Intergenerational displacement in Indonesia’s oil palm plantation zone

Abstract

This contribution examines the intergenerational effects of oil palm expansion in Indonesia at two scales. First, I use a broad brush and selected examples from different parts of Indonesia to highlight the long-term, intergenerational dynamics of displacement from the land, and the linked problem of displacement from opportunities to find decent work. In the second part I draw on primary data from my research in a plantation zone in West Kalimantan to examine intergenerational dynamics in households and communities tucked around the borders of plantations, where access to residual pockets of land is the key to secure to secure and prosperous futures.

Keywords:

• land
• labor
• oil palm
• rubber
• Kalimantan
• transmigration
• inequality
• regulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Direktorat Jenderal Perkebunan (2015, 9). For excellent overviews of the oil palm sector in Indonesia and Malaysia see Cramb and Curry (2012); Cramb and McCarthy (2016a). In 2015 public companies listed on stock markets owned around 50 percent of Indonesia’s commercial plantation area, while the rest was in the hands of private, mainly Indonesian capital (Hawkins, Chen, and Wigglesworth 2016, 10).

2 A study in Riau province found that 1.8 million hectares of plantations owned by 190 companies was unlicensed, and not consistently reported in official statistics (Anon 2016).

3 World Bank and International Finance Corporation (2011, 16, 58) cites industry estimates of 1:5. The Indonesian government uses the ratio of 1:2 (Direktorat Jenderal Perkebunan 2015). Company data from two plantations in West Kalimantan show ratios of 1:6 and 1:10 (Li 2015a, 22, 24). Malaysian oil palm plantations report 1:10 (Abdullah, Ismail, and Rahman 2011).

4 These problems have been widely reported. See (Colchester and Chao 2013; Colchester et al. 2006; Li 2015a; Marti 2008; Siagian et al. 2011; Wakker 2005; Institute for Ecosoc Rights 2014)

5 Assuming one worker per five hectares, and recognizing that some male workers are not accompanied by families, I estimate an average of three people (one worker plus two family members) per five hectares, so 11 million hectares = 6.6 million people, plus others living in enclaves and providing services, roughly eight million. A different calculation is based on the population of plantation-saturated sub-districts. In the West Kalimantan sub-district of Meliau in 2015 there were 48,000 residents, and 65,000 hectares of plantations (on a total land area of 150,000 hectares), hence 0.74 persons per hectare of plantation: roughly eight million.

6 The compensation that companies pay to acquire land has reputedly climbed to USD 500 per hectare in Kalimantan and USD 2000 in Sumatra (Hawkins, Chen, and Wigglesworth 2016, 22), but there are still examples of minimal payment and outright grabs (Institute for Ecosoc Rights 2014).

7 The poor record of private investors in making provisions for smallholders is acknowledged in World Bank and International Finance Corporation (2011) and Molenaar et al. (2013). Smallholder schemes organized by state and private companies are described in Cramb and McCarthy (2016a, 53–62); McCarthy, Gillespie, and Zen (2012); Molenaar et al. (2013, 44–53). On the enthusiasm of smallholders in Sumatra for planting oil palm see Rist, Feintrenie, and Levang (2010); Feintrenie, Chong, and Levang (2010).

8 For examples from Sumatra and Kalimantan see McCarthy, Vel, and Afiff (2012); Potter and Badcock (2004); Rist, Feintrenie, and Levang (2010); Potter (2012).

9 See McCarthy, Gillespie, and Zen (2012); Varkkey (2012); McCarthy (2010).

10 Colonial authorities had protracted debates about how much land the native population really needed for food production, and for how many generations provisions should be made for them, yet plantation expansion continued unchecked (Pelzer 1978).

11 See accounts of protest in Potter (2009); Levang, Riva, and Orth (2016); Acciaioli and Dewi (2016).

12 The research was carried out by me, my fellow anthropologist Dr Pujo Semedi from Gadjah Mada University, and a team of about 100 students from Gadjah Mada and the University of Toronto.

13 On PTPN’s contentious land acquisition in Sanggau see Dove (1985); Potter (2009); Forest Peoples Programme (2005); Colchester et al. (2006, 103). These studies also explore the differential experience of hamlets depending on their location, resource endowments, leadership styles, and degree of accommodation or resistance.

14 Like upriver Dayaks, Malays in this hamlet gave their sons and daughters equal shares in land to help them establish a livelihood upon marriage.

15 In Sanggau District only two percent of the labour force was employed in manufacturing, and of the few manufacturing jobs available 82 percent were held by men (Li 2015a, 27n53).

16 Semedi (2014) notes that much oil palm wealth is not invested but used for consumption and entertainment (notably alcohol, gambling and visits to prostitutes).

17 These problems are thoroughly discussed in Colchester and Chao (2013); McCarthy, Gillespie, and Zen (2012); McCarthy (2012); McCarthy and Zen (2010); Varkkey (2012); Pye (2016).

18 This information was published on the SPKS website which I accessed on January 10, 2017.

19 Cramb and McCarthy (2016a) compare returns to corporations, government and smallholders under different models in Malaysia. On political-corporate-bureaucratic alliances in the Indonesian oil palm sector and the challenge of ‘good governance’, see Varkkey (2012); McCarthy, Gillespie, and Zen (2012).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 410-2009-1183].

Notes on contributors

Tania Murray Li

Tania Murray Li teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy and Culture of Asia. Her publications include Land’s end: capitalist relations on an Indigenous frontier (Duke University Press, 2014), Powers of exclusion: land dilemmas in Southeast Asia (with Derek Hall and Philip Hirsch, NUS Press, 2011), The will to improve: governmentality, development, and the practice of politics (Duke University Press, 2007) and many articles on land, labor, development, resource struggles, community, class and indigeneity with a particular focus on Indonesia.