policy.
Control and power on the level of the district government are clear cut according to
family and ethnic lines. The district government is dominated by the family members
of the Joseph-clan (members of the ethnic group Ngaju). Other ethnic groups as
e.g. Punan, Bekumpai and Siang find it impossible to gain higher positions in the
government or state administration. The emergence of new power constellations
within the decentralization process strengthened the regional elites (Schulte Nordholt
2014), which is generally true in the district Murung Raya as it was only formed in
2002 and access and control of the dominant Ngaju elite were enhanced. However,
members of other Dayak groups (as e.g. the Punan and Bekumpai living in Tumbang
Tujang and Kalasin) were weakened. Therefore, a hierarchy and therefore exclusion
of political and economic participation of certain ethnic groups is prevalent.
Despite this exclusion, some state officials formulate their interest and attraction
towards the beautiful and wild nature and its indigenous inhabitants in the forested
regions. No one of the state officials stayed more than a few days in the villages,
nevertheless, they describe in an essentializing way the indigenous people living in
these areas although poor and underdeveloped as more satisfied and happy
because they life closer to nature. In their ascription, state officials produce a
dichotomy between the dirty, noisy and spoiled city and the clean, relaxed, and calm
forested areas, romantizising those they exclude and oppress. This is one reason for
2

Kristina Gromann, abstract Workshop: InDSearch, Passau University, 10-12.6.2015

their support and involvement in designing and implementing plans of preserving the
nature and developing its people in this area, usually in close cooperation with
national development programs and international environmental and development
organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the worlds largest
conservation organization, a foundation registered in Switzerland. The forested area
where the villages are situated is close to the preserve area of the Heart of Borneo,
an agreement of the neighboring countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei to use
the area sustainably. The initiative is supported and coordinated by the WWF, which
approach villagers to implement rural development and nature conservation
programs, as e.g. Gaharu nursery. As the programs approach, aims and
implementation tend to be paternalistic and in a top-down manner a lot of villagers
perceive this programs as less effective.
Community members of Tumbang Tujang and Kalasin are very disappointed of
unsuccessful governmental and environmental organizations development programs,
of their exclusion in natural resource exploitation by the government and they show
little trust in the government and international environmental organizations. They are
developing infrastructure autonomously (e.g. the organization of transport from the
district city to the villages) or ask the nearby logging and mining companies for
support (food, medicine, internet access, money for festivities). Therefore, the
attitude towards companies is twofold. Advantages are income possibilities as waged
labors or by selling vegetables and rural development. The disadvantages are
destruction of their living environment and surrounding nature (Hing et al. 2015).
The relationship between indigenous community-members and companies is
structured by patron-client relationship. Companies in that area operate already since
several decades and give villagers protection in the sense of labor, infrastructure
and presents, whereas villagers feel thankful and do therefore not oppose
companies. The hierarchy between villagers and the company is not only backed by
the governments and military protection of the company but it is reproduced by
devote and dominant behavior in interactions of village and company members,
which I would interpret with Bourdieus concept as dispositions. Referring to
Bourdieus concept of habitus, I argue that villagers rather than being economically
dependent on companies they reproduce hierarchy through social practice.
In the next section I want to analyze how the essentializing ascriptions of indigenous
people as being closer to nature and being more happy is anchored in their daily
lives and how ideas of culture is interdependent with social practice. Securing their
livelihoods (water, food, shelter, medicine and money) has first priority for most
community members because they indeed live in a remote (from the district capital
one day 4WD and two hours boot) and little developed region where food is
sometimes scarce, water polluted, medicine rarely available and school education
dependent on the availability and payment of the teacher. Therefore, protection and
conservation of the natural environment is predominantly related to securing their
livelihoods and has little ideological as well as spiritual foundation. This stands in
contradiction to the essentialized and romanticized picture of indigenous people
being the vanguards of the environment, often promoted by environmental
3

Kristina Gromann, abstract Workshop: InDSearch, Passau University, 10-12.6.2015

organizations. For them community-members are one of the key actors in


implementing their aims of environmental protection and rural development.
Indigenous people are often connected to a more monistic conception of humanenvironment relationship and a stronger reciprocal relationship between humans and
the environment. This is especially valid at the nexus with gender when a naturalist
approach constructs indigenous women are as vanguards of the environment. In
sustainable development policies, women play a central role as effective managers of
natural resources and are often constructed as key actors in conservation programs
(Dankelmann 2003).
Not denying that community members have a close and reciproce relationship to their
natural environment and to natural resources, I want to emphasizes that this is
predominantly because the natural environment forms their basis for living and
enables them to get food (meat, vegetables and sometimes rice) and exploit natural
resources in a small scale for trading (e.g. NTFP as gold, gems and Gaharu). The
relationship with their natural environment bases strongly on the need to secure their
livelihoods, which is especially true for young people. Villagers stress as well spiritual
factors and the higher quality of a more clean, relaxed, and calm live in the forested.
The specific natural environment and the half-nomadic way of living, the village
community and family ties are as well reasons to live and stay in these remote
villages and are important markers in deploying their specific indigenous identity.
Some key actors in the villages as e.g. the person in the position of the Village
Council BPD (Badan Perwakilan Desa) in Tumbang Tujang developed a quite critical
stance against the increasing deforestation, exploitation and pollution caused by
large scale exploitation and he tries to raise awareness amongst village members
and mobilize them against it. Contacts to local environmental organizations workers
(which were involved in programs some years ago) or foreign researchers (e.g. me)
provide him the possibility to get data and arguments. But as a lot of villagers feel
and currently are due to the patron-client relationship dependent on companies and
programs to establish alternatives to secure livelihoods from environmental
organizations side were little effective, critics and resistance from villagers against
new plans of large scale exploitation is limited.
The attitude towards local and international environmental organizations tends to be
critical and in some cases hostile. Several years ago development and conservation
programs were implemented in that region, funded by an international NGO working
together with local NGOs. As these NGOs emphasized the rights of only one ethnic
group (the Punan) as well as ignored and moreover used stereotypes and ethnic
features of the majority Muslim Bekumpai villagers in Tumbang Tujang (as e.g. their
food habits) to sideline them and to advantage Punan, the contact and work with
these NGOs were very disappointing for Bekumpai. For them, strategic essentialism
in the sense of identity politics entangled with processes of ethnic revitalization in
order that oppressed groups deploy strategic essentialism to gain more power the
tribal slot (Li 2000) is currently not an option.

Kristina Gromann, abstract Workshop: InDSearch, Passau University, 10-12.6.2015

Villagers are aware of their marginalization, feel disappointed by the government,


environmental organizations and companies as well as see no possibility of alliance
with any of them in order to improve their situation. Related to this, especially young
male adults develop a specific masculine indigenous identity. This emphasizes
physical strength, knowledge of their natural environment, being independent of state
structures and being able to survive in the forest. Not wanting to feel and get
perceived as remote, trendy, up to date clothing and hairstyle is stressed in
combination with tattoos and jewelry of gem stones or Gaharu. This can be
interpreted as a form of protest against the hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995) of
the educated, urban, technical-prone men (more info in the presentation at the
EuroSeas conference in Vienna 2015).
My paper is focusing on strategic essentialism in the sense that actors reinterpret and
impose ethnic identities upon others, as a result of, perpetuating, producing or trying
to change inequalities. This process constitutes, according to the concept of the
duality of structure, the interdependencies of agency and structure and shows that
social systems are both the medium and the outcome of the practices that constitutes
those systems. I argue that the government, environmental organizations and
companies alike impose their ideas and programs of development and the
preservation of nature on community members in order to follow and fulfill their
political and/or economic agenda by using essentialized and romanticized constructs
of the nature-close, more happy indigenous villager. Ignoring or not being aware of
the economic and cultural situation, the needs and development-ideas of village
members are neglected. Moreover using ethnic essentialisms to sideline some
community members leads to distrust, frustration, perpetuates economic exclusion as
well as strengthens the perception of being marginalized of this particular group.
Related to this, some villagers construct a specific indigenous identity of being
independent of government structures, of support from environmental organizations
and more generally of any external influence. Referring to Bourdieus concept of the
habitus and the social reproduction of hierarchies, this could be as well seen as
being trapped in essentializing external influence and closing the door for using the
tribal slot (Li 2000) for their advantage.
Literature
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Connell, Raewyn (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press
Dankelmann, Irene. 2003. Introduction: Gender, environment and sustainable development: Understanding the
linkages. In: Natural Resources Management and Gender: A Global Source Book, ed. Minke Valk, Sarah
Cummings, Henk van Dam, 13-20. Oxfam Publisher.
Giddens, Anthony (1984) The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity
Press
Hing, Andrea und Andhi Suncoko, Deni, Dominic Rowland, Erisa Murray, Iis Sabahudin, Michal Zrust, Peter
Houlihan, Kristina Gromann, Matthias Waltert, Susan M. Cheyne (2015) Perceptions towards companies and
forest conservation in two villages of Uut Murung, Murung Raya, Central Kalimantan, IndonesiaIn: Journal of
Indonesian Natural History (JINH)
Li, Tania Murray (2000) Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42(1), pp. 149-179.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography. In: In Other Worlds:
Essays in Cultural Politics. New York, 1988: 197221

Workshop Passau June 10-12, 2015

The role of ethnicity in Indonesian mining governance1 (abstract)


Katharina von Braun (M.A.), Research Associate at the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies/
Focus Southeast Asia, University of Passau, Germany
(+49) 851/509-2745; katharina.braun@uni-passau.de

Since the end of the authoritarian New Order Regime in 1998, the Indonesian mining sector has undergone
considerable changes in respect to policies and regulatory frameworks. This is largely due to
democratization and decentralization processes resulting in greater regional autonomy. Although
decentralization aims at promoting accountability, transparency, and public participation, the conflicts over
power and access to resources rise as new elites strive for power. Furthermore, conflicts arise due to illegal
mining, pollution and environmental impacts as well as uncertainties surrounding the livelihoods of local
residents after mining closure. Policy and regulatory uncertainties over land use and property rights relate
to the overlap of mining areas with community lands, protected areas and indigenous conservation sites.
Concerns also relate to the poorly implemented national environmental impact assessment system in
Indonesia (AMDAL), the relaxation of controls on environmental performance to stimulate investment and
providing for increased access to nature reserve areas (Resosudarmo et al. 2009; Ballard 2001:14).
However, the Indonesian mining industry is expanding rapidly. The mineral resources sector accounts for
more than 17% of export revenues of the Indonesian economy (PWC 2013). The mining sector is given a
crucial role in the governments development-strategy; especially the exploitation of Indonesias massive
coal resources is supposed to contribute significantly to the growth of the economy. Indonesia is currently
the second-largest coal producer globally and the largest exporter of thermal coal (Devi/Pragoyo 2013).
The expanding Indonesian coal industry is concentrated in Kalimantan. Whereas East and South
Kalimantan are already established mining areas, Central Kalimantan is the new frontier for coal
exploration. Large coal deposits have been found in the province's Upper Barito River basins. Central
Kalimantan contains the traditional lands of a number of indigenous (Dayak) groups that are already
experiencing drastic changes in their livelihoods due to expanding palm oil production, deforestation and
existing mining activities. The influx of workers from other provinces, rivalry over employment and
competing land-rights pose considerable threats to local communities (Bge 2007; Lucarelli 2010;
McCarthy 2004).
With a regional focus on Central Kalimantan Province, the PhD-project will address power structures in
Indonesian coal mining governance the norms, rules and institutions that regulate the decisions,
actions and interactions of government, the private sector, and civil society in the coal mining sector. The
research will examine how the distribution of power in mining governance is performed through
ethnicity. Ethnicity is a crucial issue in Kalimantan given the large population of indigenous
people and the conflictual history of ethnic relations on the island. In the context of increasing natural
resource exploitation, ethnicity may be a crucial variable in conflict settings. The three guiding questions of
the research project are:
- What role does ethnicity play in coal mining governance in Central Kalimantan; esp. regarding decision
making power in mining governance and distributive effects on the local level?
- How do different actors in mining governance construct and instrumentalize concepts of ethnicity in
their struggles over mining?
- How does the ethnic category relate to contested development paradigms that translate in
constitution, handling and perceptions of mining policy/ activity?

The PhD project is integrated in the (planned) research project InDSearch: Contested Development - Gender and Ethnicity in the
context of mining in Kalimantan, Indonesia (Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies - Focus Southeast Asia,
University of Passau).

Workshop Passau June 10-12, 2015

Ethnicity it is not a natural category of difference that precedes social relations but is rather formed by and
in contested and historically contingent relations of power (Postero 2007). Therefore, the analysis of power
structures that determine definitions of ethnicity and the related demarcations of groups is a key to
approach the significance of ethnicity in the struggles around mining. The research project will address the
role of ethnicity as a critical variable in shaping access to, and knowledge and organization of, mining
activities and negotiations in Central Kalimantan. The research builds on political ecology
(Peet/Robbins/Watts 2011) as a mode of enquiry which identifies contextual sources of ecological change,
questions of access, and interdependencies between political and environmental change. The research
addresses power structures by examining particular meanings of the ethnic category which translate in
disparate sources of rules, rights and authority. The investigation includes an examination of spaces
occupied by different actors, the control of key resources and positions of decision making. These
issues are addressed by way of an analysis of the regulatory framework for mining in Indonesia and the
licensing process. Further, consultation and impact assessment processes, such as AMDAL, are examined
with the aim of identifying patterns of inequality and dependency in the negotiations between state,
company and community. The research also aims at examining the issue of property rights and the
question how these are defined, negotiated and struggled over by the different social groups, particularly
ethnic groupings. Further, it will address the distribution of costs and benefits from mining. The
provision of services, such as social services, income, or skills development and educational facilities
through local governments and mining companies, will be analyzed regarding distributive patterns as well
as distribution effects on the local level.
Just as questions of rights, access and control, so does the critical question of discursive power imply the
question of who participates in, gains from or is excluded from the process of development. Apart from the
structural level, the project therefore addresses the creation and contestation of roles, norms and ideas
in negotiations on coal mining. Strategies and discourses are examined as means by which key actors in
mining governance instrumentalize ethnicity to assert claims. The research also aims at uncovering
linkages between the ethnic category and certain perspectives on development that translate in the
handling and perception of mining activity. The aim of this approach is to elucidate how different actors
strategically use ethnicity as a resource to construct meanings that define societal relations to
nature and development. An examination of the interconnectedness (intersectionality) between ethnicity
and other social categories, such as gender, class, and religion, shall be considered in the analysis by
examining mutual interactions and change of respective categories in the context of mining governance.
The PhD project is situated at the intersection of Social Anthropology, Sociology and Political
Sciences and primarily builds on qualitative data. Primary data collection methods are network analysis and
interviews with key actors in mining governance from three principal parties: government, company, and
civil society. The qualitative field study will be supplemented by a quantitative survey (small n) on the
distributive patterns/ effects.
Cited work
- Ballard, C. 2001. Human rights and the mining sector in Indonesia: A baseline study. London, UK: International
Institute for Environment and Development and World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
- Bge, V. 2007. Das BP Tangguh Erdgasprojekt in West-Papua/ Indonesien. Ressourcenextraktion in einem
fragilen Umfeld. Fallstudie im Rahmen des Themenfelds Ressourcen und Konflikte. Bonn: BICC.
- Devi, B. & S. Pragoyo 2013. Mining and Development in Indonesia: An Overview of the Regulatory Framework
and Policies. IM4DC Action Report.
- Lucarelli, B. 2010. The History and Future of Indonesias Coal Industry: Impact of Politics and Regulatory
Framework on Industry. Structure and Performance. PESD Working Paper 93. Stanford: Standford University,
Program on Energy and Sustainable Development.
- McCarthy, J.F. 2004 Changing to gray: decentralization and the emergence of volatile socio-legal configurations in
Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. World Development, 32, pp. 11991223.
- Peet, R. & P. Robbins & M. Watts 2011. Global political ecology. London: Routledge

Workshop Passau June 10-12, 2015


-

Resosudarmo, B. P.& Resosudarmo, I. A. P. & Sarosa, W. & Subiman, N. L. 2009. Socioeconomic conflicts in
Indonesia's mining industry. In Cronin, R. & Pandya, A. (eds.), Exploiting Natural Resources: growth, instability,
and conflict in the Middle East and Asia. Washington: The Henry L. Stimson Center.
Postero, N. 2007. Now We are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford, US: Stanford
University Press.
PWC 2013. mineIndonesia 2013. Jakarta: Price Waterhouse Coopers Indonesia.

1
Synopsis

Institutionalizing Agrometeorological Learning through


a Trans-disciplinary Educational Commitment:
Establishing Science Field Shops in Indonesia1
Yunita T. Winarto,* Kees Stigter,** and Muki T. Wicaksono*
(*Universitas Indonesia and ** Agromet Vision, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Africa)
Find out what people know and explain what they dont know
in a way that is compatible with what they do know

That quotation presents a motto of Bentley, Rodriguez, and Gonzales (1994) in introducing ideas
and principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to a group of farmers in Honduras. They
practiced those ideas not only in the form of short courses, but also through field experiments
carried out by farmers themselves based on their argument that scientific
knowledge/understanding could fill gaps in farmers knowledge (see Winarto 2004:1819 and
Stigter 2010: Annex I.II, 44). We agree with their argument that farmers knowledge is
determined by their capability of observing things in the immediate environment without any
understanding of what is happening beyond the sphere of their empirical observation (also see
Bentley 1989, 1992). Ease of observation plays a significant role as a means to know. Therefore,
farmers knowledge is constrained by the limits of their capability to observe and understand the
complex phenomena and the underlying processes in their habitat. Such a condition has become
the reference of various parties in defining their programmes to improve farmers knowledge.
What are the reasons for such an effort if for so many years local people have been able to adapt
to their environments reasonably well in sustaining their livelihoods?
Almost everywhere, local people have been exposed to various external changes and to
programmes proposed by external agencies in the name of development, modernization,
states support programmes, natural resource management and conservation, and more
recently empowerment, or civil society formation. Significant changes in their habitat are
not negligible. Furthermore, these changes were and are such that new and/or more serious
vulnerabilities as to peoples environment and livelihood could no longer be denied in a situation
where people lost their knowledge on, understanding of, and capability to respond to those
unexpected and unusual changes. People were marginalized in their own habitat, culturally and
ecologically (see Winarto 2013). Prasetyo (personal communication, 2014) argues for local
people having become peripheral instead of only being marginalized in new conditions in which
people are forced to live due to a changedhabitat. Orang Rimba, a tribe in the Riau islands of
1

This synopsis is prepared for a presented in the panel of Trans-disciplinarity in Socio-ecological Research in the
Workshop on Environmental Transformation, Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia, 11th13th June
2015 at University of Passau, Germany.

Indonesia, is a good example of those who have to struggle surviving in their new habitat, an
oil-palm plantation which previously was a natural forest. As food-collectors they are facing
starvation. The situation becomes even more complicated with the ongoing changes in the
atmosphere of our planet (e.g. Stigter, 2015). Global warming, the increasing variability of
climate, and the more (and often more severe) extremeevents related to climate change have
been real phenomena faced by people all over the world, in particular by farmers who depend on
cultivating their fields exposed to these consequences of climate change (e.g. Stigter and Winarto
2012a, 2012b; Winarto et al. 2011, 2013; Stigter and Ofori, 2014).
Scientists who are in a more advantaged position than local farmers in understanding such
changing situations, could take Bentley et al. (1994)s advice in helping farmers to
know/understand their environment better and to improve their adaptation capability. Based on
our experience in providing agrometeorological and climate services to farmers in several places
in Indonesia (see Stigter and Winarto 2013; Winarto et al. 2011, 2013; Winarto and Stigter
2013), we argue, however, that the motto above this synopsis could be rephrased as:: Find out
what people know and provide services on what they dont know of their habitat, for them to
better understand and anticipate the ongoing and near future seasonal conditions. To be able to
implement this motto, an inter-disciplinary approach (agrometeorology and anthropology) and a
trans-disciplinary collaboration between scientists and farmers form a promising approach. We
integrate them into an inter- and trans-disciplinary educational commitment for farmers to
become more resilient towards and to be able to cope better with climate change (see Winarto
and Stigter 2013). The arena where we work collaboratively is called Science Field Shops
(Warung Ilmiah Lapangan) in which farmers themselves take roles as researchers and analysts of
their own fields and yields, as active learners in sharing and evaluating their knowledge and
strategies, and as facilitators of fellow farmers. We, as scientists and scholars, take positions as
their friends, assistants, and service providers in improving their ways of learning and doing, in a
continuous dialogic exchange of knowledge and understanding in this trans-disciplinary
collaboration (see Stigter and Winarto 2012c; 2013; Winarto and Stigter 2013).
In the proposed presentation and paper we will focus on the recent stage of our trans-disciplinary
collaboration with farmers in Indramayu regency, after six years of working together (from
20092015). The most challenging part of this work is institutionalizing the improved ways of
learning and doing, so as to be an integral part of farmers culture of cultivating crops.
Developing response farming to climate changeinstead of their conventional ways of
farmingneeds a strong establishment of a new learning habit. The institutionalization of new
rules in carrying out observations, experiments and evaluations requires collective activities
supporting the learning process. Learning also needs to be shared with more members of local
farming communities. In reality, it was not as easy and as simple as one is inclined to think.
There were different domains of learning and divergent expectations of farmers and scientists,
with farmers having been exposed to various top-down projects. Diverse ecosystems and
social-economic backgrounds of farmers living far from one another provided challenges and
constraints in our trans-disciplinary work. Amidst those restrictions, it is a surprise that both

parties (farmers and scientists) have now been engaged in such collaboration for a long period of
time. Compare this with only one planting season top-down government projects (see the
states Climate Field Schools in Anantasari et al. 2011). How did we do that and what are the
implications for the establishment of Science Field Shops among farmers in Indramayu
regency?
We are going to examine these questions in the proposed paper by discussing: a) the formation of
identity and belongingness as part of the group with its particular purpose and expertise; b) the
establishment of learning habits in observations, experiments, analyses, and interpretations and
use of seasonal rainfall scenarios and the development of anticipation capability; c) the setting
up of collective association and organization in managing the activities; and d) the scaling-up
movement in disseminating the new habitus.

References
Anantasari E., Y.T. Winarto, and K. Stigter (2011). Climate Field Schools: Learning and understanding
some scientific knowledge of climate, in Y.T. Winarto and K. Stigter (eds.) Agrometeorological
learning: Coping better with climate change. Saarbrcken: Lambert Academic Publishing. Pp.4485.
Bentley, J.W. (1989). What farmers dont know cant help them: The strength and weaknesses of
indigenous technical knowledge in Honduras, Agricuture and Human Values 6(3):2531.
Bentley, J.W. (1992). Alternatives to pesticides in Central America: Applied studies of local ,
knowledge, Culture and Agriculture 44:1013.
Bentley, J.W., G. Rodriguez, and A. Gonzales. (1994). Science and peole: Honduran campesinos and
natural pest control inventions. Agriculture and Human Values 11(2/3):178182.
Stigter, K. (2010). Introductory Part.
Heidelberg/Berlin/New York: Pp. 3-51.

In:

K.

Stigter

(ed.)

Applied

Agrometeorology.

Stigter, K. (2015). Climate change: An introduction. [Proposed as training of trainers material for
extension diploma courses at Agricultural Colleges in Zimbabwe.] Paper presented at the
Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT) Workshop on Curriculum revision for
extension diploma courses at Agricultural Colleges in Zimbabwe, in Kadoma, Zimbabwe, on 19
and 20 March 2015.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273900913_CLIMATE_CHANGE_AN_INTRODUC
TION%2A%29_Proposed_as_training_of_trainers_material_for_extension_diploma_courses_at
_Agricultural_Colleges_in_Zimbabwe
Stigter, K. and Y.T. Winarto (2012a). What climate change means for farmers in Asia,
Earthzine, April 4. http://www.earthzine.org/2012/2004/2004/what-climate-change-means-forfarmers-in-asia/
Stigter, K. and Y.T. Winarto (2012b). Considerations of climate and society in Asia: Farmers in
Indonesia, Earthzine, April 17. http://www.earthzine.org/2012/2004/2017/considerations-ofclimate-and-society-in-asia-farmers-in-Indonesia/
Stigter C.(Kees)J. and Y.T. Winarto (2012c). Coping with climate change: an active
agrometeorological learning approach to response farming. Invited opening keynote presentation

on the first day of the APEC Climate Symposium 2012 Harnessing and Using Climate
Information for Decision Making: An In-Depth Look at the Agriculture Sector, St. Petersburg,
Russia. Extended Abstract in Proceedings, 2pp.
http://www.apcc21.org/eng/acts/pastsym/japcc0202_viw.jsp
Stigter, C.(Kees) J. and Y.T. Winarto (2013). Science Field Shops in Indonesia: A start of
improved agricultural extension that fits a rural response to climate change, Journal of
Agricultural Science and Application (JASA) 2(2):112123.
Stigter C. (Kees) J. and E. Ofori (2014). What climate change means for farmers in Africa. A
triptych review. Middle Panel: Introductional matters and consequences of global warming for
African farmers, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND)
14(1):8420-8444.
Winarto, Y.T. (2013). Memanusiakan manusia dalam lingkungan yang tangguh: Mengapa
jauh panggang dari api?, Antropologi Indonesia 34(1):7589.
Winarto, Y.T. and K. Stigter (2013). Science Field Shops to reduce climate vulnerabilities: an
inter- and trans-disciplinary educational commitment, Collaborative Anthropologies 6:419
441.
Winarto, Y.T., K. Stigter, H. Prahara, E. Anantasari, and Kristiyanto (2011). Collaborating on
establishing an agro-meteorological learning situation among farmers in Java, Anthropological
Forum 21(2):17595.
Winarto, Y.T., K. Stigter, B. Dwisatrio, M. Nurhaga, and A. Bowolaksono (2013).
Agrometeorological learning increasing farmers knowledge in coping with climate change and
unusual risks, Southeast Asian Studies 2(2):323349.

Contested Development: Ethnicity and Gender in Kalimantan, Indonesia


Workshop, University of Passau, Germany 10-12 June 2015
Abstract
(for session on transdisciplinarity in social-ecological research)
Marion Glaser
Multi-level transdisciplinarity in social-ecological analysis: From local to global
sustainability
What does hierarchical orientation and inequality in a social system imply for
transdisciplinarity? Can inclusive and collaborative action research which aims to identify
the priorities of most, if not all if not all stakeholders irrespective of their status and power
be achieved in more strongly hierarchical und unequal social contexts? What are appropriate
strategies? What are the options for designing and implementing transdisciplinary research
on local to global sustainability challenges associated with human-nature relations?
I will offer some experiences and thoughts on inclusive transdisciplinary knowledge
generation at different levels of the global social-ecological system.
The presentation starts with a clarification of definitions and outlining points of departure
focusing on

Transdisciplinarity and related terms


Sustainability governance
The role of science in a transdisciplinary context

I then discuss transdisciplinary the design and practice of transdisciplinary knowledge


generation at multiple levels
a) At the local level
An explicitly transdisciplinary approach which was developed and used in Spermonde
Archipelago since 2004 to date is briefly introduced in its strengths and weaknesses. Based
on own field work in the Spermonde Island Archipelago off South Sulawesi, Indonesia, I show
some barriers to effective communication between natural and social science researchers
and ecosystem users (fishers and other island residents). Principles underlying and our
emergent approach to envoicing marginalized stakeholders is outlined and discussed.
b) At the level of the subnational region
Ecosystem boundaries and administrative units rarely coincide. For transdisciplinary work to
be inclusive and effective, this implies that the multiple social networks relating to an
ecosystem (e.g. mangrove coast or a coral reef regions have to be identified, their
interactions understood and strategically influenced. Some of our research group results

from social network analysis which was conducted in an Indonesian (and a Brazilian) marine
protected area will be shown to illustrate some challenges in the transdisciplinary
investigation and participatory management of social-ecological systems at the subnational
regional level.
This includes experiences with organizing a stakeholder workshop relating to an MPA which
spans across several districts in Indonesia. These are reported to illustrate some possible
approaches and challenges to transdisciplinary knowledge generation at the level of the
subnational region.
c) At the national level
Elections and other political priorities can and often do affect collaborative research
planning and implementation. This has implications even for classical disciplinary and
interdisciplinary research which may be incentivized or discontinued in accordance with the
interests of the politically and economically powerful. A disassociation of knowledge
generation from such interference may be advisable. However, in accordance with the
transdisciplinary credo stakeholders with power and influence need to participate in
transdisciplinary knowledge generation. Collaborative knowledge generation which
explicitly includes societal stakeholders such as communities and citizens associations,
unions and/or NGOs may be less vulnerable to falling victim to predominant interests and
powers. Some experiences and first thoughts on possible best practice will be offered.
d) at the international to global level
Inclusive social-ecological analysis and action need to have a level at which we are all citizens
of the globe and stewards of the natural and social bases of good (human) life on earth. The
Future Earth programme (http://www.futureearth.org/), for instance, aims for the co-design
of knowledge agendas and the co-production of knowledge through a global research
platform which provides the support to accelerate our transformations to a sustainable
world. To ensure transdisciplinary knowledge generation which effectively addresses global
sustainability concerns in an inclusive manner, a Stakeholder Engagement Committee was
recently installed in Future Earth. This was to include individuals with a claim to global
representativeness from 9 sectors (Public policy making, International Development,
Business and Industry, Science-policy For a, Civil Society, Research Funders, Media,
Engineering and Education). The composition of and interactions of the Stakeholder
Engagement Committee with a number of global sustainability oriented research
programmes, and with other relevant stakeholders are central pointers to where the
generation of global transdisciplinary sustainability knowledge is today. Thoughts on the
latest developments in the emergent institutional structure for transdisciplinary global
sustainability research are offered.

Transdisciplinary research tandems in international cooperation


Martina Padmanabhan, Universitt Passau
In this paper I put forward a tandems approach to the organization of international research
cooperation. Tandems consist of two partners with a shared disciplinary background and research
interest, but each affiliated to a university either in Germany or i.e. Indonesia. In the following I want to
delineate the concept of a tandem as a working relation in knowledge creation. By breaking down the
inherent structural properties, the implicit processes become apparent. The tandem serves as a symbol
for joint endeavor, requiring balance and coordination to move forward towards the same goal behind
one steering handlebar to bundle pace.
International cooperation in research requires management structures, which take into account different
academic cultures, organizational rules and life-worldly norms to achieve a joint outcome. This is
especially true in the case of transdisciplinary projects, combining interdisciplinary perspectives on a
subject matter with the integration of stakeholders knowledge. Novy et al. (2008) highlight three
defining characteristics of transdisciplinary research: interdisciplinarity, problem-orientation and a
reflexive relationship between researchers and project partners. At the workshop here in Germany we
want to elucidate the relationship between the categories ethnicity and gender in the context of
contested development paradigms in Indonesia. In the long run, a research project should generate
transformation knowledge on this nexus. Transformation knowledge is the knowledge needed for a
society to move towards to a more sustainable status while taking account of existing technical,
social, legal, cultural, institutional and other conditions (Pohl & Hirsch Hadorn 2008; Cronin 2008).The
idea of forming tandems consisting of two disciplinary, administrative or managerial contributing
partners each from a cooperating country appears as a self-evident structural approach.
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the inherent tensions in management of tandems between (1)
disciplinary qualification, content and synthesis work, (2) different modes of crafting transdisciplinary
processes and (3) different degrees of autonomy within the project setting. These three implicit
challenges to coordination are juxtaposed with the structural idea of international working tandems. The
insights build on five cases of research, administrative and leadership tandems of an Indo-German
cooperation to draw conclusions for necessary managerial capacities and competences in
transdisciplinary research processes. The findings show, that a need arises to mitigating potential role
conflicts between Ph.D. and project tasks by sequencing respective tasks, whereby disciplinary tandems
stabilize the focus on qualifications. Practicing transdisciplinary for early career scientists adds a further
dimension to their required portfolio; organizing these interactions from field to higher level workshops
allows for a learning curve, which capitalizes firmly on the tandem partnership. The transcontinental set
up requires the splitting of responsibility between Germany and India, creating necessary freedom
especially during fieldwork, thus autonomy to fail or grow. This analysis of potentials and risks of tandem
structures contributes towards the emerging need to make design and methods available from a
research managers perspective to steer the process of knowledge integration in an interdisciplinary and
intercultural setting.

The direction of the tandem appears to be self-evident as indicated by their labels: Acquiring a Ph.D.
degree, running the administration or leading the team. At closer analysis these goals unfold into
contradictory aspects in the setting of an inter- and transdsiciplinary research approach. Dissertations
are per se individual projects, often responding to disciplinary standards, in the best case leading to a
degree ad personam. Involuntarily this focus creates tension with other knowledge outputs, like
interdisciplinary cooperations or transdisciplinary integration of laypersons knowledge. Thus the shared
discipline may support the orientation of the tandem towards a common task within these premises. The
tandem rests on the hypothesis of complementarity in terms of acquaintance with i.e. local and
academic culture, language and method competencies. To turn this potential source of conflict - as it
triggers an unsettling emotional mix of inferiority and superiority into cooperation, procedures of
joining forces have to be found. This includes the handling of differences in cultural values, planning
horizons and perceptions of adequate behavior.

Figure 1: Tandem design inherent assumptions (authors illustration)


Tandems are an organizational pattern linking two international partners via their shared professional
task. As each is based in a different cultural setting, the assumption goes that this working relationship
enables protagonists in a complementary fashion to successfully carry out trans- and interdisciplinary
research. The added value in the international context is in the best case a trusted partnership
interlocking the German and the Ind(ones)ian team. The overarching tandem identity spans intercultural
differences, encourages flexibility, cooperation and efficacy and has a stabilizing effect. The expectations
range between an optimistic perspective as a dream team able to excel due to synergies and the
apprehension of evil twins unfolding a downward dynamic.
Keeping in mind, that the tandem construction is among other categories of belonging and team
dynamics, it is helpful to ask what can explicitly be designed about tandem work. The overall
management tools remain the same like in any knowledge-generating institution. Working structures,
offices and embeddedness in organizations provide the infrastructure. Dialogical means involve appraisal
talks, team retreats and supervision, accompanied by guidance and task setting.
2

Concluding from the three perspectives on tandems in transdisciplinary research, I draw the following
consequences regarding managerial roles and competencies on how to craft necessary cognitive and
social processes. 1) As tandems play a contradictory role in mitigating between the conflict of
qualification versus transdisciplinary work, managers must consider a range of steering options
appropriate to the dynamics at hand. It appears as catalyzing to pose the question what each partner can
contribute towards the tandem, instead of emphasizing the perspective how the tandem serves
individual interests. Actively supporting and demanding comparative publications, if not integrated
research design, represents a graded strategy taking the conditions into account. As resources are
limited, a realistic decision for the degree and extent of integration helps to set priorities on promising
transdisciplinary processes. To avoid the evil aspect of a tandem construction, conflicts resolution or
dissolving the construction must be considered an option.
2) Conducting transdisciplinary research requires additional fluency in new methods. Thus the social
space to encounter such processes and craft them in their own right can be enhanced by an articulate
external for example a renowned Indoensian performance artist. Acting as inspiration and sounding
board, this supports the cognitive process to reveal the ambiguity of transdisciplinary communication.
These insights enhance the social capability of tandem and team alike to skillfully use intercultural
complementarities.
Transdisciplinary knowledge integration pursues three aims: 1) verify knowledge gains by peer review
through lay experts/stakeholders, thus stimulating an iterative process, 2) synthesize findings across subprojects to a coherent body of knowledge, and 3) feed these innovative insights into the current
development debate, not exclusively to academic circles but also to stakeholders in Kalimantan. How to
feed rigid, evidence-based findings into local debates and struggles over solutions for socio-ecological
problems in resources use?
To realize the potential of inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge outcomes, different platforms organize
towards the social, theoretical and methodological synthesis from the very beginning. To achieve this
intercultural challenge, the internationally renowned performing artist acts as facilitator to apply
innovative forms of expression, exchange and negotiation of ideas and images. Inception workshops at
the end of explorative study stage set the foundations for future interactions with stakeholders. The
interactive format, beyond formal settings and under the experienced facilitation of a performance
artist, will build rapport and trust among participants to foster collaboration. Scenario Workshop
capitalize on the relations established with the various communities, civil society, administrators and
mining representatives and to bring them together for scenario building exercises. Again, the facilitation
and moderation is carried out by an artist.
3) Last not least, sharing responsibilities for implementing transdisciplinarity contains the option to grow
in competences, but implies the possibility to fail. The ambivalence of responsibility changes over the
course of the team and tandem development stages. Resistance and avoidance in the forming phase
turn into self-empowerment during storming, to finally give way to norming and performing with strong
process identification. Assuming the initiative for adjourning the transdisciplinary approach is a result of
a gradual handing over of responsibility.
3

Thus, international tandems are a structural element and unfold agency in transdisciplinary projects, by
creating a further linkage, providing identification via disciplinary interests and complementary
competencies. As such, functional tandems are accessible for managerial interventions among other
highly influential dimensions.

Betz, L., Kunze, I., Parameswaran, P., Suma, T.R. and Padmanabhan, M. 2014. The socialecological web:
a bridging concept for transdisciplinary research. Current Science. 10(4): 572- 579.
Christinck, Anja & Martina Padmanabhan eds. (2013) Cultivate Diversity! A Handbook on
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Agrobiodiversity Research. Weikersheim: Margraf Publishers.
Cronin, K. (2008). Transdisciplinary Research (TDR) and Sustainability. [WWW document]. URL
http://www.learningforsustainability.org/pubs/Transdisciplinary_Research_and_Sustainability.pdf.
Kunze, Isabelle & Martina Padmanabhan 2014. Discovering positionalities in the countryside:
methodological reflections on doing fieldwork in South India. ERDKUNDE. 68 (4) 277-288.
Novy, A., Beinstein, B. & Voemer, C. (2008). Methdologie transdisziplinrer Entwicklungsforschung.
Aktion & Reflexion Texte zur Transdisziplinren Entwicklungsforschung und Bildung, 2.
Padmanabhan, Martina and Hannah Arpke (2011) Building capacities in international tandems:
complementarity of communication in social-ecological research. Unpublished manuscript.
Pohl, C. & Hirsch Hadorn, G. (2008). Core Terms in Transdisciplinary Research. [WWW document]. URL
http://www.transdisciplinarity.ch/d/Transdisciplinarity/documents/HB_Core_terms.pdf.

Arahmaiani Feisal
Nitiprayan 42A, Yogyakarta 55182; Ph.: +62-813-9242 2964, arahmaianif@gmail.com
ART AND ITS POSSIBILITIES.
As an artist practicing inter-disciplinary art who often initiates community based art, my art and I usually
get the role of a mediator, that which can connect one with the rest. The discipline of art can become
extremely open and flexible, maybe because it is a field that cultivates creative possibilities very
actively. Here, creativity becomes a key word as well as a word that directly or indirectly can connect
various fields, bridging one possibility with others, so that a new formation manifests or a new, formerly
unimagined, form or thing is discovered.
Art and science are two disciplines that appear as if they are unrelated. However in practice an open art
will be able to accommodate ideas that come from the realm of science. Usually if something like this
happens then it will be processed further experimentally, so that a kind of spinning might occur, or a
change from the original theory to become something different. Here, usually, theory will be
implemented in reality through a concrete creative process. Basically creative work is the seeking of
possibilities besides beauty, so here imagination and fantasy will also be explores as far as possible,
often breaking through barriers and boundaries.
The discipline of art is often considered to have a basic standard, being what is considered to be
beautifull and what is not even though in reality this issue is extremely relative. In the issue of
approaches, art is also very open maybe there are various types of approaches that are already
known. But it doesnt mean that it stops there, there are various kinds of new approaches and strategies
that can be implemented. So there are no standards that define what is considered to be right or wrong.
Imagination and fantasy may be explored as far as possible, and basically there are no boundaries even
though in the public sphere there might occur clashes with norms and values which might result in art
being considered to be wrong, or transgressing.
Art can also become a bridge between cultures or faiths. Problems caused by clashes of cultures and
faiths are normal and often heard of, and possibly they occur because of business, political, or power
interests behind them. Negotiations are sometimes not easy to conduct and issues might transform into
conflicts that create animosity and even war. In this case apart from functioning as a bridge art can also
be a media of expression that makes it possible to avoid problem causing confrontations, or the
message to the enemy can be made in such a way that touches basic human values and thus make
animosity unnecessary.

"Art must be able to free itself from the greedy claws of capital owners, from the manipulation of
politicians who only employ power for their private interests or the interests of their group. Art must be
free from all dogma and ideology. Art must stand independently and form an autonomous discourse and
narrative - it must bring together different elements and possibilities so that a new awareness and a new
sensitivity may break through the boundary walls and cut away the rope that binds imagination. An
esthetics that stands on the culture of togetherness and the awareness of humanity and a new social
perspective must be discovered! So a future that prioritizes a holistic life view that is sensitive to the
environment may be built! Fantasy and imagination must not be tripped over and rendered impotent

Arahmaiani Feisal
Nitiprayan 42A, Yogyakarta 55182; Ph.: +62-813-9242 2964, arahmaianif@gmail.com
only by economic calculations. The dignity of humankind and life is more than mere economic
calculations and mathematical equations.
When the blind faith in the unreliable dogma of the market can be shattered - it will be possible to
imagine a future full of hope. Not like our current situation, where in reality humankind finds it difficult
to visualize a future. Optimism is imprisoned in a coffin! A creative person might know where the key to
the coffin is hidden. She might free the optimism which will then transform into the courage to say NO to
every form of destruction of nature, greed, the disrespect to common sense and also to tyranny. She will
clear the path and blaze the trail of change. She will release the shackles and the binds of fantasy and
imagination and let them fly free and become the future of all the inhabitants of this planet earth. She
will become hope for those who still wish to continue life". (Taken from "Manifesto of The Sceptics" and
"Letter to Marinetti")

Passau, 21 May 2015


Arahmaiani

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