Making and Unmaking Territories with Plants in the Riverine Peat Landscape of Central Kalimantan

Abstract

Central Kalimantan, located on the Indonesian side of Borneo, has often been described as a state frontier area where rapid changes take place in legal and administrative regimes and in the rules that govern access and ownership to land and nature. Today, frontier development includes state and non-state actors that bring natural resource projects aimed at producing long-term effects by engaging local people in the commodification of nature. Local people adopt and abandon these projects at a rapid pace due to changing conditions, policies, and natural hazards. I will explore commodification in terms of territorial projects and the spatial and temporal reordering of human-nature relations within the landscapes of Central Kalimantan. Linked to the territorial expansion of trees and plants, commodification challenges local environmental practices and forms of sociality. The paper argues that the commodification of nature and the territorial aspects of this bring new layers of complications and thus have unexpected effects on the lives of local populations. Keywords: frontier, commodification, plants, landscape, state-making, Kalimantan