Seeing property in land use: Local territorializations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Geografisk Tidsskrift, Danish Journal of Geography 105(1):1–15, 2005This paper looks at ways of seeing property rights and making claims to land, land-based resources, and territories over time in a district of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. It starts from the premise that changing political economic circumstances and cultural politics create historical conditions that make it easier for political actors to “see” and act on particular sorts of claims. At present, the predominant way of seeing is one based on territoriality. Government and international land use planning are dominated by territorialization strategies. Territorialization, however, is not only an imposed process emanating from centers of power. Using case studies of counter-mapping NGOs and of the territory-producing practices of Salako in a West Kalimantan village, I explore the ways that local territorializations have contributed to changing constructions of ethnic identity, physical landscapes, and tree and land tenures.