Palm oil and the struggle for land and citizenship in Indonesia
As palm oil companies expand their plantations, rural Indonesians lose their land and livelihoods, often with limited compensation. The resulting conflicts involve tense, long-running standoffs, violence, arrests, and occasionally deaths.
Ward Berenschot (University of Amsterdam and KITLV) has studied 150 conflicts between palm oil companies and rural Indonesians, and uses this to explore the relationship between the state and its citizens.
In this lecture, he argues that rural Indonesians face a rightlessness that generates a form of collective action that avoids invoking legal provisions or rights, and instead relies on informal connections, bargaining power, and mediation.
The lecture will include clips from Berenschot's documentary "Colonial Debris", and will be followed by a conversation with Kari Telle (CMI) and Aled Williams (CMI).
https://bergenglobal.no/events/palm-oil-and-the-struggle-for-land-and-citizenship-in-indonesia/
