Land Control and Ideological Struggle: Competing Articulations of “The Owner of Land”

Laksmi Adriani Savitri

Laksmi Adriani Savitri Anthropology Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanity, University of Gajah Mada

Abstract views: 644 ,

FULLTEXT downloads: 323

Abstract

The implementation of large scale industrial farming investment involves land deals that are not only being navigated through regulated practices, but state and non-state actors also employ a strategy to ‘grip the minds of the masses’ to enable the deals. ‘Gripping the minds’ involves articulatory practices within the terrain of ideological struggle, which put land deals always in process. This paper argues that ‘the owner of land’ as a cultural identity that was constructed historically by determining forces, and not confined merely as form of rights, is articulated in three competing positionings toward land deals: rejection, renegotiation and acceptance. The state and non-state actors or NGOs broker the process of identification toward modernism by constructing representations of capital as the good and bad Other. These representations of capital provide ‘logic’ which connected meanings of modernism with ‘the owner of land’ identity. ‘Gripping the mind of the masses’ to smoothen land deals involves correspondences as well as non-correspondences between modernism and the Marind identity of Anim-ha that render connected chain of meanings unstable. © 2013 Journal of Rural Indonesia [JoRI] IPB. All rights reserved. Keyword: land control, land deals

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

van Baal. J. 1966. Dema, description and analysis of Marind-anim culture (South New Guinea). Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague.

Barrett, Michelle. 1991. The Politics of Truth: from Marx to Focault. Stanford University Press, California.

Boelaars, Jan. 1986. Manusia Irian: dahulu-sekarang-masa depan. Gramedia, Jakarta.

Borras, Saturnino M, Jennifer Franco & Chunyu Wang. 2012. Competing political tendencies in global governance of land grabbing. Discussion paper, December 2012. TNI Agrarian Justice Programme.

Bowman, Paul. 2007. Post-Marxism Versus Cultural Studies. Edinburgh University Press Ltd, Edinburgh.

van den Broek, Theo & Alexandra Szalay. 2001. Raising the Morning Star: Six Months in the Developing Independence Movement in West Papua. The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 77-92.

Colchester, Marcus. 1986a. Unity and Diversity, Indonesian policy towards tribal people. The Ecologist Vol.16, No.2/3. Pp 89-98.

_______________. 1986 b. The struggle for land, tribal peoples in the face of transmigration Programme. The Ecologist Vol.16, No.2/3. Pp 89-98.

_______________. 1994. Sustaining the Forests: The Community-based Approach in South and South-East Asia. Development and Change Vol. 25, pp 69-100.

Couete, Dominique & Sarah Turner. 2010. Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Routledge, Oxon.

Dinas Sosial Kabupaten Merauke. 1972. Marind 70 tahun dalam proses akulturasi, strudi tentang latar belakang keadaan masyarakat Marind. Dinas Sosial Kabupaten Merauke, Propinsi Irian Barat.

Erari, Karl P. 1999. Tanah Kita, Hidup Kita, hubungan manusia dan tanah di Irian Jaya sebagai persoalan teologis. Pustaka Sinar Harapan, Jakarta.

Gebze, Yul Bolle. 2005. Pelestarian Alam dalam Budaya Malilnd. Paper presented at Seminar Pembentukan Forum Kolaboratif Pengelolaan TN Wasur di Kabupaten Merauke. Lembaga Masyarakat Adat Malind Anim ‘Anim Ha’, Kabupaten Merauke. Merauke.

Grossberg, Lawrence & Jennifer D. Slack. 1985. An Introduction to Stuart Hall’s essay. Critical Studies in Mass Communication No.2,Vol. 2. pp. 87-90.

Hall, Derek, Peter Hirsch, Tania LI. 2011. Powers of Exclusion. NUS Press. Singapore

Hall, Stuart. 1985. Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and post-structuralist debate. Critical Studies in Mass Communication No.2,Vol. 2.pp 91-114.

¬_________.1996a. The Problem of Ideology, Marxism without guarantee. In David Morley & Kuan-Hsing Chen. Stuart Hall, Critical Dialogue in Cultural Studies. Routledge. London & New York.

_________.1996b. Who Needs Identity? In Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay. Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage Publication. London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi.

Ito, Takeshi, NF Rachman & LA Savitri. 2011. Naturalizing Land Dispossesion, A Policy Discourse Analysis of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), Papua, Indonesia. Paper presented at International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, 6-8 April 2011, Sussex.

Knauft, Bruce. 1993. South-coast New Guinean Cultures, history, comparison, dialectic. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. New York.

____________.2002. From primitive to post-colonial in Melanesi and Anthropology. University of Michigan Press.

KONTRAS. 2004. Laporan Penelitian Bisnis Militer di Boven Digul. Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan (KONTRAS).

Lewis, David & David Mosse. 2006. Development Brokers and Translators. Kumarian Press Inc. West Harford, CT.

Li, Tania M. 2000. Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics & the Tribal Slot. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 42, No. 1. 149-179

________. 2009. To Make Live or Let Die? Rural Dispossession and the Protection of Surplus Populations. Antipode Vol. 41 No. S1, pp.66-93.

Overweel, Jeroen A. 1992. Suku Marind dalam alam dan lingkungannya yang berubah. YAPSEL. Merauke.

Peluso, Nancy L. & Christian Lund. 2011. New frontiers of land control:Introduction, Journal of Peasant Studies, 38:4, 667-681.

Sofyandy,Dendy.2010. Kearifan Lingkungan Masyarakat Adat Malind Anim dalam Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Alam di Kabupaten Merauke, Provinsi Papua. Master Thesis. Graduate School of University of Gajah Mada (unpublished)

Tsing, Anna. 2005. Friction. Princeton University Press. New Jersey.

Widjojo, Muridan S. 2009. Papua Road Map: negotiating the past, improving the present. LIPI, Yayasan TIFA, Yayasan Obor. Jakarta.

Visser, Leontine. 2012. Governing New Guinea, An oral history of Papuan administrators, 1950-1990. KITLV Press. Leiden