Jean-Francois Bissonnette
| As a PhD candidate, University of Toronto, I have been conducting research on agrarian questions in Southeast Asia since 2005. I first investigated the economic and cultural implications of oil palm expansion in the states of East Malaysia as I was affiliated with the Canada Chair of Asian Studies at the University of Montréal. In 2008 I undertook doctoral studies at the University of Toronto to look at questions of labour mobility and social differentiation among workers and smallholders involved in oil palm agribusiness. Email Address: bissonnettej@geog.utoronto.ca |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Labour mobility and access to resources in a time of oil palm boom in Indonesia
The undergoing oil palm boom in Indonesia has influenced patterns of labour mobility and land ownership throughout the country. Although large-scale land deals for oil palm agribusiness occur in less densely populated areas of Indonesia, they contribute to social differentiation throughout the country, often indirectly. I seek to contribute to the critique of the structural limitations of labour regimes and resource distribution associated with profit-driven oil palm agribusiness. I analyse how oil palm wealth has contributed to the production of a geographically diffuse land ownership structure that straddles multiple islands in Indonesia. Concomitantly, I look at patterns of labour mobility from resource strapped central islands such as Lombok to the oil palm plantation belts in Kalimantan and Sumatra and how this shapes access to capital. This paper is based on in-depth fieldwork research carried out in multiple sites of Indonesia. The qualitative data provided by interviews with plantation workers and officials addresses how practices underlying oil palm agribusiness are reshaping agrarian structures in a context of heightened mobility of labour and capital.
