Custom and violence in Indonesia's protracted land conflict

Abstract

Indonesia has a long and ongoing history of conflict over land between mining and plantation corporations and communities claiming adat (customary) land rights. National law recognizes adat as a source of rights, but in a way that makes it nearly impossible to claim land based on adat rights. This legal status and corporate land control strategies give rise to strong feelings of injustice among communities claiming adat land. In recent years, such communities have formed customary councils and security groups in the provinces of Kalimantan. Suggestions of potential violence are an integral element of the ways in which these groups bring adat claim to corporations. The article argues that while violence is illegal and adat itself a weak legal ground, national law and corporate strategies fail to address such land claims in an adequate manner.