Dian Yanuardy
| Dian Yanuardy is a researcher at the Sajogyo Institute in Bogor, Indonesia. He is enrolled in the MA Program in Human Rights and Democracy in Southeast Asia Studies, Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Email: dian_ardy@yahoo.com |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Land Dispossession, Local Power and Peasant Movement in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
This research is about the dynamics of land dispossession in the case of changing land use from agricultural coastal land to sand coal mining in Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta. This research will describe the peasant’s initiatives and processes of producing and reclaiming the commons, in De Angelis’ term (2003), which they consolidated the coastal land, distributed equally amongst them, created some technology of their own in irrigation and farming techniques with kind of a low external input sustainable agriculture, and creating local auction as ‘fair trade market mechanism’. But, as indicated by many scholars, thus processes of producing and reclaiming the commons is always challenged by the imperative and dynamic of capital to accumulate and find for new frontiers. Then, this research would unpack the role of local power, a politically and economically dominant social class in Yogyakarta, in smoothening thus land dispossession and re-concentrating the land-based wealth for deepening capital social relation. Finally, this research is also about the peasants’ counter-movement against thus land dispossession.
