Papers by John F McCarthy
The Paradox of Agrarian Change: Food Security and the Politics of Social Protection in Indonesia , 2023
Economic growth in the middle-income countries of Southeast Asia over the last few decades is rig... more Economic growth in the middle-income countries of Southeast Asia over the last few decades is rightly hailed for reducing poverty. Indonesia is a prime example. But while poverty has declined in Indonesia, one of its worst impacts-nutritional insecurity-remains high, particularly in rural areas. Patterns of food poverty persist across Indonesia, despite a fall in poverty rates. What explains this troubling paradox? How does it relate to Indonesia's enthusiastic embrace of the 'entitlements revolution', the use of direct cash transfers as a tool for reducing poverty and building social inclusion?
This book analyses the nature and social consequences of economic development and agrarian change processes in rural Indonesia in relation to the scope and effectiveness of Indonesia's social protection programs. The findings are based on a series of extensive 'ground-up' case studies in Indonesian communities in a variety of eco-agrarian settings, seeking to understand the drivers of insecurity and vulnerability at a household level. The results show that while high value farming, diversification and migration may offer a means of economic progress for poor households, economic growth also creates the conditions for increasing inequality, nutritional insecurity and ecological decline.
This is due to the way class, gender and power work in remote local contexts, and the fact that much surplus income is used for enhanced consumption and changing lifestyles. To understand why nutritional insecurity and stunting patterns persist, we need to appreciate how rural change occurs. In many cases there are few signs of the classical structural transformation of the countryside which is considered the most decisive pathway out of rural poverty.
The authors conclude that, while social assistance softens the experience of poverty, they generate targeting problems, produce new patterns of inclusion and exclusion and provoke a contentious politics of distribution. New strategies are required to address food poverty and nutritional insecurity and provide acceptable ways of assisting the poor.
Geoforum, 2022
While land remains a critical element of diversified rural livelihoods across the Global South, e... more While land remains a critical element of diversified rural livelihoods across the Global South, especially during crises, mounting inequalities and enduring rural vulnerability lead to demands for redress. In response, rival reform ideas have emerged concerning how to improve land governance, drive rural development and rectify distributional injustices. Yet, reformist programs in Southeast Asia struggle to address the pervasive problem of 'adverse formalization'-a term we use to describe processes where the state claims sovereign control of extensive 'public lands' and embarks on formalization processes that include local populations into new landbased production systems on adverse terms. Using the natural experiment of Indonesia, where four tenurial reforms coincide, this paper draws on the governmentality literature to examine how travelling tenure knowledges work as rival and ambiguous political rationalities. We demonstrate how political economy, the need for political legitimacy, and frictional encounters between political knowledges, interests and practices shape the governance effects produced by tenure rationalities. Formalisation processes institutionalise state governance in areas previously resistant to such political rationalities, stabilise existing property relations, and accommodate ad hoc settlements without substantially resolving adverse formalisation while provoking a new politics of land.
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA, 2023
Recent decades have witnessed the globalisation of policies promoting social cash transfers as a ... more Recent decades have witnessed the globalisation of policies promoting social cash transfers as a critical instrument for poverty
reduction. Among various approaches, the Conditional Cash
Transfer (CCT) model promoted by the World Bank has gained
discursive dominance in countries where this strategy, and its
technical model for implementation, appear more attractive than
competing alternatives. While research has evaluated CCT programmes and considered the politics of development that they
represent in Latin America, researchers are yet to explore the constitutive effects of CCT ways of knowing and measuring poverty
in the societies of rural Asia. This paper explores the consequences of CCT knowledge politics in rural Indonesia. It argues that
CCT practices of knowing and measuring have paradoxical effects.
The programme makes direct payments to millions of impoverished households, producing well-documented patterns of inclusion and advancement. Yet, CCT knowledge practices involve
simplifications and generate significant mis-targeting, eliciting a
never-ending repair process among state actors, local leaders, and
communities. This metricised knowledge system depoliticises political questions of distribution. It conceals alternative ways of
knowing and addressing poverty, producing an order of entitlements somewhat at odds with established community logics of
inclusion, while provoking a local politics of distribution.
AAS working papers in social anthropology, 2013
One reading of the social capital literature suggests that the networks and the social relationsh... more One reading of the social capital literature suggests that the networks and the social relationships which enable collective action can be used to address critical livelihood needs, even in disaster contexts. This paper concerns post-tsunami Aceh, where following the largest disaster in forty years, one of the biggest reconstruction programs in history implemented livelihoods projects, making use of community led recovery approaches. This paper fi nds that social capital ideas stabilized policy thinking, legitimized project interventions, and provided a template for project action. Examining the eff ects of community led approaches in two sub-districts eight years after the tsunami, it compares the few instances in which particular livelihood projects led to enduring forms of collective action, with the majority of cases, in which these approaches failed to address the underlying drivers of vulnerability. Community led policy narratives often do not match with the logic of social action embedded in local networked space. As interventions based on social capital ideas may have limited purchase in post-disaster contexts of this kind, eff orts to address vulnerability in post-disaster contexts need to address drivers of vulnerability in agrarian livelihoods in a systematic fashion, moving beyond the narrowly focused community led livelihood interventions of post-disaster recovery.
Law & Policy, 2009
The large environmental impacts associated with agro-industrial development in Indonesia are both... more The large environmental impacts associated with agro-industrial development in Indonesia are both striking and increasingly important, especially with increased demand for biofuels and the rapid extension of oil palm plantations. Recently, Indonesia has also seen a series of transformations in the regulatory regime for pollution control with decentralization and a shift towards new environmental policy instruments. This article considers the effectiveness of these new approaches, including the widely influential International Organization for Standardizations (ISO) 14001 series for environmental management systems and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification system. Despite the turn towards these new governance approaches, the underlying problems that have undermined bureaucratic regulation in the past continue to haunt attempts to make the sector more sustainable. Efforts to mitigate the increasingly large-scale pollution associated with agro-industrial development will need to be better crafted and combined to suit the characteristics of the industry concerned and to address the wider socioeconomic and political realities within which problems are embedded and where any policy tool must be applied.
Forest Policy and Economics
During the expansion of industrial plantations across the Global South, forest and land conflicts... more During the expansion of industrial plantations across the Global South, forest and land conflicts have emerged on a very large scale. Despite recent reforms of resource governance, many countries are yet to develop effective formal mechanisms to resolve land and forest conflicts effectively, and mediation has emerged as an alternative conflict resolution strategy. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion of global large-scale land acquisitions ('land grabs') by examining how such third-party mediation works to resolve land conflicts. Bringing together mediation and the political economy literature, it considers how mediation works, and how politics, institutions and power shape the conflict mediation process and its outcomes. It derives its conclusions from extensive fieldwork based examinations of four 'successful' mediation cases in oil palm and pulpwood plantations in Indonesia. Our study finds that the ability of local disputants to sustain collective action, to transnationalize disputes, to intensify and to ripen the conflict are all critical in shaping mediation processes. While the empowerment of local communities can support mediation and improve procedural fairness, mediation only provides a partial solution to the conflicts caused by large-scale land acquisitions. Wider reforms to State law and land governance system, and initiatives to address key structural problems are required. Given the widespread use of third-party mediation to resolve conflicts across the Global South, the lessons from this study are relevant to the discussion of large-scale land acquisitions elsewhere.
The Journal of Peasant Studies
ABSTRACT Despite economic growth in middle-income countries across the global south, pockets of f... more ABSTRACT Despite economic growth in middle-income countries across the global south, pockets of food poverty persist in the countryside. An accepted account suggests that many of the poor are stuck in a 'truncated agrarian transition' where neither agriculture nor labour markets provide sufficient opportunities. Yet, statistics indicate that many have moved out of poverty, even as undernourishment continues. Exploring an Indonesian periphery, this paper interrogates this conundrum. It describes a ‘sideways scenario’ where change fails to map onto both expectations of forward development and stagnation described by established theory. While many progress in quotidian terms, persistent food poverty and stunting remain. Here, ‘advancing sideways’ amounts to a paradoxical form of progress.
Forest Policy and Economics, 2018
During the expansion of industrial plantations across the Global South, forest and land conflicts... more During the expansion of industrial plantations across the Global South, forest and land conflicts have emerged on a very large scale. Despite recent reforms of resource governance, many countries are yet to develop effective formal mechanisms to resolve land and forest conflicts effectively, and mediation has emerged as an alternative conflict resolution strategy. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion of global large-scale land acquisitions ('land grabs') by examining how such third-party mediation works to resolve land conflicts. Bringing together mediation and the political economy literature, it considers how mediation works, and how politics, institutions and power shape the conflict mediation process and its outcomes. It derives its conclusions from extensive fieldwork based examinations of four 'successful' mediation cases in oil palm and pulpwood plantations in Indonesia. Our study finds that the ability of local disputants to sustain collective a...
Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, Dec 1, 2017
Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where tra... more Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, f...
Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where tra... more Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure-and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2010
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf ... more Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Geographical Journal, 2009
Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in frontier areas of Mal... more Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in frontier areas of Malaysian Borneo and Outer Island Indonesia with the rapid conversion of agricultural lands, fallows, and formerly forested areas into oil palm. These frontiers have similar positions in the international political economy of oil palm and have complementary resource endowments. Yet there are also significant differences in systems of governance and policy frameworks regarding land. At the same time the capacity of state actors to facilitate the transformation of these agrarian frontiers and to take up these opportunities fluctuate over time and are subject to contestation nationally and internationally. In seeking to transform these frontiers from "marginal" into "productive" areas, policy makers face a common set of challenges that include attracting development capital, finding the necessary disciplined labour force, delivering land for estate development, maintaining local legitimacy, and dealing with local contestation. In comparing the transition in both Malaysia and Indonesia this paper describes how the "frontier" is created and transformed through particular policy narratives. These policy narratives facilitate the transformation of whole landscapes into oil palm by rendering obscure indigenous forms of agriculture and land tenure while creating reserves of available "state" or "idle" customary land, and counterpoising smallholder "marginality" and "backwardness" to the modernity of contemporary estate agriculture. The paper 3 describes the gradual shift in agendas as policy narratives have evolved over time. During the era of state-led development in the 1970s and 1980s policy narratives allowed for the deployment of government funds and development loans and the implementation of integrated agricultural development projects involving parastatals in a state-subsidized smallholder approach involving group smallholding schemes. Later the perception that these schemes had failed took root at the same time global donors and states abandoned the state-led agricultural development paradigm. In concert with neo-liberal principles, state agencies were now to facilitate rather than to implement development schemes and to provide incentives for private plantations that involved the privatization of customary lands and the integration of smallholders into large blocks of land set aside for monocrop development.
Geographical Journal, 2009
Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in frontier areas of Mal... more Over recent decades a structural transformation has affected agriculture in frontier areas of Malaysian Borneo and Outer Island Indonesia with the rapid conversion of agricultural lands, fallows, and formerly forested areas into oil palm. These frontiers have similar positions in the international political economy of oil palm and have complementary resource endowments. Yet there are also significant differences in systems of governance and policy frameworks regarding land. At the same time the capacity of state actors to facilitate the transformation of these agrarian frontiers and to take up these opportunities fluctuate over time and are subject to contestation nationally and internationally. In seeking to transform these frontiers from "marginal" into "productive" areas, policy makers face a common set of challenges that include attracting development capital, finding the necessary disciplined labour force, delivering land for estate development, maintaining local legitimacy, and dealing with local contestation. In comparing the transition in both Malaysia and Indonesia this paper describes how the "frontier" is created and transformed through particular policy narratives. These policy narratives facilitate the transformation of whole landscapes into oil palm by rendering obscure indigenous forms of agriculture and land tenure while creating reserves of available "state" or "idle" customary land, and counterpoising smallholder "marginality" and "backwardness" to the modernity of contemporary estate agriculture. The paper 3 describes the gradual shift in agendas as policy narratives have evolved over time. During the era of state-led development in the 1970s and 1980s policy narratives allowed for the deployment of government funds and development loans and the implementation of integrated agricultural development projects involving parastatals in a state-subsidized smallholder approach involving group smallholding schemes. Later the perception that these schemes had failed took root at the same time global donors and states abandoned the state-led agricultural development paradigm. In concert with neo-liberal principles, state agencies were now to facilitate rather than to implement development schemes and to provide incentives for private plantations that involved the privatization of customary lands and the integration of smallholders into large blocks of land set aside for monocrop development.
World Development, 2012
When agricultural commodities in developing countries experience an economic boom, they offer pot... more When agricultural commodities in developing countries experience an economic boom, they offer potential pathways out of poverty while creating environmental and social problems. While recent research provides insights into the governance of international supply chains, it provides less analysis of the local production networks creating critical problems. Indonesia is now the world’s largest exporter of crude palm oil. This paper
Journal of Peasant Studies, 2012
While the size and speculative nature of land transactions in the wake of energy, food and climat... more While the size and speculative nature of land transactions in the wake of energy, food and climate crises have surprised observers, the reasons for partial implementation of many land developments remain largely unexamined. This contribution investigates trajectories of land acquisition and enclosure by analyzing four acquisition processes in Indonesia-those associated with rice, oil palm, Jatropha and carbon sequestration-considering their implications for comparative studies elsewhere. The paper finds that current patterns of land use change represent a continuation of ongoing land transformation processes. It describes the logic leading to partial realization of large-scale schemes. Highlighting the importance of interactions between formal and vernacular rural land development processes, the essay concludes that many large-scale schemes are better understood as virtual land acquisitions.
CIFOR CIFOR was established in 1993 as part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultur... more CIFOR CIFOR was established in 1993 as part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in response to global concerns about the social, environmental and economic consequences of forest loss and degradation. CIFOR research produces knowledge and methods needed to improve the well-being of forest-dependent people and to help tropical countries manage their forests wisely for sustained benefits. This research is done in more than two dozen countries, in partnership with numerous parners. Since it was founded, CIFOR has also played a central role in influencing global and national forestry policies. CGIAR The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), established in 1971, is an informal association of nearly 60 public and private sector donors that support a network of 16 international agricultural research centers. The CGIAR's mission is to contribute to food security and poverty eradication in developing countries through research, partnership, capacity building and policy support. The CGIAR promotes sustainable agricultural development based on environmentally sound management of natural resources.
Ssrn Electronic Journal, 2011
World Development, 2004
Decentralization policy narratives articulated by donor agencies tend to describe decentralizatio... more Decentralization policy narratives articulated by donor agencies tend to describe decentralization as a technical process of policy design and implementation, advocating decentralization as a solution to particular problems. Drawing on research carried out in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan following the inception of a decentralization program, this article examines how political processes at the national, district and village levels have led to highly volatile socio-legal configurations that create insecurity and heighten resource conflicts. It concludes that while the politics surrounding decentralization in different domains have ensured that the patterns of governance inherited from the past remain precariously distant from the objectives of good governance, decentralization has also opened up space for positive changes.
The role of international labour migration in processes leading to the (re)production of rural po... more The role of international labour migration in processes leading to the (re)production of rural poverty in the rural South continues to shape critical academic and policy debate. While many studies have established that migration provides an important pathway to rural prosperity, they insufficiently analyse the profound effects that migration and remittances have on agrarian and rural livelihoods. This article uses the case of rural Nepal, where over half of the households are involved in foreign labour migration, as a ‘window’ to understand the processes shaping how migration effects poverty. The paper analyses how migration generates outcomes across the domains of rural people's changing relationship to land and agriculture, their experience of migration, and rural labour markets to advance our arguments. First, it argues that migration leads to the commodification of land, generating changes in patterns of land uses and tenancy relations. With respect to rural people's engagement with agriculture, migration generates both processes of ‘deactivation’ and ‘repeasantization’. Second, foreign migration offers an exit from poverty for some while also creating processes of deeper impoverishment for others. Third, migration leads to structural changes in rural labour markets, reducing the supply of agrarian labour. Consequently, in contrast to the simplifying ‘narrative’ accounts of a migration pathway out of poverty, this paper concludes that the effects triggered by migration are highly contradictory, providing an exit from poverty when linked to diversification strategies, while engendering rising inequality and rural differentiation.
Uploads
Papers by John F McCarthy
This book analyses the nature and social consequences of economic development and agrarian change processes in rural Indonesia in relation to the scope and effectiveness of Indonesia's social protection programs. The findings are based on a series of extensive 'ground-up' case studies in Indonesian communities in a variety of eco-agrarian settings, seeking to understand the drivers of insecurity and vulnerability at a household level. The results show that while high value farming, diversification and migration may offer a means of economic progress for poor households, economic growth also creates the conditions for increasing inequality, nutritional insecurity and ecological decline.
This is due to the way class, gender and power work in remote local contexts, and the fact that much surplus income is used for enhanced consumption and changing lifestyles. To understand why nutritional insecurity and stunting patterns persist, we need to appreciate how rural change occurs. In many cases there are few signs of the classical structural transformation of the countryside which is considered the most decisive pathway out of rural poverty.
The authors conclude that, while social assistance softens the experience of poverty, they generate targeting problems, produce new patterns of inclusion and exclusion and provoke a contentious politics of distribution. New strategies are required to address food poverty and nutritional insecurity and provide acceptable ways of assisting the poor.
reduction. Among various approaches, the Conditional Cash
Transfer (CCT) model promoted by the World Bank has gained
discursive dominance in countries where this strategy, and its
technical model for implementation, appear more attractive than
competing alternatives. While research has evaluated CCT programmes and considered the politics of development that they
represent in Latin America, researchers are yet to explore the constitutive effects of CCT ways of knowing and measuring poverty
in the societies of rural Asia. This paper explores the consequences of CCT knowledge politics in rural Indonesia. It argues that
CCT practices of knowing and measuring have paradoxical effects.
The programme makes direct payments to millions of impoverished households, producing well-documented patterns of inclusion and advancement. Yet, CCT knowledge practices involve
simplifications and generate significant mis-targeting, eliciting a
never-ending repair process among state actors, local leaders, and
communities. This metricised knowledge system depoliticises political questions of distribution. It conceals alternative ways of
knowing and addressing poverty, producing an order of entitlements somewhat at odds with established community logics of
inclusion, while provoking a local politics of distribution.
This book analyses the nature and social consequences of economic development and agrarian change processes in rural Indonesia in relation to the scope and effectiveness of Indonesia's social protection programs. The findings are based on a series of extensive 'ground-up' case studies in Indonesian communities in a variety of eco-agrarian settings, seeking to understand the drivers of insecurity and vulnerability at a household level. The results show that while high value farming, diversification and migration may offer a means of economic progress for poor households, economic growth also creates the conditions for increasing inequality, nutritional insecurity and ecological decline.
This is due to the way class, gender and power work in remote local contexts, and the fact that much surplus income is used for enhanced consumption and changing lifestyles. To understand why nutritional insecurity and stunting patterns persist, we need to appreciate how rural change occurs. In many cases there are few signs of the classical structural transformation of the countryside which is considered the most decisive pathway out of rural poverty.
The authors conclude that, while social assistance softens the experience of poverty, they generate targeting problems, produce new patterns of inclusion and exclusion and provoke a contentious politics of distribution. New strategies are required to address food poverty and nutritional insecurity and provide acceptable ways of assisting the poor.
reduction. Among various approaches, the Conditional Cash
Transfer (CCT) model promoted by the World Bank has gained
discursive dominance in countries where this strategy, and its
technical model for implementation, appear more attractive than
competing alternatives. While research has evaluated CCT programmes and considered the politics of development that they
represent in Latin America, researchers are yet to explore the constitutive effects of CCT ways of knowing and measuring poverty
in the societies of rural Asia. This paper explores the consequences of CCT knowledge politics in rural Indonesia. It argues that
CCT practices of knowing and measuring have paradoxical effects.
The programme makes direct payments to millions of impoverished households, producing well-documented patterns of inclusion and advancement. Yet, CCT knowledge practices involve
simplifications and generate significant mis-targeting, eliciting a
never-ending repair process among state actors, local leaders, and
communities. This metricised knowledge system depoliticises political questions of distribution. It conceals alternative ways of
knowing and addressing poverty, producing an order of entitlements somewhat at odds with established community logics of
inclusion, while provoking a local politics of distribution.