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Transforming the Classic Political Forest: Contentious Territories in Java
Author(s) -
Lukas Martin C.,
Peluso Nancy Lee
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12563
Subject(s) - politics , java , forest management , revenue , understory , constitution , state (computer science) , political economy , political science , natural resource economics , economics , geography , forestry , law , finance , archaeology , algorithm , canopy , computer science , programming language
Java’s extensive political forests and their contentious social relations have been profoundly transformed since the turn of the 21 st century. This paper analyses new forms of forest land use, control, and revenue distribution, shaping and shaped by political‐economic changes and neoliberal‐era reforms. Villagers’ expanded uses, access to, and control of the forest understory under the violently thinned out canopies of the main tree species has generated newly spatialised forest politics, with new institutions and forest labour practices. The changes in land, species, and labour controls, and in villagers’ access to forest products and revenues define this historical transformation in the constitution of Java’s classic political forest. Contentious co‐production has resulted in fragmented territories and a momentary (at least) weakening of state controls within the old imperial political forest.