Adat in Indonesian Land Law

A Promise for the Future or a Dead End

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2175015
AutoresAdriaan Bedner (0000-0002-7282-1620, Hague Institute for Global Justice), Yance Arizona (0000-0003-0523-3965, Hague Institute for Global Justice)
Año2019
Volumen20
Número5
Páginas416-434
Fecha de publicación2019-10-20
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCanberra Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14442213.2019.1670246
OpenAlexW2977613219
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas38
Referencias citadas32

At present the contestation of the Indonesian state’s dispossessory policies regarding land and other natural resources is dominated by a discourse based on adat. This situation is reminiscent of the colonial period, when invoking adat was a relatively effective means of protecting Indonesians from losing their land to plantation companies supported by the Netherlands-Indies government. However, adat lost its traction when Indonesia became independent and the new state started to vigorously pursue nation building and economic expansion. Only after the end of the New Order in 1998 did civil society groups revive the adat defence against dispossession. This article analyses current debates and developments concerning the place of adat in national land law and its potential for protecting communities against dispossession of their land by the Indonesian state. We argue that the promotion of adat has produced few concrete results and that it is unlikely to be more successful for this purpose in the future. Given Indonesia’s current social and political realities, any land rights strategy for protecting people against dispossession that is based on indigeneity is problematic, and alternative approaches are needed

Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Indonesian · Land tenure · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Promotion (chess · Sociology · State (computer science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Asian Studies and History · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Public Administration