Indigenous Rights and Agrarian Justice Framings in Forest Land Conflicts in Indonesia

Abstract

Community advocates for land rights justice in post-reformasi Indonesia frame their claims in terms of either indigenous (adat) rights or agrarian justice discourses. This study considers how these framings function, how effectively they support land rights struggles, and how they advance justice claims. The article provides analytical insights by comparing two conflicts involving communities and large-scale forest plantation companies in Sumatra. It finds that, where democratisation has opened up political space, agrarian justice framing provides a more effective basis for mobilising a wider coalition of actors in heterogeneous contexts and can provide political leverage in such conflicts. While recent changes have widened the legal space for indigenous (adat) rights within de jure ‘state forests’, the customary framing needs to fit community claims into the restricted, bureaucratised adat concept found in state laws and, in diverse rural contexts, may provide a limited vehicle for social mobilisation. Irrespective of the framing, unless effective mobilisation and legal reform can provide legal and political empowerment, political, institutional and structural barriers will continue to generate truncated agreements in conflict negotiations that potentially cement the exclusion and marginalisation of local communities from land access and control.

Keywords:

• Reified Adat
• Agrarian Reform
• Land Conflict
• Environmental Justice
• Customary Rights
• Indigenous People
• Plantation
• Land Governance
• Indonesia

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to those who generously took part in interviews and provided support during fieldwork in Riau and Jambi. We thank the special issue editorial team Jacqueline Vel, Willem van der Muur, Micah Fisher and Kathryn Robinson, as well as two anonymous reviewers for providing very helpful and constructive feedback to the earlier versions of the draft. Ahmad Dhiaulhaq would also like to thank Dr Keith Barney for his innumerable input into this research, and to the Endeavour Scholarship for funding his PhD study. Fieldwork in Indonesia was funded by the Crawford School of Public Policy (ANU) and the 2016 Ruth Daroesman Study Grant (ANU College of Asia and the Pacific).

The authors acknowledge with thanks the funding assistance provided by Leiden University's Asian Modernities and Traditions (ATM) towards the production of this special double issue.

ORCID

Ahmad Dhiaulhaq http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6420-9936

John F. Mccarthy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2560-5917

Notes

1 The FCP, announced in February 2013, includes the APP's promise to protect natural forest and peatland, resolve social conflict and ensure responsible sourcing throughout the company's supply chain.

2 PPJ’s members include farmers from five districts in Jambi Province: Muarojambi, Batanghari, Tanjungjabung Barat, Tanjungjabung Timur and Tebo.

3 Transnational advocacy network here refers to a coalition of transnational actors with shared values working on an issue or discourse through intensive exchange of information and services (Keck and Sikkink 1999).

4 MoEF Regulation (P.39/2013) defines kemitraan kehutanan (forestry partnership) as the collaboration—between local communities and permit holders (companies), and between local communities and the forest management unit (KPH)—with regard to capacity development and access, based on principles of equality and mutual benefit.

5 Different Ministries (e.g., MoEF, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Agrarian/Spatial Planning) have issued a number of regulations in response to Court Ruling 35/2012, including provisions on technical procedures in recognising customary forest. Earlier studies (Safitri 2015; Fay and Denduangrudee 2016) have discussed in more detail the opportunities and obstacles that came out of these regulations for gaining legal recognition for indigenous people and their customary forests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Ruth Daroesman Study Grant; Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships Program.