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Legal Dispossession: State Strategies and Selectivities in the Expansion of Indonesian Palm Oil and Agrofuel Production
Author(s) -
Pichler Melanie
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/dech.12162
Subject(s) - indonesian , appropriation , state (computer science) , context (archaeology) , hegemony , subaltern , privilege (computing) , natural resource , sociology , production (economics) , land grabbing , politics , law , political economy , economic system , political science , economics , ecology , geography , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , algorithm , computer science , macroeconomics , agriculture , biology
This article examines the role of the state in the appropriation and control of land in Indonesian palm oil and agrofuel production. Drawing on political ecology and critical state and hegemony theory, it focuses particularly on the legal state strategies that support the hegemonic project of agro‐industrial and export‐oriented palm oil and agrofuel production. The article analyses the structural, strategic and spatial selectivities — the mechanisms of marginalization and privilege — that accompany the strategies the state employs. Three important strategies are discussed, namely the codification of land ownership, the concentration of land possession and the valorization of natural resources in the context of de‐ and recentralization. The article concludes that these legal state strategies represent an important means to organize and protect a large‐scale palm oil project as they succeed in universalizing dominant interests whilst at the same time (partially) integrating subaltern interests.