Multispecies relations on the green frontier: Care/care dynamics and Dayak Iban–orangutan coexistence in West Kalimantan

This thesis examines shifting human–nonhuman coexistence amid global conservation mandates and agrarian capitalism in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Drawing on multispecies ethnography within two Dayak Iban communities bordering Betung Kerihun and Danau Sentarum National Parks, it investigates how the contemporary green frontier alters historical relationships with the Mayas (orangutan). Fortress conservation and palm oil capitalism operate as mutually reinforcing mechanisms of state-sanctioned territorialization, executing a slow violence that unmakes indigenous, multispecies lifeworlds. Conceptually, the study introduces a Care/care dualism to unpack frontier governance. It contrasts techno-managerial, state-enforced “Care” with vernacular, relational “care”—the ancestral kinships and spiritual taboos sustaining multispecies coexistence. This framework exposes how top-down regimes dismantle local practices, reducing the Mayas from an ancestral relative into an administrative metric. Fundamentally, this thesis demonstrates that development outcomes are inherently multispecies phenomena. Rejecting techno-managerial fixes, it argues that genuine socio-ecological repair requires a longue durée perspective that recognizes cumulative historical disruptions. Ultimately, it positions relationality as the foundation for recovery, advocating for a commitment that honors lived, historical entanglements and actively restores multispecies agency to rebuild the frontier’s fractured kinships.