Philipps University Marburg | May 2025
My research addresses land, labour, class, capitalism, development, resources and indigeneity with a particular focus on Indonesia. My latest book Plantation Life: Corporate Occupation of Indonesia’s Oil Palm Zone (Duke University Press, 2021), co-authored with Pujo Semedi (Universitas Gadjah Mada), explored the violence built into the infrastructure of Indonesia’s plantation zone. After the farms and forests of the former landholders have been destroyed and replaced by massive plantations of corporate palms, another kind of violence – the violence of living under corporate occupation – is set in place. During my fellowship I will be presenting a lecture and writing an article examining how people living with this violence understand and respond to it, mobilizing an analysis of (in)justice which diverges significantly from the one that outsiders like myself bring to the scene.
Research Area Interpretations: 3.1 Interpretation of Violence