Amity A. Doolittle

The politics of indigeneity: Indigenous strategies for inclusion in climate change negotiations

Indigenous environmental activists have clearly articulated their views on global climate change policy. The content of these views was explored during the 10-day 2008 World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Barcelona. Data were primarily collected through interviews and participant observation. In addition, policy statements and declarations made by indigenous environmental activists from 2000 to 2009 were analysed to place the perspectives of indigenous leaders and environmental activists in the context of their decade-long struggle to gain negotiating power at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This study examines the rhetorical strategies indigenous leaders from around the world use to gain political recognition and legitimacy in climate change negotiations. Two core principles, relating to a particular representation of indigenous environmental knowledge are identified as fundamental rhetorical tools. These are a belief that the earth is a living being with rights and the conviction that it is the responsibility of indigenous peoples to protect the earth from over-exploitation. However, reference to indigenous environmental knowledge is not the only rhetorical mechanism used by indigenous leaders in the climate debates. When faced with specific United Nations policies to combat climate change that could have a profound impact on their land rights, some indigenous leaders adopt a more confrontational response. Fearing that new polices would reinforce historical trends of marginalisation, indigenous leaders seeking recognition in climate change debates speak less about their ecological knowledge and responsibility to the earth and more about their shared histories of political and economic marginalisation and land dispossession, experienced first through colonialism and more recently through globalisation.

Beyond the Sacred Forest: Complicating Conservation in Southeast Asia

This book is the product of a unique, decade-long, interdisciplinary collaboration involving research in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and it reflects new thinking about conservation in Southeast Asia. Scholars from these countries and the United States rethink the translation of environmental concepts between East and West, particularly ideas of nature and culture; the meaning of conservation; and the ways that conservation policy is applied and transformed in the everyday landscapes of Southeast Asia.

From Village Land to “Native Reserve”: Changes in Property Rights in Sabah, Malaysia, 1950–1996

In this paper I explore the interactions between colonial law and native customary law in the formation of contemporary property regimes in a rural village in Sabah, Malaysia, that I call Govuton. Govuton was one of the few known villages in Sabah that rejected colonial policies of land settlement that focused on settling private, individual property claims. Instead, village leaders negotiated with colonial officials for their village lands to be legally designated as corporately-held village property under the title of “Native Reserve.” While the Native Reserve served to protect village access to jointly-held property in the colonial period, in the contemporary period new land disputes are arising as different images of community and tradition are strategically deployed by villagers in order to win struggles over rights of ownership and access to resources in the current political economy. By adopting such an historical and site-specific view of the transformation of property rights several broader themes regarding the relationship between state and society and natural resource management emerge. First, this case study challenges the idea the colonial governments were a monolithic force imposing laws on an unresisting native population. Second, the notion that “the community” is an appropriate unit for natural resource management is questioned. And finally, this case study raises the possibility that the current trend toward strengthening or reinvigorating native customary law is not always in the interests of native peoples with diverse interests in natural resource management.

Stories and maps, images and archives: multimethod approach to the political ecology of native property rights and natural resource management in Sabah, Malaysia.

The study of human-environmental relations is complex and by nature draws on theories and practices from multiple disciplines. There is no single research strategy or universal set of methods to which researchers must adhere. Particularly for scholars interested in a political ecology approach to understanding human-environmental relationships, very little has been written examining the details of “how to” design a project, develop appropriate methods, produce data, and, finally, integrate multiple forms of data into an analysis. A great deal of attention has been paid, appropriately, to the theoretical foundations of political ecology, and numerous scholarly articles and books have been published recently. But beyond Andrew Vayda’s “progressive contextualization” and Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield’s “chains of explanation,” remarkably little is written that provides a research model to follow, modify, and expand. Perhaps one of the reasons for this gap in scholarship is that, as expected in interdisciplinary research, researchers use a variety of methods that are suitable (and perhaps unique) to the questions they are asking. To start a conversation on the methods available for researchers interested in adopting a political ecology perspective to human-environmental interactions, I use my own research project as a case study. This research is by no means flawless or inclusive of all possible methods, but by using the details of this particular research process as a case study I hope to provide insights into field research that will be valuable for future scholarship.

Powerful Persuasions: The Language of Property and Politics in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo), 1881–1996

In this article I examine the similarities between colonialism and postcolonialism in Sabah, Malaysia. I argue that the strategies of rule employed by the colonial and postcolonial states can be viewed as a sustained interaction in which the power of colonial discourses, institutions, and forms of rule still operate in postcolonial Sabah, particularly in terms of control over and access to natural resources. Drawing on archival and ethnographic data I present case studies from the colonial and postcolonial period that demonstrate that whether the focus of state rule is native land management systems and property rights or the conservation of biodiversity the result is the same: both states construct images of what types of agricultural practices and uses of forest resources are appropriate, what types of property regimes can persist, and how rural people should look and act in order to appear modern. I conclude that the colonial and postcolonial states share the following characteristics: 1) they control access to resources through legal institutions that privilege private property law over customary practices; 2) they invent discourses that justify centralized rule while obfuscating the realities of those who live on