Culture and the Question of Rights

Charles Zerner

Description

This collection of ethnographic and interpretive essays fundamentally alters the debate over indigenous land claims in Southeast Asia and beyond. Based on fieldwork conducted in Malaysia and Indonesia during the 1980s and 1990s, these studies explore new terrain at the intersection of environmental justice, nature conservation, cultural performance, and the politics of making and interpreting claims.Calling for radical redefinitions of development and ownership and for new understandings of the translation of culture and rights in politically dangerous contexts-natural resource frontiers-this volume links social injustice and the degradation of Southeast Asian environments. Charles Zerner and his colleagues show how geographical areas once viewed as wild and undeveloped are actually cultural artifacts shaped by complex interactions with human societies. Drawing on richly varied sources of evidence and interpretation-from trance dances, court proceedings, tree planting patterns, marine and forest rituals, erotic poems, and codifications of customary law, Culture and the Question of Rights reveals the ironies, complexities, and histories of contemporary communities' struggles to retain their gardens, forests, fishing territories, and graveyards. The contributors examine how these cultural activities work to both construct and to lay claim to nature. These essays open up new avenues for negotiating indigenous rights against a background of violence, proliferating markets, and global ideas of biodiversity and threatened habitat.Contributors. Jane Atkinson, Don Brenneis, Stephanie Fried, Nancy Peluso, Marina Roseman, Anna Tsing, Charles Zerner

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Malasia
• Malaysia
• Indigenous peoples
• Environment
• Indonesia
• Human rights
• Malaisie
• Indonésie

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 16 avril 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822383819
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Culture and the Question of Rights

Culture and the Question of Rights

Forests, Coasts, and Seas in Southeast Asia

Edited by Charles Zerner

Duke University Press

Durham and London 2003

2003 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Typeset in Stone Serif by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

For Toby Alice and Lucia Xingwen

Contents

List of Figures ix Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction. Moving Translations: Poetics, Performance, and Propertyin Indonesia and Malaysia 1 Charles Zerner

Cultivating the Wild: Honey-Hunting and Forest Management in Southeast Kalimantan 24 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Sounding the Makassar Strait: The Poetics and Politics of an Indonesian Marine Environment Charles Zerner

Singers of the Landscape: Song, History, and PropertyRights in the Malaysian Rainforest 109 Marina Roseman

Writing for Their Lives: Bentian Dayak Authors and Indonesian Development Discourse 142 Stephanie Gorson Fried

Fruit Trees and FamilyTrees in an Anthropogenic Forest: PropertyZones, Resource Access, and Environmental Change in Indonesia 184 NancyLee Peluso

56

viii : Contents

Reflections: Toward New Conceptions of Rights Donald Brenneis

Afterword. ByLand and BySea: Reflections on Claims and Communities in the MalayArchipelago Jane Monnig Atkinson

Works Cited 249 List of Contributors Index 277

275

235

219

Figures

Indonesia and Malaysia (map facing page 1). Meratus Settlement Area, Southeast Kalimantan, Indonesia (map). 25 1 Meratus Settlement Area, Southeast Kalimantan, Indonesia (map). 36 2 Hammering stakes to scale the tree at dusk. 41 3As the sparks fall, the bees follow them. 44 4 Everyone is anxious to taste the honey. 45 5 Indonesia (map). 57 6 Mandar and the Makassar Strait, Indonesia (map). 59 7 Sulawesi, Indonesia (map). 61 8 Pak Nuhung. 68 9Buaro,or flying-fish traps. 76 10 The crew lowers the sail on asande’,79or double outrigger. 11 A crew member climbs the mast to help lower the sail of asande’. 82 12 Pak Hadari, tha captain of the Rachmat. 83 13A fishing raft, orroppo,at dusk, on the Makassar Strait. 85 14 Plan of Tupai, Assam Kumbeng, and Kamunting Mining districts, Larut (map). 113 15 Peninsular Malaysia (map). 116 16 Pandak Hibəl and banana plant. 119 17 Ading Kerah stands while singing. 122 18 Temiars, who once lived here, and their descendants will return to collect from this and other fruit trees in the vicinity. 125 19 Mother Fluid Beauty’s song map. 128 20 Musical transcription of a verse of Mother Fluid Beauty’s song. 131 21 Indonesia (map). 143 22 Kalimantan, Indonesia (map). 145 23Bentian Besar district, East Kalimantan (map). 147 24 A durian forest. 191