Land for the people

Anton E. Lucas, Carol Warren

"Half of Indonesia's massive population still lives on farms, and for these tens of millions of people the revolutionary promise of land reform remains largely unfulfilled. The Basic Agrarian Law, enacted in the wake of the Indonesian Revolution, was supposed to provide access to land and equitable returns for peasant farmers. But fifty years later, the law's objectives of social justice have not been achieved. Land for the People provides a comprehensive look at land conflict and agrarian reform throughout Indonesia's recent history, from the roots of land conflicts in the prerevolutionary period, and the Sukarno and Suharto regimes, to the present day, in which democratization is creating new contexts for peoples' claims to the land. Drawing on studies from across Indonesia's diverse landscape, the contributors examine some of the most significant issues and events affecting land...