Claiming Rights to the Forest in East Kalimantan: Challenging Power and Presenting Culture (original) (raw)

Dayak individuals and groups engage in “plural ecologies” which are characterized by different ways of integrating humans and non-humans as well as by different conceptualizations of “nature”, “land”, and “development”. This is exemplified by two struggles for the maintenance of customary rights in East Kalimantan: a rather forlorn dispute over land with a coal mining company and a promising attempt to secure customary rights to a forested mountain area. Focusing on individual and collective actors allows to address how people appropriate and engage with different and partly contradictory ontological assumptions.