Village Mediated Corporate Territorialization: Acquisition of Customary Land, Agrarian Fragmentation, and Resistance of the Dayak Indigenous Community to Oil Palm Plantation Expansion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26418/wpfd1515Keywords:
customary land, Dayak indigenous people, corporate territorialization, village government, agrarian fragmentation, oil palm plantationsAbstract
This article analyzes the acquisition of customary land by the Dayak indigenous community in the expansion of oil palm plantations in Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan, highlighting the role of village government as a mediator in corporate territorialization. Unlike studies of agrarian conflict, which often position the conflict as a binary one between companies and indigenous communities, this article argues that control of customary land occurs through a configuration of power involving state legality, corporate strategy, village legitimacy, local elites, and community fragmentation. Using a critical qualitative approach based on agrarian case studies, data were collected through in-depth interviews, field observations, and document analysis, including land release letters, village deliberation minutes, village planning documents, regional maps, and archives of community complaints. The findings show that village government does not always act as a neutral administrative institution, but can work as an administrative legitimizer, broker of consent, institutional translator, and fragmentation amplifier in the release of customary land. Through deliberations, administrative documents, cooperatives, partnership schemes, and development narratives, customary land is redefined as productive land that can be integrated into corporate production regimes. This process results in spatial, social, political, and symbolic agrarian fragmentation, while simultaneously weakening the collective capacity of indigenous communities to defend their living space. However, Dayak communities build resistance through strengthening customary claims, documenting territorial boundaries, filing complaints, advocacy, and alliances with supporting actors. This article proposes the concept of village-mediated corporate territorialization to explain how the expansion of agrarian capital gains local legitimacy and why the protection of customary rights must be the basis for just, inclusive, and sustainable social development that supports indigenous communities as political subjects in the governance of rural agrarian resources in contemporary Indonesia.
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