Dynamic farmers, dead plantations, and the myth of the lazy native.
2023. The Journal of Peasant Studies. VOL. 50, NO. 2, 519–538
Abstract
This essay draws on insights from ethnographic and historical research in Indonesia to challenge a stubborn dualism that presents farmers as subsistence-oriented and risk-averse, in contrast to plantation corporations which are assumed to maximize productivity and profit. Drawing on this dualism, and setting aside centuries of enthusiastic farmer engagaement in growing global market crops, oil palm plantation corporations and their government supporters maintain that farmers are not interested in growing oil palm, or cannot do so efficiently, while corporations can be trusted to get the job done. The essay troubles this dualism on theoretical, empirical, and political grounds.