A joint initiative between the University of Bergen
and CMI – Chr. Michelsen Institute
Welcome to a guest lecture on the conflicts between palm oil companies and rural Indonesians.
As palm oil companies expand their plantations, rural Indonesians lose their land and livelihoods, often with limited compensation. The resulting conflicts involve tense, long-running standoffs, violence, arrests, and occasionally deaths.
Ward Berenschot has studied 150 conflicts between palm oil companies and rural Indonesians, and uses this to explore the relationship between the state and its citizens.
In this lecture, he argues that rural Indonesians face a rightlessness that generates a form of collective action that avoids invoking legal provisions or rights, and instead relies on informal connections, bargaining power, and mediation.
The lecture will include clips from Berenschot’s documentary ‘Colonial Debris’, and will be followed by a conversation with Kari Telle and Aled Williams.
Ward Berenschot is professor of Comparative Political Anthropology of South and Southeast Asia at the University of Amsterdam and senior researcher at KITLV, Leiden. His research focuses on a comparative understanding of the dynamics of state-society interaction, focusing on topics such as citizenship, communal violence, clientelism, access to justice and collective action in, particularly, India and Indonesia.
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Kari Telle is a social anthropologist who works on the 'politics of faith' focusing on the legal regulation of religion, religious minorities, militias, conflict management and justice in Indonesia.
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Aled Williams is a political scientist focused on policy effectiveness, anti-corruption, and the politics of resource extraction, using political economy and political ecology approaches.
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Ward Berenschot is professor of Comparative Political Anthropology of South and Southeast Asia at the University of Amsterdam and senior researcher at KITLV, Leiden. His research focuses on a comparative understanding of the dynamics of state-society interaction, focusing on topics such as citizenship, communal violence, clientelism, access to justice and collective action in, particularly, India and Indonesia.
Berenschot is the author of Democracy for Sale: Elections, Clientelism and the State in Indonesia (with Edward Aspinall) and Riot Politics: India’s Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State. He is the co-editor of the books In Search of Middle Indonesia and Citizenship and Democratization in Southeast Asia.
Kari Telle is a social anthropologist who works on the 'politics of faith' focusing on the legal regulation of religion, religious minorities, militias, conflict management and justice in Indonesia.
Telle is a social anthropologist and journalist with long-term research experience in Indonesia since 1994, spanning various aspects of religion and religious change (Islam, Hinduism), including ritual, state management of religion, religious minorities, blasphemy trials, secularism and the politics of religious freedom.
Aled Williams is a political scientist focused on policy effectiveness, anti-corruption, and the politics of resource extraction, using political economy and political ecology approaches.
Williams’ main research interest is in the uneven politics of natural resource-driven economic development, particularly corruption, neoliberal environmentalism, hypercapitalist growth, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, green energy transitions and inequality. Geographically, his primary focus is on Indonesia and Southeast Asia, but he has also had assignments across Africa and Latin America.
Bergen Global is a joint initiative between the University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute that addresses global challenges.
