The emerging power of peasant farmers in the tenurial conflicts over the uses of state forestland in Central Java, Indonesia

Highlights

• This paper explains prolonged occupation of state forestland by peasant farmers.

• This paper identifies the deprived power sources of state apparatus.

• This paper identifies power sources of peasant farmers.

• This paper employs the theory of actor-centred power.

Abstract

There has been an increasing occurrence of spontaneous and organized movements and struggles demanding access to state forestland in Indonesia over the past few years. A sizeable body of literature has explained the driving factors of the land movement but most of them focus on processes at the national level, principally on the changing socio-political landscapes, and the overlapping land use policy and regulations. In contrast, this paper attempts to find explanation of the dynamics of the land movement, and tries to explain the emerging power of peasant farmers at the field. The research was conducted in the forest of the state company of Perhutani Sub-Forest District (BKPH) Kalibodri, Forest District (KPH) Kendal, Central Java, where nearly two-fifths of the forestland is illegally occupied by peasant farmers for agricultural cropping. This paper borrows actor-centred power (ACP) of Krott et al. (2014), which offers an analytical approach to understand the empirical power resources of actors in social-political relationships. It finds the prolonged occupation of the state forestland is due to the combination of the weakened power of the state apparatus and the more consolidated power of peasant farmers. The state apparatus is weakened by its diminishing coercive power. It is also unable to provide concrete incentives that would otherwise alter the behavior of the peasant farmers. At the same time, the peasant farmers accumulate support from a wider society, from local to national level. Even international actors also play a part so that significantly affect how the state company deals with the peasant farmers.

Introduction

Forest policy in Indonesia is generally based on models of state's ownership of and control on forestland and the resources. Since 1970s, the government has gazetted roughly two-thirds of the country's land as state's forestland, which is strongly controlled and authorized under the jurisdiction of its Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Barr et al., 2006, Maryudi, 2015). Over the past few years, forest land-use and allocations in the country have been curtailed by conflicting interests and innumerable uncertainties and complexities (Maryudi, 2015, Sahide and Giessen, 2015). There has been an increasing occurrence of spontaneous and organized landless movements and struggles demanding access to state forestland (Adi et al., 2004, Wulan et al., 2004, Afiff et al., 2005, Nomura, 2008, Marwa et al., 2010, Peluso, 2011, Maryudi and Krott, 2012, Lounela, 2012). These include occupation of the state forestland for agricultural cropping by peasant farmers (Peluso, 2011, Maryudi and Krott, 2012) and even growing demand for agrarian reform (Afiff et al., 2005, Nurrochmat et al., 2014). Some groups of local people have also attempted to claim ownership rights over some parts of the forests (Lounela, 2012, Maryudi and Krott, 2012).

A sizeable body of literature has explained the driving factors of land movement in Indonesia but most of them focus on processes at the national level principally on the changing socio-political landscapes at the end of 1990s (Moniaga, 1993, McCarthy, 2000, Colfer and Resosudarmo, 2002, Thorburn, 2004, Barr et al., 2006, Nurrochmat et al., 2012) and the overlapping land use policy and regulations (Casson, 2001, Santoso, 2003, Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay, 2005, Brockhaus et al., 2012, Indrarto et al., 2012, Maryudi, 2015, Sahide and Giessen, 2015). While all of this provides important insights and explains factors that encourage the land movement, the literatures give insufficient answers on the dynamics at the local or micro level. More importantly, how the power of peasant farmers is relatively strengthened manifested in prolonged occupation of state forestland restricted for them remains understudied.

Using the case of the forestland of Perhutani, a parastatal forest enterprise mandated to administer and manage nearly all of production and protection forests in Java and Madura Islands, this paper attempts to explain of the local dynamics of the land movement. It specifically tries to find the empirical evidence of the emerging power of peasant farmers at the field. This will provide a better picture on the struggles over uses and access over forestland in Indonesia, complementing the existing literatures. To explain that, our research borrows the theory of actor-centred power (ACP) developed by Krott et al. (2014). ACP has been intensively tested in a number of studies (Devkota, 2010, Maryudi, 2011, Yufanyi Movuh and Schusser, 2012) and has been widely used in research (Schusser, 2013, Yufanyi Movuh, 2012, Chen et al., 2013, Schusser et al., 2015) that focuses on understanding the empirical power resources of actors in social-political relationships.