Seminar Series: Abstract

Building a State, Dispossessing the Nation: Sovereignty and Land Dispossession in Indonesia
Navitri Putri Guillaume PhD Candidate, Political Science Department Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Focusing on the domestic feature of sovereignty as a particular constellation of property relations involving the state and its subjects, the research looks at the issue of land property rights conflicts, in the context of state- and nation-building in Indonesia.

It aims to show that the processes by which the Indonesian state established its territorial sovereignty and exercises its authority and control over its territory, population and resources have led to land dispossessions. The research analyzes the processes of land usurpation and the mechanisms by which the state appropriated itself local communities' lands, and how these processes and mechanisms condition the occurrence, type, and intensity of conflicts as these communities' responses to the state's policies.

The general assumption concerning the way state-building processes lead to land dispossessions is that in a post-colonial context, in which state-building is high atop the political agenda, the control of land becomes an important source for building a national identity and extracting material resources; this in turn can entail widespread social injustice and environmental degradation in the process of resource exploitation and commoditization.

The research focus on two state policies, namely: transmigration and forest designation. In this seminar, I intend to present tentative findings on the land dispossesions due to transmigration programme in Lampung province, Indonesia.