Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier

by Tania Murray Li

Drawing on two decades of ethnographic research in Sulawesi, Indonesia, Tania Murray Li offers an intimate account of the emergence of capitalist relations among indigenous highlanders who privatized their common land to plant a boom crop, cacao. Spurred by the hope of ending their poverty and isolation, some prospered, while others lost their land and struggled to sustain their families. Yet the winners and losers in this transition were not strangers—they were kin and neighbors. Li's richly peopled account takes the reader into the highlanders' world, exploring the dilemmas they faced as sharp inequalities emerged among them.

The book challenges complacent, modernization narratives promoted by development agencies that assume inefficient farmers who lose out in the shift to high-value export crops can find jobs elsewhere. Decades of uneven and often jobless growth in Indonesia meant that for newly landless highlanders, land's end was a dead end. The book also has implications for social movement activists, who seldom attend to instances where enclosure is initiated by farmers rather than coerced by the state or agribusiness corporations. Li's attention to the historical, cultural, and ecological dimensions of this conjuncture demonstrates the power of the ethnographic method and its relevance to theory and practice today.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Ethnography, School, Economics, History, Sociology

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Professor at St. George Campus and Canada Research Chair in the Political-Economy and Culture of Asia-Pacific

Reviews

[rarasekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Land's End, Li uses her case study from her two-decade-fieldwork in Central Sulawesi to analyze how indigenous Lauje highlanders abandoned swidden-farming systems to invest in a new global crop that is cacao, and how this process stimulated a set of unanticipated changes including agrarian differentiation, uneven access to resources and land, and the birth of capitalist relations.

Using an analytic conjuncture of historical, economic, social and cultural factors, Li explains how capitalist relations slowly emerged within the highlanders, and how competition and profit came with an unanticipated consequence of inequality and class changes within the community. Capitalist relations eventually eroded choice, old sets of relations, meanings and practices. But unfortunately the highlanders were not equipped to deal with this transformation hence they become trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Li also highlights the failure of mainstream and alternative development programs in addressing the problem of rural poverty in agrarian communities. Li argues that contemporary/alternative development programs have failed to address the issue of inequality and the perpetuation of poverty in the case of Lauje highlanders (and many others) as they lack of fit into the criteria and agenda of indigenous rights movements or mainstream governmental development projects.

"There has been little interest in the struggles of indigenous people who do not entirely reject capitalist production but strive to be a part of it in order to share in its benefits, and to escape the stigma of being labeled poor and backward."

Thus, she concludes that we need a different framework in understanding the problem of poverty in indigenous highlanders. Some of her suggestions include acknowledging the importance of recognition by giving back the voice of the indigenous people to ignite dialogues between the planners and the communities, and paying attention to blocked paths and dead ends in development practices happening on the ground that often go unnoticed in transition.

An amazing and truly inspiring book for those who aspire to do a Marxist approach to anthropology in the context of rural development.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finis terrae: the emergence of scarcity through frontier grabbing

[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].

Awesome ethnography, dripping in experience and respect for the ethnographed. The book chronicles over a period of twenty years the demise of an economy based on shifting agriculture and access to the commons, and the emergence of private property driven by the introduction of cacao: a rags-to-riches story for some, but ruthless proletarianization, or precarization, for many others.

The author points out that the transition was not forced either by greedy corporations or a genocidal state: it was the desire to share in the wellbeing associated with modernity that led highlanders to adopt cacao and abandon subsistence agriculture, which leaves them hopelessly 'out of scope' when it comes to social movements, protest or NGO programmes.

Marx, Lenin, E.P. Thompson, Polanyi and James Scott are put to the compatibility test, and only the first three pass, the latter failing to explain the highlanders' lack of insurrectional pulsions.

But what is new and to me the book's most original contribution is the conceptualization of the commons (here forest that can be turned into farmed land) as frontier. And frontier is what yields fruit if you have a project and work on it, and will eventualy reclaim your project back, as you move on to new endeavours, leaving the frontier virtually intact. The long-term and perennial nature of cocoa planting prevents land from being reclaimed by the commons/frontier, and enclosure begins. As the frontier disappears, scarcity emerges: the labour-land occupation relationship is broken. In the frontier context, land is yours as long as you work on it (roughly: customary law is more nuanced than that), which sets limits to the extension of land an individual can control. When land is enclosed, this limit is lifted and accumulation takes off. Accumulation is the root of scarcity.

While no redemption seems possible for the poor highlanders left without commons, private land or waged labour opportunities, the book is successful in casting new light on the origins of capitalism. It's not just a matter of commoditizing land and labour. Capitalism first of all operates by closing frontiers and making them off-limits to fruition. The 'quest' for oil and other resources can thus be read - as Timothy Mitchell suggests in Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil - as the rush to closing, rather then opening new frontiers, so that no 'outside' where people can put their labour and cunning to work can be thought of.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Read this for school. Would I have read this book without being prompted by a class assignment, probably not. But I wasn’t dragging my feet throughout it. I think it’s pretty interesting ethnographic study of the Laurie highlanders in Indonesia. The chapter division was interesting however, I think it made the timeline a bit confusing (especially for a study that spans two decades). I was more interested in the way Lauje communities operated prior to their change to unprompted capitalist integration. I thought the ideas of work and care, and reciprocity were very unique and well demonstrated. I wish the relationship between state and the indigenous people was expanded on bit.

[Brendan Brophy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Shorn of teleological assumptions and optimistic win-win scenarios, land’s end is a profoundly disturbing place.” Book provides great insight into the manner by which capitalism can overthrow feudal production not through “blood and fire” as Marx puts it, but through insidious erosion of feudal and indigenous practices as the neoliberal zeitgeist claims another foothold in Sulawesi.

[melancholinary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. I find Li's conjuncture well resonates with Anna Tsing's friction, although compares to friction, which for Tsing it's a space where the collision of global connection and events happening, in conjuncture the process of capital relations is more mundane and stealthy, a process that Li sees as 'erosion.' However, when Li talks about the capital relation of indigenous Lauje—illustrated by their enclosure of land, wage labour amongst kin, the transformation of land into cocoa plantations (btw Li argues that this happened without outside intervention, but I think it really connects to Lauje people's willingness to embrace commodity economy because they just don't have the choice), and demanding road for better development—I find a missing big picture that I think important to discuss: the creeping invasion of developmentalism, the roots of all slow violence for marginalised community in so called developing world.

Yes, the precarisation of the indigenous frontier is a stealthy process and push them into a survival mode in a fast-paced global modern project that they have to participate—which also I'm sure happened anywhere in the world not exclusively to Lauje people—but all of these need to be traced starting from the impetus of developmentalism in Indonesia. The developmentalism in Indonesia determined a categorisation of primitive people and developed people, which also creating a distance between urban and rural. This what makes Lauje people invisible, their existence doesn't fit any categorisation of social aspect in Indonesia. As Li also pointed out in the book, NGO and social movement in Indonesia often neglect and don't recognise the struggle of Lauje people. There is a subchapter about exit that I think will be great to explore deeply, especially from the perspective of refusal, withdrawal or even complicity.

[Jeanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why do white ethnographers continue asserting the knowledge over indigenous spaces with their flimsy theoretical frameworks. What a fucked up job

[not xarnah · Rating 5 out of 5]

read for ANT374 - tania li used to teach at my school, this ethnography is really good and really telling of a narrow-minded idea of growth. great work.

[Rassela Malinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tania Li narrated the emergence and transition of capitalist relations in Lauje Indigenous highlanders in a way that she called 'Mundane, Routine, Insidious, stealth', which somehow against the contemporary situation of rural dispossession that is a bit 'spectacular', e.g; corporate land grabbing or state-driven exclusion.

[Wida Dhelweis]

Li mengkaji akibat dari perubahan pemakaian tanah dan bagaimana hal itu berpengaruh pada akses petani terhadap lahan. Sejak adanya pengavelingan dan demam tanaman kakao, penghidupan petani serta penduduk di wilayah Lauje berubah. Ada yang semakin kaya dengan mengakumulasi lahan-lahan dari petani yang tidak lagi dapat mengolah lahannya. Di sisi lain, ada petani yang harus mencari pekerjaan lain untuk dapat menghidupi diri dan keluarganya. Li menegaskan, fenomena yang terjadi di Lauje bukanlah sesuatu yang unik. Pengavelingan lahan, demam komoditas, akumulasi oleh sebagian kecil orang, serta proletarianisasi, banyak terjadi di belahan dunia lain, terutama di Asia, sebagian Amerika Latin dan Afrika. Penderitaan yang dialami banyak orang dapat diubah menjadi gerakan politik yang kuat. Namun hal itu membutuhkan dukungan dari berbagai pihak, serta dukungan riset.

Berikut adalah kutipan yang cukup membekas bagi saya:
"Gerakan-gerakan ini penting tapi tak ada ruang untuk berpuas diri atau berargumen bahwa ini sudah keadaaan terbaik yang bisa kita dapatkan." hlm. 299

"Keluar dari pertanian untuk masuk ke lapangan kerja lain adalah strategi utama para ahli pembangunan. Namun bagi orang Lauje yang terbiasa hidup di lahan pinggiran, respons yang lebih nyata atas impitan kurangnya lahan adalah mencari lahan lain yang cocok untuk dibuka," hlm. 271

Saya menikmati pengalaman membaca buku ini. Meski ada bagian yang belum saya pahami. Dengan begitu, saya ingin kembali lagi ke buku ini untuk membaca ulang beberapa bagian (kalau tidak keseluruhan). Masih perlu banyak banyak banyak belajar. Terima kasih R.S. atas buku ini.

[Tirani Membaca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tulisan penting lainnya dari Li tentang isu agraria di Indonesia. Kali ini kisah datang dari perbukitan Lauje, Sulawesi Tengah. Li menggunakan analisis konjungtur untuk melihat bagaimana proses kapitalisme berjalan di Lauje sejak kemunculan kakao. Bagaimana penggunaan lahan di Lauje berubah dan menjadikan segelintir petani mengaveling lahan yang luas, sementara di sisi lain meninggalkan petani lainnya menjadi tunakisma. Dan bagaimana cerita para petani miskin dari kebun-kebun terakhir di pinggiran Lauje ini, secara terpaksa dan bingung, menerima nasibnya yang makin sengsara.

Penelitian ini sangat kaya dan memberikan banyak pengetahuan baru, setidaknya bagi saya. Ada satu bab yang benar-benar membuat saya termenung. Di Bab 5: Politik Ditinjau Kembali, Li memaparkan betapa banyak tantangan yang harus dihadapi oleh rakyat miskin di perbukitan Lauje. Masalah mereka tidak bombastis dan mengagetkan, sehingga banyak gerakan sosial yang merasa tidak perlu membantu mereka. Kemiskinan, kelaparan, dan kematian mereka adalah kehidupan sehari-hari. Kondisi ini seakan-akan menjadi kondisi default mereka.


Masyarakat Lauje yang sejak awal sudah kesulitan mendapat bantuan dari pemerintah karena para buaya korup di sekitarnya, menjadi semakin kesulitan karena tidak memiliki bantuan dari luar. Pada akhirnya petani miskin di Lauje menjadi orang-orang yang tanpa tanah, tanpa kerja, tanpa jaminan sosial, dan tanpa sekutu.

[Repa Kustipia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku ini harus dibaca oleh para antropolog ekologi, aktivitas lingkungan dan publik. Karakter Kasar adalah tokoh empiris yang bisa mewakili kondisi ancaman kapitalis saat ini pada multiekosistem dan akselerasi monokultur akan merusak keberagaman dan menghentikan keberlanjutan.

Kasar adalah representasi para petani yang ada di Indonesia (tidak bisa bertani, tidak memiliki akses pada pupuk-pupuk murah/subsidi bahkan bantuan) bahkan tidak ada harapan untuk melanjutkan kehidupannya dimana semua mengacau pada sistem pangan pada sektor hulu, ya tempat dimana para petani dan orang desa bisa berkreativitas, herannya hal ini masih dibingungkan oleh kondisi sistem, dinamika negara, dan banyak pihak yang merusak kesempatan menikmati tanahnya sebagai orang asli.

Hubungan Kapitalis seperti dibayangkan sangat makro, nyatanya dampak kapitalisme dirasakan sehari-hari dan biasa saja, bukan ? Buktinya ? kesenjangan desa.

Li menuliskan bagaimana masyarakat adat sebagai gerakan yang dikenal dalam literatur gerakan sosial memang sangat memiliki relasi dengan : lahan, hutan, komunitas dan kapasitas pemerintahan swakelola.

Li berhasil menjelaskan analisis konjungtur yang multidimensional terlebih hubungan elemen masyarakat dan budaya.

Li, tanah-tanah di negeriku semakin terjajah.

[Wallbrock · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction is a little hard to get through, as I found it a bit jargon-heavy, but most of the book is very lucidly written. Fascinating discussion of how the introduction of a new crop - cacao - interacted with the social relations, attitudes, standard of living and forms of farming used by the Lauje people studied, to lead to a near-complete dissolution of their social relations in favour of capitalist ones. Fairly bleak reading. Particularly interesting is how the process of enclosure was founded on a choice made by the villagers themselves, not imposed on them by the outside, but how that choice was conditioned by external forces - such as the improved standards of living experienced by some on the coast, the market price of cacao, relative to cloves and shallots, and the NGO and government-driven push for market-based development.

[versarbre · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if ex-farmers can’t survive by selling their labor as workers? (few jobs, no remittance, little subsidies)? A sober critique of the failure of development narratives & the high-landers who were allured by the promise of prosperity and colluded in giving up their communal access to land. "The hard realities of jobless growth and the uneven distribution of the costs and rewards of growth are left out of the account…When growth is put first, the moment of distribution never comes, or not on a scale sufficient to compensate for the livelihoods lost and the damage done." A very accessible book.

[Ashari Bare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bacaan etnografi pertama setelah selesai master. sebelumnya sudah membaca setidaknya sampai setengah, hanya belum tuntas. kini dibaca ulang dangan pengalaman membaca yang meningkat, rasanya mengalir lancar.

sebuah gambaran kapitalisme pinggiran yang mendetail. resonate dengan keilmuan perspectice industries masterku meski secara sektor (pertanian-pedesaan) sangat berbeda dengan Cultural Creative Industries. namun telaah dan metode amatan bisa digunakan untuk menghasilkan tijauan relasi kapitalistik yang timbul di komunitas seniman budayawan di hadapan kapitalisme kiwari.

bacaan yang sangat baik.

[Sergey Steblyov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely great ethnography that shows how extreme poverty, inequality, contraction of people's autonomy and freedom can all arise without anybody to blame, in a completely morally just scenario (as judged by the actors themselves). Anybody – but our own limits to how many actors we can draw into new types of collective action (that could curtail ruthless competition, one that very predictably leads to extinction) and thus new institutions.

[Oktaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku ini penting untukku sebab:
1. Aku jadi ingin menulis seperti Tania;
2. Aku jadi ingin mendalami pendekatan konjungtural;
3. Aku diingatkan untuk terus berhati-hati dalam posisiku sebagai pekerja LSM, sebagai orang yang "datang" ke suatu komunitas dan berupaya melakukan sesuatu dalam komunitas tersebut.

Perubahan itu niscaya, tapi untuk memahami akar perubahan itu, penting untuk berhati-hati sebab ada begitu banyak hal yang bertubrukan. Bukan perkara hitam putih. Tidak pernah hitam putih.

[Zulfianto Biahimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sebagai hasil riset antropologinya Tania, buku ini cenderung ringan dibaca karena disajikan secara cair dan jauh dari kekakuan bahasa akademia. Tania mampu mengurai bagaimana kapitalisme besar serta negara melakui program penanaman komoditas cokelat turut mempengaruhi kehidupan masyarakat di pedalaman Sulawesi Tengah sana. Tidak hanya dampak perbaikan nasib, tetapi juga menciptakan kesenjangan sosial yang cukup kompleks di pedalaman wilayah Sulawesi Tengah.

[Setjoeil Asa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apik. Marjin Kiri memang sip.

Betapa Mbak Li mengamati kejadian-kejadian faktual di lapangan dalam rentang 20 tahun dan beberapa kunjungan terpisah, menganalisisnya dengan teori-teori sosial/sosiologi/antropologi/ekonomi/filosofi atau apalah, terus mengabstraksikannya (sampai sini nggak tahu mau nulis apa lagi).

Kata 'konjungtur' di buku ini (yang kayaknya sih jadi kata paling penting) di KBBI cuma ada satu makna, tapi kurang cocok, lebih cocok mungkin kalau kata ini dimaknai seperti kata 'conjuncture' dari bahasa Inggris. (Tapi saya bukan filolog sih)

Yah, memang asyik ini buku.

[Ayda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for my second year anthropology course, don’t remember much except cacao farming takes a long time and the way the indigenous community didn’t have access to anything other than the false sense of capitalism dream to come out of poverty. Which ironically keeps you poor.

[Marina Louise Schofer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why this has low ratings as it was truly a beautiful look in to the development of capitalist systems including a shift in culture and ideology.

[Fee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting case-study, writing style a bit to 'dry'

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I wasn’t burnt out from reading about Marx I would’ve enjoyed this more. Just was dense but luckily a short read. Only took me so long to read it was due to getting bored at times.

[kira pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book but definitely not for me in general. It was for an anthropology class and it gave very good insight into the culture!

[Safar Nurhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenapa orang2 di desa punya tv, hape, dll? baca buku ini.

[Faris Alaudin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ya, pada akhirnya, kapitalisme merambah masih ke tepian negeri dan mengubah segala relasi sosial dan hukum adat. Segala yang kuat secara modal, akan mapan, dan yang lain terpinggirkan.