Strategic Framing of Adat in Land-Acquisition Politics in East Sumba

This article is about the strategic use of adat arguments in the politics of large-scale land acquisition. While customary (adat) communities are commonly depicted as small local minorities living in the forests and being guardians of the environment, in many situations such communities occupy a maj...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Asia Pacific journal of anthropology 2019-10, Vol.20 (5), p.435-452
Main Authors: Vel, Jacqueline, Makambombu, Stepanus
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acquisition
Community
Customary Law
Farmers
Forests
Frame analysis
Guardians
Indonesia
Land
Land Grabbing
Land purchases
Minority groups
Natural environment
Political majority
Political participation
Politics
Social environment
Strategic Framing
Sumba
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Summary:This article is about the strategic use of adat arguments in the politics of large-scale land acquisition. While customary (adat) communities are commonly depicted as small local minorities living in the forests and being guardians of the environment, in many situations such communities occupy a majority position within the district. Majority adat communities are internally differentiated into categories of actors with varying and conflicting interests. This article focuses on Sumba in eastern Indonesia, where state and adat powers are not opposed but historically aligned. We analyse how five common ways of framing adat in Sumba are currently being deployed in land-acquisition politics, in situations supporting plantation land acquisition or protesting against farmers' land dispossession. We draw attention to what we call 'strategic adat framing' as a political activity. The article calls for analysing the historical and social context of local deployments of adat for understanding the impact of current government pro-adat policies.
ISSN:1444-2213
1740-9314
DOI:10.1080/14442213.2019.1670239