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Preparing the ground for better landscape governance: gendered realities in southern Sulawesi

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14728028.2014.951002

2164-3075

Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Ramadhani Achdiawan, Hasantoha Adnan, M. Moeliono, Agus Mulyana, Elok Mulyoutami, James M. Roshetko, L. Yuliani, Balang, LepMil,

Asian Studies and History

AbstractIn recognition of the importance of effective and equitable governance at the landscape scale in enhancing human and environmental well-being, we use a recently developed framework for assessing men's and women's involvement in local governance. These results set the stage for an ongoing examination of the success of the AgFor project in southern Sulawesi in achieving this goal. Our findings establish a baseline on gender and governance in five communities with landscapes that include forestry, agroforestry, and agriculture: Bonto Tappalang and Tana Toa in South Sulawesi, and Tawanga, Ladongi, and Wonua Hua in Southeast Sulawesi. These indicators, which we complement with ethnographic insights, fall into two categories: (1) level of public involvement and (2) skills relevant for political action, each of which is assessed for both women and men. Our findings reflect what we believe to be a comparatively equitable gender situation in Sulawesi, with hopeful prospects for enhancing women's (and men's) public involvement in governance. We conclude with some practical and ethnographically informed suggestions for enhancing collaboration with women and men in these (and similar) communities.Keywords:: governance skillpublic involvementforestryagroforestryBugisMakassarTolaki AcknowledgementsThis article and the research on which it is based were supported by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), by the gender program of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research Centers' (CGIAR) Collaborative Research Support Program, Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (CRP6/FTA), and by the ICRAF-led Project, Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi: Linking Knowledge to Action (AgFor; contribution arrangement no. 7056890, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD)), Government of Canada. We acknowledge with gratitude the financial support of CIFOR's Gender Program, specifically that of Esther Mwangi, and the constructive critiques of earlier drafts by Greg Acciaioli, Thomas Gibson, Esther Mwangi, John Watts, and Yunita Winarto – though we alone bear responsibility for any remaining errors.Statement of division of laborColfer organized and drafted the initial prose, coordinated revisions, and contributed much of the ethnographic materials from the literature; Ramadhani Achdiawan conducted all of the statistical analysis and produced tables and graphs; Hasantoha Adnan and Elok Mulyoutami contributed ethnographic and field-based experience from Southeast Sulawesi. Moira Moeliono and Agus Mulyana contributed their long experience with governance issues in South Sulawesi. Roshetko and Yuliani added their own field-based understandings as well as ensuring the relevance of the analysis to AgFor goals.Notes 1. By landscape governance, we refer to the processes of visualizing, planning, decision-making, negotiation, and conflict management within an area typically larger than a single village and smaller than a province. Typical landscapes range from several villages in a single district or micro-watershed to a protected area or a major watershed. 2. Although landscape governance will eventually require integration of these very microlevel understandings with the functioning of governance at larger scales – including other important stakeholders like local government actors, research organizations, and NGOs – we begin at the microscale where women's understandings, actions, and practices are usually most evident. Researchers like Moira Moeliono and Agus Mulyana are actively researching broader scale governance. 3. Policy narratives are seen by their originator (Roe Citation1994) as stories, which can be like scenarios in having a beginning, middle, and ending; or they can be like arguments with premises and conclusions. Such stories are common under conditions of high policy uncertainty and complexity, and ‘… are seen by one or more parties to the controversy as establishing or certifying and stabilizing … the assumptions for policymaking in the face of the issue's uncertainty, complexity or polarization’ (p. 3). A common governmental policy narrative in Indonesia (further simplified here for brevity) is that shifting cultivators are primitive and destroy valuable national resources; a counter-narrative favored by many nongovernmental organizations is that these same forest peoples are lovers of nature and protectors of the resources in their areas for generations to come. The policy implications of these respective narratives vary, of course. Neither is strictly accurate. 4. Many authors link the Bugis and Makassar in this way, because of the similarities and close connections in their history and culture (e.g., Abdullah Citation1985). Some refer to these groups as Buginese and Makassarese; we have opted for the more usual Indonesian and anthropological usage. 5. One anonymous reviewer questioned the importance of whether a system was hierarchical or egalitarian, under conditions of land conflict, such as those in southern Sulawesi. In our view, an egalitarian system is more compatible with democracy – something Indonesians in general would like to see characterizing their own political system. Combined with other elements of these particular systems, hierarchy appears to work to women's disadvantage politically. 6. The dualistic view espoused by Scott has in this case been questioned by Acciaioli (personal communication, 15 April 2014), who sees the Tolaki as not representative of these ‘ideal type uplanders.’ His views suggest a third, intermediate group, represented in Indonesia by the Coastal Malays (e.g., Furukawa Citation1994). 7. Moeliono notes that in later years, Christian missionaries were only allowed to work in the highlands, further differentiating these two groups. 8. See Bergink (Citation1987) and Tarimana (Citation1989) who describe Tolaki symbolic dualisms, e.g., male/female, earth/sea, active/passive, and top/bottom, respectively. 9. The cross-cutting nature of other social differentiations is important to keep in mind. We have found a tendency for Bugis women, for instance, to be more assertive than Sundanese or Javanese women, despite this ideal; and older women tend to be more assertive than younger ones throughout Indonesia. The ideals discussed here are just that; and individual behavior varies considerably among any group of people.10. Symbolic systems vary greatly among groups of people. In this case, in addition to the common symbolic dualistic division (opposing pairs like male–female, top–bottom), the Tolaki have a rich symbolic systems with triads (e.g., the division of marital responsibilities into three: coming together, eating together, and forming a kinship cluster) that form a kind of symbolic unity; or the five requirements for marriage, which bring together aspects of custom, religion, and government (e.g., CitationSatria, n.d.). Tarimana (Citation1989) offers additional examples of both.11. Utari (Citation2012) relates a Tolaki myth ‘… involving a snake. The snake is active and busily wanders around looking for food only when it is hungry. Once it finds food, it eats until satiated, then coils up and rests quietly until it is hungry again. The relaxed nature of the snake in the myth represents the perceived Tolaki natural character and an idyllic lifestyle in which they have flexibility and time to relax’ (p. 54).12. Gibson has argued in a comparative analysis of the house, the mosque, and the school that these unconventional identities play valued social roles in southern Sulawesi.13. The project selected 35 sites overall in these two provinces, and is scheduled to select additional sites in Gorontalo province in 2014.14. Esther Mwangi noted the importance of recognizing the biased ways in which gender has been studied in much of the world, and the inaccessibility to researchers of women's views (largely through researchers' own biases). We find this argument compelling, particularly for parts of Africa and the Middle East where women's power has been present but particularly invisible to outsiders.15. Researchers in nearby Kayu Loe characterized their system as ‘degraded land with annual crops’; Mulyana and Yuliani report Bonto Tappalang to be less degraded than Kayu Loe, higher in altitude, and specializing in horticultural crops like onions, chilies, tomatoes, and other vegetables.16. Akiefnawati et al. (Citation2010) provide a clear description of this legislation (Minister of Forestry Decision No. P. 49/Menhut-II/2008, 25 August) as well as its implementation in a Sumatran village.17. Unusually, almost all the high Forestry officials there are women.18. AgFor also works collaboratively with these communities, on an ongoing basis, to improve livelihoods, the environment, and governance.19. The lack of a broad comparative study of gender norms stimulated the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research Centers to launch such a study early in 2014. Numerous authors have, however, noted adverse indicators of what was earlier termed ‘women's status’ in various other parts of the world (e.g., Beck & Keddie Citation1978, for the Muslim world). Although thinking has moved beyond the static idea of ‘status,’ there remains much evidence of gendered norms that disadvantage women. More recently, Federici's (Citation2004) study of witches and witchcraft in Africa and Europe, for example, provides another lens for viewing women's disadvantage (at the microscale, see Brown & Lapuyade [Citation2001] or Tiani et al. [Citation2005], on Cameroon). Adverse norms (about tenure, usufruct rights, decision-making, public involvement, and more) fail, in many cases, to prevent women from finding ways to subvert them, to act on their desires, to protect their interests. Mueller (Citation1977), for instance, who acknowledges women's lack of involvement in the public sector in Lesotho, argues that women have opted out of that sector, finding that attention to their domestic lives provides greater benefits to them. Our conclusion that Southeast Asian norms are comparatively gender-equitable is based on abundant, if anecdotal evidence; but we look forward to a more systematic study of this issue.20. Yuliani notes the term perasaan (feeling), rather than nafsu (passion, usually associated with sex), as most consistently mentioned about women. Gibson, in an informal review of this article (15 April 2014), noted the Islamic emphasis on the concept of nafsu – seeing it as an element of the subjectivity linked to religion more than the cultural or traditional subjectivity emphasized here.21. Unflattering stereotypes about the Bugis and Makassar also abound (Abdullah Citation1985), though these tend to describe persons personally aggressive and prone to violence, rather than backward or primitive.22. In addition, there is global evidence that mixed-gender groups tend to manage forests more effectively (Mwangi et al. Citation2011); so the marginal gender differences extant should bode well for any efforts to realize such management groups in southern Sulawesi.23. We urge strict avoidance of ‘facipulation’ – sometimes tempting attempts to manipulate discussions so as to reach the facilitator's goals.Balang (Sahabat Alam Bantaeng or Friends of Bantaeng Nature) is a local NGO in South Sulawesi, focusing on better management of nature and the environment, and local people's livelihoods improvement. LepMil (Lembaga Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Pesisir dan Pedalaman, or Institute for Coastal and Interior People's Empowerment) is a local NGO in Southeast Sulawesi, focusing on empowerment of local peoples living in interior and coastal areas.