The palm oil controversy in Southeast Asia: a transnational perspective (Book Review) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Palm Oil as a Transnational Crisis in South-East Asia
ASEAS Österreichische Zeitschrift für …, 2009
This paper discusses the recent palm oil expansion as a multiple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and (failed) development. It draws on recent research on the Malaysian "Palm Oil Industrial Complex" and on transnational campaign coalitions around palm oil to explore the transnational dimensions of the palm oil crisis. It argues that a new campaign coalition around the issue of agrofuel policies in the European Union has emerged that links social and environmental struggles in Indonesia and Europe. This new transnational activism not only rejects the palm oil development paradigm, but also points to possible alternative development futures. Dieser Beitrag analysiert die gegenwärtige Palmölexpansion in Südostasien als multiple Krise von Klimawandel, Biodiversitätsverlust und (gescheiterter) Entwicklung. Forschungen zum malaysischen "Palmöl-industriellen Komplex" und zu transnationalen Kampagnenkoalitionen um das Thema Palmöl werden herangezogen, um die transnationalen Dimensionen der Palmölkrise zu skizzieren. Es wird gezeigt, dass eine neue Kampagnenkoalition gegen die Agrotreibstoff politik der Europäischen Union entsteht, die soziale und umweltbezogene Bewegungen in Indonesien mit europäischen Netzwerken verbindet. Diese transnationale Kampagne lehnt das Palmöl-Entwicklungsparadigma ab und zeigt mögliche Alternativen auf.
Full text free E-print at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3WwcY4CEJcSj3Sjg7v4g/full This article considers whether private sustainability standards can lead to lasting change in corporate and state agricultural practices implicated in the environmental damage and social conflicts caused by oil palm cultivation in Indonesia and Malaysia by examining in detail the social processes through which non-state actors engage in governance. Sceptics of private regulation point to the powerful state-business patronage networks in these countries as structural impediments to reforming this sector. Drawing on the literature on global production networks, I show how producers deeply embedded within such supportive local political economies nevertheless choose to comply with stringent global private standards to reduce risks to their global operations. It was the renewed emphasis on supply chain “traceability” to demonstrate responsible corporate behaviour to investors, buyers and consumers that served to embed globally-oriented palm oil plantation firms and their upstream suppliers into emerging ethical supply chains. Embedding occurs through three social processes—surveillance, normalising judgement and knowledge transfer. The private regulatory developments analysed in this article, though relatively recent, are supported by a diverse transnational coalition of principled and instrumental interests and have created significant openings for a new, or at least, parallel, and more progressive, private regulatory order in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Geoforum, 2019
Global private sustainability standards in agriculture today govern a range of commodities produced in the tropics. Our study analyses the most well-established of these standards, namely the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). We show how, far from being a market device restricted to re-organising global markets in palm oil, RSPO standardisation has wider consequences spatially redistributing power with territorial effects. Territorialisation occurs through two processes: a strategic and operational process linked to the fabrication and application of procedural rules; a socio-technological process linked to the valorisation of managerial approaches to sustainability. Over time, these twin processes have institutionalised a transnational political space of action with territorial properties. These include: new frontiers of political authority de-bordering national jurisdiction (geographically connecting local scale oil palm estates and plantations with a transversal global supply chain stretching from producing to consuming countries); historical connection; internal coherence and imposition of managerial practices and discourses, including managerial constructions of interdependencies between people, nature and artefacts; prime beneficiaries (large southeast Asian growers, international environmental NGOs and (mainly) European downstream firms); marginalised people (independent smallholders and communities in Malaysia and Indonesia). In this manner, RSPO reinforces its political power and authority over a managerial form of sustainability of palm oil production through territorialising it. Ultimately, this transnational political space of action comes into interaction (and, potentially, conflict) with other political spaces of action and territorial projects as pursued by local people, other NGOs or Malaysian and Indonesian state governments.
2016
This report presents the findings of an expert meeting that was organised on 26 and 27 of August 2015 in Singapore on ‘Future Roles of the State in Governing the Global Palm Oil Industry’. It is one of the activities conducted together with the INREF-SUSPENSE programme ‘Towards Environmentally Sustainable and Equitable Palm Oil’. This research programme is being implemented by Wageningen University and the Centre for Development Innovation. The objectives of the expert meeting were to identify visionary ideas on roles and instruments of the state in governing the global palm oil industry and to identify opportunities for further collaboration in policy dialogue, policy development and research development amongst different participants
Future Roles of the State in Governing the Global Palm Oil Industry
This report presents the findings of an expert meeting that was organised on 26 and 27 of August 2015 in Singapore on ‘Future Roles of the State in Governing the Global Palm Oil Industry’. The meeting was hosted by research centres and universities from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands. The meeting followed the Appreciative Inquiry Methodology and ended in the formulation of four strong ideas that foster the role of the state in the governance of the global palm oil industry.
2011
Chapter 2 Analytical Framework 8 2.1 Introduction 8 2.2 Strategic use of information as the core of transnational movements 8 2.3 Transnational movement and its influence towards national policies 9 2.3.1 Strategies 9 2.3.2 Sequences of Influence 11 2.4 Interrelation of transnational movements with other stakeholders 12 2.4.1 Relationship between civil society and the state 13 2.4.2 Relationship between civil society and private actors 13 Chapter 3 History of TEAMs in Indonesia 15 3.1 Introduction 15 3.2 Convergence of Environmental and Agrarian Movement in Indonesia 16 3.3 Linking with transnational movements 17 Chapter 4 Different Approaches of TEAMs: problem-framing, demands, and action 20 4.2.3 Problem-framing 23 4.2.4 Demands 24 4.2.5 Actions 25 4.2.6 Influence on National Policy 26 4.3 Food Sovereignty (SPI-LVC) 26 4.3.1 Background of the Organisation 26 4.3.2 Approach 26 4.3.3 Problem-framing 27 4.3.4 Demands 29 4.3.5 Actions 29 4.3.6 Influence on National Policies 30 4.4 Radical Environmentalism (Greenpeace) 30 4.4.1 Background of the Organisation 30 4.4.2 Approach 31 4.4.3 Problem-framing 31 4.4.4 Demands 31 4.4.5 Actions 32 4.4.6 Influence on National Policies 33 4.5 Market-based approach (WWF) 34 4.5.1 Background of the Organisation 34 4.5.2 Approach 34 4.5.3 Demands 34 4.5.4 Actions 35 4.5.5 Influence on National Policies 36 Chapter 5 Conclusion 38
Deconstructing the Palm Oil Industry Narrative in Indonesia: Evidence from Riau Province
Contemporary Southeast Asia
Indonesia is the leading global producer of crude palm oil. Mass production of palm oil requires large-scale land conversion, resulting in Indonesia having the world's highest rate of annual primary forest loss. Given the contentious nature and scale of palm oil production, this article considers Indonesia as a variant of the developmental patrimonialism model often applied to African countries. Developmental patrimonialism in the Indonesian context suggests that state power-expressed through various discourse and policy coalitions-favours palm oil companies and seeks legitimation through claims about national economic benefits. This development model may lead to absolute poverty reduction, employment and tax revenue, but can also produce inequality, resource dependencies and environmental degradation. From the authors' observations in Riau province, there is a mismatch between the national narrative of palm oil as a force for good and the conspicuous underinvestment in public services and infrastructure, which undermines the legitimacy of some palm oil industry claims. The complexity of village Riau casts further doubt on generalized claims about rural development.
The Political Ecology of Palm Oil Production
Journal of Change Management, 2013
The paper analyses the social and environmental issues involved in disputes relating to the sustainability of the palm oil industry. These disputes have been aired in and around the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. We start by developing a review of types of voluntary environmental initiative or green clubs, as they have also been called, in this context. The study is based on extensive fieldwork in the setting of the disputes (the island of Borneo) and analysis of the different levels in the global value chain of the palm oil industry, including local organizations, the industry structure overall, as well as the local governments of Malaysia and Indonesia. The use of the political ecology framework for the analysis of the palm oil industry contributes not only to the development of a more institutional-power perspective, but also provides solid grounds for the understanding of green clubs -an increasingly important type of organization.