Palm Oil Wealth and Rumour Panics in West Kalimantan

Semedi, Pujo

doi:10.1080/08039410.2014.901240

Cited by 28 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…On the other hand, if managed properly, socio-economic benefits from oil-palm establishment (by either companies or smallholders) have positively transformed many rural communities, providing livelihood improvements and poverty alleviation (Myers et al 2015;Semedi 2014). For example, in Bungo District in Indonesia, smallholding farmers prefer planting oil palm compared to other agricultural land use options (e.g.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Oil palm–community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

Abram¹,

et al. 2017

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Conflict between large-scale oil-palm producers and local communities is widespread in palm-oil producer nations. With a potential doubling of oil-palm cultivation in Indonesia in the next ten years it is likely that conflicts between the palm-oil industry and communities will increase. We develop and apply a novel method for understanding spatial patterns of oil-palm related conflicts. We use a unique set of conflict data derived through systematic searches of online data sources and local newspaper reports describing recent oil-palm land-use related conflicts for Indonesian Borneo, and combine these data with 43 spatial environmental and social variables using boosted regression tree modelling. Reports identified 187 villages had reported conflict with oil-palm companies. Spatial patterns varied with different types of conflict. Forest-dependent communities were more likely to strongly oppose oil-palm establishment because of their negative perception of oil-palm development on the environment and their own livelihoods. Conflicts regarding land boundary disputes, illegal operations by companies, perceived lack of consultation, compensation and broken promises by companies were more associated with communities that have lower reliance on forests for livelihoods, or are located in regions that have undergone or are undergoing forest transformation to oil-palm or industrial-tree-plantations. A better understanding of the characteristics of communities and areas where different types of conflicts have occurred is a fundamental step in generating hypotheses about why certain types of conflict occur in certain locations. Insights from such research can help inform land use policy, planning and management to achieve more sustainable and equitable development. Our results can also assist certification bodies (e.g. the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil-RSPO, and the Indonesian and Malaysian versions, ISPO and MSPO), non-government-organisations, government agencies and other 3 stakeholders to more effectively target mediation efforts to reduce the potential for conflict arising in the future.

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confidence: 99%

Oil palm–community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

Abram¹,

et al. 2017

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“…Smallholders contest this marginalization not only by planting oil palm themselves but by grappling head-on with the conceptual threat it represents. An example is the "rumor panics" that periodically sweep across Borneo's new oil palm landscapes, warning of strangers who are kidnapping Dayak to traffic in their organs, which has led in some instances to the murders of outsiders (Semedi 2014). Fear that market representatives from the wider world are stealing their organs can be read as a fear of an incommensurate and fatal exchange, which in many respects resembles the historic deathbed speech against pepper or the rice-eating rubber dream.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plants, Politics, and the Imagination over the Past 500 Years in the Indo-Malay Region

Dove¹

2019

Current Anthropology

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This is an analysis of the way that the colonial-era model of plantation production in Southeast Asia disciplined plants and people and, of most importance, the way that production relations between plants and people were conceived. This discipline was challenged during historic moments of crisis that stimulated the imagination of alternative modes of production. The analysis will focus on the histories of three plants in particular: black pepper (Piper nigrum), Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis), and a sword grass (Imperata cylindrica). Notable events in their histories include the proscription of pepper cultivation in the sixteenth century Hikayat Banjar in southeastern Borneo; the tribal dream of rice-eating rubber in the 1930s in western Borneo and the contemporaneous international effort to restrict smallholder rubber cultivation; and the lengthy history of productive native management of Imperata and disbelief in such management by plantation managers and government officials. Each case represents conflict between alternative and competing systems of crop management, which consists in part in transcendent exercises to imagine, or deny, alternative systems of production. These leaps of the imagination are nourished by a focus on the human-nonhuman divide, especially during historic moments of crisis. There are many persons in cultured communities who see nothing harmful about destruction of forest in shifting cultivation. (Bartlett 1956:709) Industrial rubber. .. is made possible by the savagery of European conquest, the competitive passions of colonial botany, the resistance strategies of peasants. .. and much more that would not be evident from a teleology of industrial progress.

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“…The narrative of the thieves became evermore terrifying -mainly me who who usually cycled around the village dangling a camera -because later there was an additional story that during the day the thieves had sent a spy to the hamlet to photograph houses which would become the targets for theft. The hamlet residents were struck by a moral panic and saw people whom they did not know as a threat (Semedi, 2014). The effect was the ritual to close the hamlet which had begun to lose spirit, was re-energized.…”

Section: Hamlet Lockdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Power Approach and the Coronavirus Pandemic in Yogyakarta

Semedi

2021

Hum.

Self Cite

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In Indonesia, a power approach was operationalised in efforts to manage the coronavirus outbreak. In the six months since the spread of the virus began, what can be seen is that this approach has given rise to a behavioral paradox within the community. Tumulutous and clamorous measures were undertaken by the community in the first four months of the pandemic, where the rate of infection was still small. In the following months, when the rate of infection spiked, the community contrarily was as if it was inattentive and indifferent. This study analyzed this behavioral paradox through an analysis of the relation of power using ethnographic, internet, and historic data collected in the north Yogyakarta rural area. Ethnographic data were gathered using the autonomous ethnographic method, while other data were collected from chat groups and online news portals. Considering the gravity of the coronavirus, an alternative strategy is urgently needed. Hamlet closures must be selective, with clear timeframes and known outcomes. Such an approach is a micro lockdown, directed only at the environment and field of activity in which an infected resident is located and undergoing treatment, while life can go on as normal in the surrounding area, following health protocols. Further observations are needed to examine the effectiveness of this approach, as with other things emerging within the community.

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Palm Oil Wealth and Rumour Panics in West Kalimantan

Cited by 28 publications

References 26 publications

Oil palm–community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

Oil palm–community conflict mapping in Indonesia: A case for better community liaison in planning for development initiatives

Plants, Politics, and the Imagination over the Past 500 Years in the Indo-Malay Region

A Power Approach and the Coronavirus Pandemic in Yogyakarta

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