Plantation Life

Corporate Occupation in Indonesia's Oil Palm Zone

Tania Murray Li, Pujo Semedi

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781478014959, 9781478013990
• eBook ISBN: 9781478022237
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Social Sciences

In Plantation Life Tania Murray Li and Pujo Semedi examine the structure and governance of Indonesia's contemporary oil palm plantations in Indonesia, which supply 50 percent of the world's palm oil. They attend to the exploitative nature of plantation life, wherein villagers' well-being is sacrificed in the name of economic development. While plantations are often plagued by ruined ecologies, injury among workers, and a devastating loss of livelihoods for former landholders, small-scale independent farmers produce palm oil more efficiently and with far less damage to life and land. Li and Semedi theorize "corporate occupation" to underscore how massive forms of capitalist production and control over the palm oil industry replicate colonial-style relations that undermine citizenship. In so doing, they question the assumption that corporations are necessary for rural development, contending that the dominance of plantations stems from a political system that privileges corporations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Establishing Plantations
• 2. Holding Workers
• 3. Fragile Plots
• 4. Forms of Life
• 5. Corporate Presence
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Collaborative Practices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index