Gender and generation in engagements with oil palm in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: insights from feminist political ecology

Abstract

Across many parts of Indonesia, investment in oil palm has brought accelerated forms of land acquisition and market engagement for communities, signalling far-reaching implications for equity and well-being of current and future generations. This paper uses a conjunctural feminist political ecology approach to explore gendered and generational engagements with oil palm in Indonesia. The paper compares four communities in East Kalimantan that form part of an ongoing study of the gendered impacts of large-scale and independent smallholder investments in oil palm in the context of corporate zero deforestation commitments in West and East Kalimantan. We show how different pathways of engagement with oil palm -adverse or otherwise -reflect the interplay between modes of incorporation into oil palm systems with landscape history, gender, life stage and ethnic identity. Whilst our findings complicate singular 'victim' narratives, they also challenge the 'cruel optimism' that is accompanying the current oil palm boom.

Género y conflictos socioambientales: Una experiencia de investigación-acción participativa con mujeres dirigentes

“…A partir de un trabajo desde la IAP con mujeres dirigentes de zonas rurales de la región Metropolitana en torno a la experiencia de ser mujer y ser dirigente en un territorio degradado o contaminado como es el caso de Tiltil, San Pedro de Melipilla, Alhué y María Pinto (Cortés et al, 2016), pudimos reconocer la importancia del cuidado como una dimensión relevante de la experiencia de las participantes en torno a los problemas socioambientales identificados durante la primera sesión. A través de diferentes ejercicios participativos -que incluyó un trabajo de reconocimiento de la experiencia ambiental mediante un trabajo con el cuerpo y las emociones la dimensión del cuidado emergió como un eje canalizador de la vivencia, a su vez que agente movilizador de una forma particular de hacer política en la vida cotidiana de las participantes.…”

Governing a Liminal Land Deal: The Biopolitics and Necropolitics of Gender

“…Providing nuance to simplified explanations that land grabs occur in states with “weak land governance” (Arezki et al :3), critical scholars drawing on the insights of political ecology and agrarian studies have highlighted the need to carefully disentangle the role of diverse state and non‐state actors, and understand the networks and articulations of power that shape the making of land deals on the ground (see collections in White et al ; Wolford et al ). Feminist contributions in particular have called attention to how patriarchal state, corporate and cultural practices have led to various forms of gender bias in land deal governance, such as the exclusion and discrimination of women in community consultations, political decision‐making and compensation/resettlement procedures (Chung ; de Vos and Delabre ; Elmhirst et al ; Julia and White ; Levien ).…”

Gender and generation in Southeast Asian agro-commodity booms

“…Political ecology, in our view, does not replace political economy, but applies the basic political economy questions of who has what, who does what, who gets what, and what do they do with it (Bernstein 2010) to the production of environmental change (Robbins 2004); the gendering and 'generationing' of political ecology, in turn, treats gender and generation as critical variables in addressing these questions (Elmhirst 2011). The papers by Vanessa Lamb and colleagues on the Lower Mekong Basin region, and Rebecca Elmhirst and colleagues on East Kalimantan, both explore explicitly the potentials of a feminist political ecology approach, which 'directs attention towards gendered processes underpinning the politics of resource access whilst at the same time, attending to the gendered agency of those struggling for justice and fairness in the face of transformation' (Elmhirst et al 2017). The papers by Clara M. Park and Margherita Maffii, and by Kristina Grossman, meanwhile cast their analyses in a 'feminist agrarian political economy' and a 'material gendered political ecology' framework, respectively.…”

“…Rebecca Elmhirst and colleagues adopt a 'conjunctural feminist political ecology' approach to look at the differentiated outcomes of the interplay between different modes of incorporation into the oil palm sector and existing historical and ecological gender norms and social differences. Their comparison of four case study communities in East Kalimantan show how 'different pathways of engagement with oil palmadverse or otherwisereflect the interplay between modes of incorporation into oil palm systems with landscape history, gender, life stage and ethnic identity' (Elmhirst et al 2017).…”