Asia Pacific Viewpoint

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12174

Maninggar, Nimas; Hudalah, Delik; Sutriadi, Ridwan; Firman, Tommy

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12193

A focus on high‐tech industries has neglected the potential of low‐tech industries in regional economic policy. This paper critically assesses the application of the concept of the regional innovation system (RIS) by exploring the processes through which government policy and inter‐actor collaboration facilitate low‐tech industrial growth and development. In doing so, we conduct a qualitative case study on the batik industry in Pekalongan, the largest batik‐producing city in Indonesia. The results show that national and local government policy frameworks have played a major role in facilitating formal and informal collaboration between research and education institutions and the batik industry in Pekalongan. These collaborations contribute to creating research and learning environments that are important conditions for local innovation and development.

Palmer, Lisa; McWilliam, Andrew

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12197

Successfully achieving nationhood under the banner of what Anderson (2003) terms ‘aggregated nativeness’, Timor‐Leste is southeast Asia's newest nation. Yet as Anderson asserts ‘for the culture of nationalism … survival cannot be enough’ (2003: 184) and as with all other nationalisms, Timor‐Leste's nation‐making agenda is now engaged in the search for inclusive futures for its citizens. In this paper, we examine the extent to which Timor‐Leste's independence trajectory has included the active involvement of Indigenous Timorese traditions, practices and priorities in the governance of the new nation. By theorising these shifting ‘Indigenous’ ontologies and examining the ways in which they correspond (or not) with the tensions evident in more internationalised approaches to Indigeneity, we illuminate the socio‐political challenge of carving out spaces for plural identities and meaningfully diverse economic futures in Timor‐Leste. We argue that the term ‘Indigenous’ is not (yet) a term mobilised as a vehicle for the politics of recognition at either national or local levels of civil society.

Dun, Olivia; Klocker, Natascha; Head, Lesley

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12198

This article explores knowledge transfers in international migration and development through insights from Pacific Island seasonal workers participating in Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP). We discuss actual and potential horticultural knowledge transfers that are enabled when circular migrants are engaged in agriculture in their place of migration origin and destination. Transfers identified by seasonal workers themselves include: technologies to improve horticultural production, exposure to different crop types, and techniques to improve crop yields. We argue that SWP migrants should be reframed as knowledge holders (not ‘unskilled’ or ‘low‐skilled’ labourers), and reflect on how knowledge transfers can be better supported to enable benefits for communities of origin and destination.

Hidayat, Herman; Yogaswara, Herry; Herawati, Tuti; Blazey, Patricia; Wyatt, Stephen; Howitt, Richard

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12207

This paper reviews the emerging effects of the 2012 decision of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia relating to the customary management of Indonesia's traditional forests. It focuses on the challenge of moving from legal to political and societal recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In its advocacy of customary land rights, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) successfully applied to the Constitutional Court for judicial review of the Forest Law 41 1999. It argued the law breached the constitutional rights of its members in permitting the state to permit exploitation and development rights over traditional forest without their consent. The flow‐on effect of allocating such rights included widespread deforestation and land use change without agreement from customary communities that have used and occupied these forests for centuries, thus ignoring traditional customary law that regards these forests as the property of such communities. The paper reflects critically on international experience in the interface between legal recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights, and their translation into sustainable and meaningful societal transformation.

Hillig, Zoe; Connell, John

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12201

Two major earthquakes hit Nepal in April and May 2015 causing widespread devastation. Many NGOs, including CARE Nepal, International Nepal Fellowship and Richa Bajimaya Memorial Foundation, responded to the crisis in diverse ways. In the relief phase, the three NGOs faced many challenges as a result of inadequate planning for a large‐scale disaster, including access to information, coordination and inaccessibility. NGOs were able to partly overcome these problems through their ability to draw on social capital, networks and trust, values typical of Nepalese society, which is largely structured by informal social relations. Bonding and bridging social capital, and necessary linking social capital at a different scale, all posed certain problems for equity and efficiency. Although using social networks enabled a more rapid response, this could not easily combat inaccessibility and emphasised uneven development.

Clifton, Julian; Hampton, Mark P.; Jeyacheya, Julia

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12200

Myanmar (formerly Burma) is emerging from almost six decades of international isolation into a period of rapid economic growth. Following moves towards increasing democratisation since 2011, Myanmar's tourism industry has been propelled from ‘tourism pariah’ to rising ‘tourism star’ and is experiencing an extraordinary growth in tourism arrivals with associated revenues and investment. The unique rapidity of Myanmar's recent transition enables an examination of how contemporary forces of globalisation and neoliberalism determine the direction and mode of tourism development from its beginnings. We show how tourism is perceived by the national government as an engine for rural development, conservation and livelihood creation for poor and rural communities. We then demonstrate how this is re‐shaped by a globalised tourism industry into a socially and economically exclusive model which capitalises upon weak governance and disempowered local stakeholders. We conclude with observations which may point towards a more sustainable and responsible tourism industry.

Rietberg, Petra Irene; Hospes, Otto

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12206

Very few studies have captured the full complexity of land acquisition processes at the agricultural frontier. Specifically, the different stages in the land acquisition process and the changing responses of local communities to plantation development have not been adequately described and explained. Based on a detailed empirical case study of a land acquisition process in a village at the oil palm frontier in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, we address this knowledge gap. To comprehensively capture reactions ‘from below’ to large‐scale land acquisition, we use the interlinked concepts of access, property and authority. We show that the land acquisition process is basically a process of transforming and obscuring customary property rights and local authority. In our case, this process is characterised by an initial recognition of customary rights and local authority by the oil palm company. However, in the course of the process, these property rights and local authority are being transformed and eventually obscured. We call for a more interventionist state to prepare a less uneven playing field at the very beginning of land acquisition processes. This could slow down the nearly irrevocable obfuscation of customary rights and the erosion of local authority at the oil palm frontier.

Hung, Po‐Yi; Hsiao, Hui‐Tsen

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12194

This essay outlines the symbolic and material transformation of mountain agriculture in Taiwan by tracing the historical trajectories of temperate fruit production, and of apple growing in particular. Specifically, we look at the area of Lishan, a major production centre for apples and other temperate fruits in Taiwan's Central Mountain Range in order to explore the relationship between the mountain agriculture and the politics of territorialisation. Focusing on the post‐war era, we argue that the development of mountain agriculture in Taiwan, and upland fruit growing in particular, has operated as a ‘more‐than‐human political technology’. The territory of Lishan is not just a passive geographical space, but engaged in a process of becoming, which re‐makes the mountain areas of Taiwan into ‘apple zones’ both spatially and socially. The spatial dimension centres on processes of political territorialisation, economic deterritorialisation and combined reterritorialisations whereby apple plantations have transformed the landscape from one focused on strategic politics to one embedded within development and market frameworks which entail their own particular forms of politics. The social dimensions are centred on the politics of forging connections among different elements circulating through the mountain areas of Taiwan, including apples, soldiers, transport infrastructures and agricultural policies.

Bray, Joshua; Neilson, Jeffrey

2018 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12205

Voluntary sustainability standards are used as both a means of securing coffee supply by large coffee firms and a development intervention to address rural poverty and environmental management in the Global South. Using a case‐study approach, we have examined the interface between a value‐chain sustainability programme and the livelihood trajectories of smallholder producers in upland Sumatra. Our research found the programme has had minimal impacts for coffee producers to date. The level of commitment required of producers appears incompatible with the particular way that coffee is currently embedded within local landscapes, livelihoods and poverty alleviation pathways. Various sustainability standards articulate a narrative of rural development underpinned by an assumption that agricultural modernisation is the preferred pathway out of poverty for rural households. As a result, there is some risk that sustainability programmes may be inadvertently attempting to encourage household investment in a particular kind of agriculture, which is intended to assist sustainability of supply, but is poorly aligned with prevailing processes of poverty alleviation. These observations are based on a detailed study of agrarian change among the Semendo people of South Sumatra province, where processes of rural development are far more complex than assumptions presented by mainstream sustainability standards.