The Fourth Circle: A Political Ecology of Sumatra's Rainforest Frontier

by John F. McCarthy

Overview

This book addresses the politics of environmental change in one of the richest areas of tropical rainforest in Indonesia. Based on field studies conducted in three agricultural communities in rural Aceh, this work considers a number of questions: How do customary (adat) village and state institutions work? What roles do they play in managing local resources? How have they evolved over time? Are villagers, state policies, or corrupt local networks responsible for the loss of tropical rainforest? Will better outcomes emerge from revitalizing customary management, from changing state policies, or from transforming the way the state works? And why do projects designed by outsiders so often fail?

The book describes how, as key actors interact, they create arrangements that effectively manage local resources, eclipsing adat and formal state management structures. While outside interventions try to work with adat and the state, they fail to engage fully with the main problem—that is, that district webs of power and interest, coalescing around local resources and reaching into the wider society, lead inexorably to environmental decline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804752114
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	03/22/2006
Series:	Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific
Edition description:	1
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John McCarthy teaches at the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Governance at the Australian National Universityand was previously Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Australia. He has published numerous articles and one previous book, Are Sweet Dreams Made of This?: The Impact of Tourism in Bali and Eastern Indonesia (1994).

Table of Contents

	Tables, Maps, and Figures	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xvii
	Abbreviations	xxi
	Note on Terminology	xxv
1	Introduction: Institutional Arrangements and Forest Regimes	1
2	Local Institutions in Sama Dua	25
3	Menggamat: Turning in Circles	86
4	Power and Interest in Badar	149
5	Conclusion: Institutional Arrangements in Southern Aceh	199
6	Epilogue: Alternative Policy Models: Lessons from Southern Aceh	214
Appendix	Fieldwork in Aceh: Design, Context, and Experience	257
	Glossary	270
	Notes	273
	Bibliography	316
	Index	347

Editorial Reviews

"[The Fourth Circle provides valuable ethnographic and political information about a dangerous area where researchers have found it comparatively difficult to gain access (Aceh). The book's publication now remains timely, given the broad interest in northern Sumatra after the 2004 tsunami."

Journal of Anthropological Research

"Approaching resource degradation as an institutional problem embedded in socioeconomic structures and power relations, John McCarthy has written a book of significance well beyond his study area in the remote rainforests of Sumatra. In communities in South Aceh between 1996 and 1999, McCarthy investigated the interplay of state and customary (adat) institutions with other interests in managing local forest resources. This is an important work that generates understanding of the most pressing issues of our time I recommend the book highly. McCarthy intelligently details and discusses cases of global interest, yielding insights into complex interactions of tradition, colonial, state and informal institutions in effecting as area's resource management, and into the implications for conservation projects."

American Anthropologist - Lene Pederson

"Eloquent and authoritative."

Bijdragen

"This book is a highly commendable study of the dynamics involved in forest destruction, conversion and conservation in South Aceh, an area known by the famous Gunung Leuser National Park. John McCarthy looks at institutional arrangements governing forests, drawing on legal anthropology to uncover the plurality and fluidity of 'rules in use' in natural resource management."

Internationales Asienforum

"[The Fourth Circle provides valuable ethnographic and political information about a dangerous area where researchers have found it comparatively difficult to gain access (Aceh). The book's publication now remains timely, given the broad interest in northern Sumatra after the 2004 tsunami."—Journal of Anthropological Research

"Eloquent and authoritative."—Bijdragen

"This book is a highly commendable study of the dynamics involved in forest destruction, conversion and conservation in South Aceh, an area known by the famous Gunung Leuser National Park. John McCarthy looks at institutional arrangements governing forests, drawing on legal anthropology to uncover the plurality and fluidity of 'rules in use' in natural resource management."—Internationales Asienforum

"Approaching resource degradation as an institutional problem embedded in socioeconomic structures and power relations, John McCarthy has written a book of significance well beyond his study area in the remote rainforests of Sumatra. In communities in South Aceh between 1996 and 1999, McCarthy investigated the interplay of state and customary (adat) institutions with other interests in managing local forest resources. This is an important work that generates understanding of the most pressing issues of our time I recommend the book highly. McCarthy intelligently details and discusses cases of global interest, yielding insights into complex interactions of tradition, colonial, state and informal institutions in effecting as area's resource management, and into the implications for conservation projects." —Lene Pederson, American Anthropologist

From the Publisher