Territorial pluralism, property rights and access: customary adat recognition in the Toraja region of Indonesia

This article examines the challenges of legally recognising customary (adat) rights in an Indonesian region. Through this analysis, we observe multi-layered processes of territorialisation, including: the residual adat-based (genealogical-territorial) authority of pre-colonial political systems; the incorporation of the region into larger colonial and post-colonial state structures; and the more recent attempt by Indigenous advocacy groups (non-governmental organisations, NGOs) to establish adat territories through countermapping and legal reforms. We refer to this emergent multi-layered condition as territorial pluralism. Adat systems have been re-shaped by the state and NGO practices; and adat has informed state territoriality. These territorialisations do not operate independently from each other but are mutually constitutive and further intersect with co-evolving rules and institutions that determine access to land by households and individuals. For customary rights advocacy organisations, our study suggests a pragmatic way forward: engaging with both adat-based territorial claims over broader landscapes, while also engaging with state-administered collective land titling initiatives. Both necessarily involve bargaining with the state. Importantly, the consequences of state-based recognition of both adat territories and property rights for community land access remain intimately related to contingent, place-specific, processes of agrarian change.