Epistemicide in The Indonesian Food Estate Project in a Critical Approach of Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Abstract

Food is one of the basic human needs that must be met. Historically, food security has become a dominant topic in the public policies of various countries. Food security is defined as the availability of food and the ability of individuals to afford adequate foodstuffs. To achieve food security, it is necessary to develop a modern food production system, hence, the Indonesian government started a food estate program to achieve national food security. The food estate project is projected to convert potential land into agricultural land which will create food availability for the community. However, the food estate project has not been able to fulfil the promised yields. The food estate project ignores the participation of the local community which has long had a traditional food production system. The development of a food estate project that ignores the role of the community ultimately displaces local wisdom and replaces it with a modern food production system. The development of food estate projects that trigger deforestation and rely on monoculture farming also hurts land fertility; this approach is contrary to local wisdom which prioritises sustainability principles. This condition can result in epistemicide, the systematic murder of local knowledge which will have an impact on local community livelihood. This situation will result in the food estate project perpetuating a food production system dominated by Western knowledge and eliminating the local community’s sustainable food production system. Thus, epistemicide in a food estate project will create a situation where food availability and food affordability cannot be achieved. This research describes how epistemicide appears in Indonesian food estate projects. This research is philosophical research on actual problems that aims to present criticism of Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ epistemicide theory for Indonesian food estate projects.