Violent enclosures, violated livelihoods

Environmental and military territoriality in a Philippine frontier

Bibliographic Data

ID2157133
AuthorsWolfram H Dressler (0000-0003-1105-3805), Eulalio R Guieb
Year2015
Volume42
Issue2
Pages323-345
Publication date2015-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03066150.2014.991718
OpenAlexW2077056797
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited54

The political geography of environmental governance can overlap and converge with uneven agrarian change in forest frontiers subject to violent enclosures. When the governance of conservation territories converges with and reinforces enclosures, spaces can be controlled with authority and violence that places livelihoods at greater risk in the context of uneven agrarian political economies - the outcomes of which reflect 'violent enclosures'. This paper examines how indigenous resource users negotiate the discursive and material impact of environmental governance converging with militarized-insurgent spaces as overlapping enclosures in a protected area on Palawan Island, the Philippines. Drawing on local experiences, we examine how the livelihood vulnerability arising in the local political economy is exacerbated by access and use constraints from the overlapping enclosures of environmental and military governance in the buffer zone of Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. We argue that the seemingly less governable forest frontiers of protected areas are often the poorest, highly politicized and contested spaces of political and ecological refuge. Here, scarce forest resources are managed closely, and recalcitrant groups seek refuge as military powers frame, conflate and manage local behaviour as criminal and dangerous, merging conservation and military interventions as coercive governance. We conclude that only by critically engaging how governance processes and enclosures converge to yield structural and discursive violence - and by making this apparent to policy makers - will indigenous peoples successfully negotiate the double bind of violent enclosures in frontiers.Keywords: enclosurePalawangovernancepeasants AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the Tagbanua of Marufinas for their patience and perseverance.FundingThis research was funded by the ARC Future Fellowship programme.Additional informationNotes on contributorsWolfram H. Dressler is an ARC Future Fellow at the School of Geography, the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research examines local social responses and livelihood impacts emerging at the intersection of boom crop production and transnational governance in the Philippines and Indonesia. Email: [email protected] on contributorsEulalio R. Guieb III is an associate professor in the Department of Broadcast Communication, University of the Philippines-Diliman, the Philippines. His research examines the political ecology of marine reserves in the Philippines. He is currently documenting a Tagbanua epic in northern Palawan. Email: [email protected]

Agriculture · Criminology · Development economics · Economics · Frontier · Geography · Livelihood · Political science · Sociology · Territoriality · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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