Competing Power And Claim Legitimation On Forest Resources: Case Of Forest Restoration In Batang Hari District, Jambi Province

Abstract

Most of forest management system in developing country failed on handling the forests and peoples in villages. There are some systems in this country that even worsen the forests because of bad affection to the people in villages near the forests itself. Lots of forest area in Indonesia have been damaged into something we cannot recognize which tells us about the conflict inside. This research aims to analyze the dynamical power and the benefit of using these resources around Bungku Village from time to time until showing the overlapping claim on those resources. Bungku village is a dominated by forest area. The first restoration forest concessions located inside are doing the conservation in forest production with profit oriented spirit. This research also aims to analyze the competing actor to legitimate their claim on the agrarian resources in Bungku village, including built narration and also the webs of power between actors to legitimate their claim of those resources. This research used a qualitative approach. The data collection techniques used in-depth interview, observation and literature study. The qualitative data analyzed were primary and secondary data. This result showed that dynamic of power and benefit of using these forest resources in Bungku village were mostly controlled by the strong claim competition on some resources between actors. Overlapping claims happened because of the access ability in some side to get the benefits of forest resources from this Bungku village. Each actor having the ability of access meaned to get the legitimation property. This effort of access as the benefit property became primarily when the recourses was an open access which characterized with no control of resources. In a post-colonial country like Indonesia, the pluralism of law become a source of conflict claim, where every actor will claim based on different authority. When someone claims something that other claims too, to strengthen their own claim they need to vanish the other claim on the same resources. Every actor built a discourse and webs of power to strengthen their claim of those resources. Meanwhile, when the authority is not working anymore they will use violence instead. Violence on claim competing shows the resistance of other people existence to the same resources. The opponent will be considered as threatening, not as a collaboration partner. The act of seeing people as threat is source of violence. On a global discourse, the population and slash and burn agriculture is a main criminal of deforestation. The state will always look like in the side of private. The private power in resources always covered by legal and legitimated law as instruments. The s political territorialism of forest resources open the opportunity to everyone who have the power to authorize the forest. Besides that, the community have tried to build the legitimation in grass root level. The communities acting the local political territorialization of „ruralism‟ of forest as a counter of state territorialization. Some amount of local instruments of law are made for claim 6 legitimation and property relation with various nation institutions in an upper level. Some village have been developed quite fast in order to divide between the village and forest. In this case, villages always become a conflict arena between the community and state and capital. The state and capital always have the authority to controlled the resources for an even bigger capital accumulation.