Governing the ungovernable: contesting and reworking REDD+ in Indonesia
Abstract
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) has rapidly become a dominant approach in mitigating climate change. Building on the Foucauldian governmentality literature and drawing on a case study of Ulu Masen Project in Aceh, Indonesia, this article examines the practices of subject making through which REDD+ seeks to enroll local actors, a research area that remains relatively underexplored. It interrogates the ways in which local actors react, resist or maneuver within these efforts, as they negotiate multiple subject positions. Interviews and focus group discussions combined with an analysis of documents show that the subject making processes proceed at a complex conjuncture constituted and shaped by political, economic and ecological conditions within the context of Aceh. The findings also suggest that the agency of communities in engaging, negotiating and even contesting the REDD+ initiative is closely linked to the history of their prior engagement in conservation and development initiatives. Communities are empowered by their participation in REDD+, although not always in the ways expected by project implementers and conservation and development actors. Furthermore, communities' political agency cannot be understood by simply examining their resistance toward the initiative; these communities have also been skillful in playing multiple roles and negotiating different subjectivities depending on the situations they encounter.
Keywords: REDD+, subject-making, agency, resistance, Indonesia, Aceh
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alcorn, J.B. 2000. An introduction to the linkages between ecological resilience and governance. In Alcorn, J.B. and A.G. Royo (eds.). Indigenous social movements and ecological resilience: lessons from the Dayak of Indonesia. Discussion Paper Series. Washington, DC: Biodiversity Support Program. Pp. 1–16.
Agarwal, A. and C. Gibson. 1999. Enchantment and disenchantment: the role of community in natural resources management. World Development 27(4): 629-649.
Agrawal, A. 2005a. Environmentality: community, intimate government, and the making of environmental subjects in Kumaon, India. Current Anthropology 46(2): 161-190.
Agrawal, A. 2005b. Environmentality: technologies of government and the making of environmental subjects. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Asiyanbi, A.P. 2016. A political ecology of REDD+: property rights, militarised protectionism, and carbonised exclusion in Cross River. Geoforum 77(1): 146-156.
Asiyanbi, A.P., E. Ogar and O.A. Akintoye. 2019. Complexities and surprises in local resistance to neoliberal conservation: multiple environmentalities, technologies of self and the post-structural geography of local engagement with REDD+. Political Geography 69(1): 128-138.
Asiyanbi, A.P. and J.F. Lund. 2020. Policy persistence: REDD+ between stabilization and contestation. Journal of Political Ecology. 27:
Astuti, R. and A. McGregor. 2017. Indigenous land claims or green grabs? Inclusions and exclusions within forest carbon politics in Indonesia. The Journal of Peasant Studies 44(2): 445-466.
Benjaminsen, G. 2014. Between resistance and consent: project-village relationships when introducing REDD+ in Zanzibar. Forum for Development Studies 41(3): 377-398.
Bumpus. A.G and D.M. Liverman. 2011. Carbon colonialism? Offsets, greenhouse gas reductions, and sustainable development. In Peet, R., P. Robbins, and M.J. Watts (eds.). Global political ecology. London: Routledge. Pp. 203-224.
Cavanagh, C. 2015. Securitizing REDD+? Problematizing the emerging illegal timber trade and forest carbon interface in East Africa. Geoforum 60(1): 72-82.
Castree, N. 2010. Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment: a synthesis and evaluation of the research. Environment and Society: Advances in Research 1(1): 5-45.
Clarke, R.A. 2010. Moving the REDD debates from theory to practice: lessons learned from the Ulu Masen project. Law Environment and Development Journal 6(1): 38-90.
Corbera, E. and H. Schroeder. 2011. Governing and implementing REDD+. Environmental Science and Policy 14(2): 89-99.
Dunlop, J. 2009. REDD, tenure and local communities: a study from Aceh, Indonesia. Rome: International Development Law Organization.
Eye on Aceh (EoA). 2009. Challenges of forest governance in Aceh. Eye on Aceh: Banda Aceh.
Fan, L. 2006. The struggle for land rights in post-tsunami and post conflict Aceh, Indonesia. Washington DC: World Bank.
Fletcher, R. 2017. Environmentality unbound: multiple governmentalities in environmental politics. Geoforum 85(1): 311-315.
Fauna and Flora International (FFI). 2011. Tackling illegal logging in Ulu Masen, Aceh: strategy, action and future direction. Jakarta: Fauna and Flora International.
Foucault, M. 1980. Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon. Pp. 78-108.
Foucault, M. 1991. Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller. (eds.). The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 87-104.
Foucault, M. 1995. Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Vintage.
Gelling, P. 2010. Former rebel turns to rangers in Aceh. The New York Times March 4. [accessed on 03/04/2013]
Government of Indonesia (GoI). 2017. Intended nationally determined contribution Republic of Indonesia. Retrieved from: https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/Indonesia/1/INDC_REPUBLIC%20OF%20INDONESIA.pdf [accessed 10/11/2018].
Huxley, M. 2007. Geographies of governmentality. In Crampton, J. and S. Elden (eds.). Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography. Farnham: Ashgate. Pp. 185-204.
Lang, C. 2013, March 13. Dorje Sun, Ulu Masen and the burning season. REDD Monitor [accessed 14/03/2013].
Lansing, D.M. 2012. Performing carbon's materiality: the production of carbon offsets and the framing of exchange. Environment and Planning A. 44(1): 204-220.
Larner, W. 2003. Neoliberalism? Environmental and Planning D: Society and Space 21(5): 309-312.
Larson, A.M., M. Brockhaus, W.D. Sunderlin, A. Duchelle, A. Babon, T. Dokken, T.T. Pham, I.A.P. Resosudarmo, G. Selaya, A. Awono and T. Huynh. 2013. Land tenure and REDD+: the good, the bad and the ugly. Global Environmental Change 23(3): 678-689.
Li, T.M. 2007. The will to improve: governmentality, development and the practices of politics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Lövbrand, E. and J. Stripple. 2011. Making climate change governable: accounting for carbon as sinks, credits and personal budgets. Critical Policy Studies 5(2): 187–200.
Mahanty, S. and C.L. McDermott. 2013. How does 'Free, Prior, Informed Consent' (FPIC) impact social equity? Lessons from mining and forestry and their implications for REDD+. Land Use Policy 35(1): 406-416.
Massarella, K., S.M. Sallu, J.E Ensot and R. Marchant. 2018. REDD+, hype, hope and disappointment: the dynamics of expectations in conservation and development pilot projects. World Development 109(1): 375-385.
McAfee, K. 2016. Green economy and carbon markets for conservation and development: a critical view. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 16(3): 333–353.
McGregor, A., E. Challies, P. Howson, R. Astuti, R. Dixon, B. Haalboom and S. Affif. 2015. Beyond carbon, more than forest? REDD+ governmentality in Indonesia. Environment and Planning A 47(1): 138 -155.
McCarthy, J.F. 2006. The fourth circle: a political ecology of Sumatra's rainforest frontier. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
McCarthy, J.F. 2007. The demonstration effect: natural resources, ethnonationalism and the Aceh conflict. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 28(3): 317-333.
Milne, S. 2012. Grounding forest carbon: property relations and avoided deforestation in Cambodia. Human Ecology 40(5): 693-706.
Milne, S. and W.M. Adams. 2012. Market masquerades: uncovering the politics of community-level payments for environmental services in Cambodia. Development and Change 43(1): 133-159.
Milne, S., S. Mahanty, P. To, W. Dressler, P. Kanowski and M. Thavat. 2019. Learning from 'actually existing' REDD+: a synthesis of ethnographic findings. Conservation and Society 17(1):84-95.
Neumann, R. 2001. Disciplining peasants in Tanzania: from coercion to self-surveillance in wildlife conservation. In Peluso, N.L. and M.J. Watts (eds.). Violent environments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Pp. 305-327.
Project Design Document (PDD). 2007. Reducing carbon emissions from deforestation in the Ulu Masen ecosystem, Aceh, Indonesia: a triple-benefit project design note for CCBA audit. The Provincial Government of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (Aceh), in collaboration with Fauna & Flora International & Carbon Conservation Pty. Ltd.
Rose, N. 1999. Powers of freedom: reframing political thoughts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rights and Resources Institute (RRI). 2018. Tenure data and tools. Retrieved from: https://rightsandresources.org/en/work-impact/tenure-data-tool [Accessed January 22, 2018]
Rutheford, S. 2007. Green governmentality: insights and opportunities in the study of nature's rule. Progress in Human Geography 31(3): 291-307.
Osborne, T. and E. Shapiro-Garza. 2018. Embedding carbon markets: complicating commodification of ecosystem services in Mexico's forest. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(1): 88-105.
Peluso, N.L. 1992. Rich forest poor people. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.
Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapon of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott, J.C. 1992. Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Scott, J.C. 1998. Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve human condition have failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Setyowati, A.B. 2014. Governing forest carbon: The political ecology of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Aceh, Indonesia. PhD dissertation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University.
Setyowati, A.B. 2020. Making territory and negotiating citizenship in a climate mitigation initiative in Indonesia. Development and Change 52(1): 144-166.
Shapiro-Garza, E. 2013. Contesting the market-based nature of Mexico's national payment for ecosystem services programs: four sites of articulation and hybridization. Geoforum 46 (1): 5-15.
Siapno, J.A. 2002. Gender, Islam, nationalism and the state in Aceh: the paradox of power, cooptation and resistance. London: Routledge.
Simonet, G., A. Agarwal, F. Benedet, C. de Perthuis, D. Haggard, N. Jansen, A. Karsenty et al. 2016. ID-RECCO. International database on REDD+ project: Linking economic, carbon and communities' data. Version 2.0. http://www.reddprojectsdatabase.org/ [accessed December 18, 2018].
Singh, N.M. 2013. The affective labour of growing forests and the becoming of environmental subjects: rethinking environmentality in Odisha. Geoforum 47(1): 189-198.
Skutsch, M. and E. Turnhout. 2018. How REDD+ is performing community. Forests 9(10): 638.
Sunderlin, W.D., A.M Larson, A.E. Duchelle and I.A.P. Resosudarmo. 2013. How are REDD+ proponents addressing tenure problems? Evidence from Brazil, Cameroon, Tanzania, Indonesia and Vietnam. World Development 55(1): 37-52.
Syarif, S. 2007. Peran gampong dan mukim dalam proses penyusunan tata ruang wilayah Aceh. Kabar JKPP 13: 3-7.
Wilshusen, P.R. 2010. The receiving end of reform: everyday responses to neoliberalisation in Southern Mexico. Antipode 42(3): 767-799.
Wolosin, M., J. Breitfeller and B. Schaap. 2016. The geography of REDD+ finance. Deforestation, emission, and the targeting of forest conservation finance. Retrieved from: https://www.forest-trends.org/publications/the-geography-of-redd-finance/ [accessed February 3, 2019].
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2458/v27i1.23185
