Gender, environment and culture: a political ecology of transmigration in Indonesia

The thesis offers an interpretation of observed differences in the ways people from two different communities - Javanese migrants and indigenous Lampungese - secure a livelihood in the context of the profound structural and environmental changes associated with the local transmigration programme in North Lampung, Indonesia. The study examines the proposition that transmigration in Indonesia, like settlement programmes world-wide, is a homogenising force, bringing environmental, economic, social and cultural uniformity between otherwise disparate groups of people. Secondly, the study examines the proposition that because of their different histories and geographies, there are significant differences in the ways Javanese migrants and Lampungese indigenous people in two neighbouring communities have responded to change, as reflected in the ways members of each group earn a living. Thirdly, the study examines the proposition that the very nature of transmigration, which has brought two cultures together in the same space, creates a micro-political context in which cultural difference matters, thus further highlighting differentiation between mi rants and indigenous people. Finally, the thesis argues that gender difference is crucial to this process of cultural differentiation, as women's roles within the division of labour become a site of moral contest between the two groups. Livelihood practices, including on-farm and off-farm work-, provide the medium through which these questions are explored, using both qualitative and quantitative research techniques, to explore how cultural differences are reworked in particular ways around the local politics of environmental and economic change