Rightless Resistance Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia

Rightless Resistance investigates why resistance to land grabbing so often fails. The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations has triggered widespread conflict across rural Indonesia as communities lose their land with little compensation. Based on an unprecedented study of 150 such conflicts, this book uncovers how villagers fight back against palm oil companies, and what their struggles reveal about power, law, and citizenship in postcolonial Indonesia.

Enduring colonial legacies and collusive politics have left rural Indonesians virtually rightless, so villagers turn to customary traditions and social norms instead of formal law—a strategy that rarely gets results. By analyzing this resistance to corporate land grabbing, Ward Berenschot, Ahmad Dhiaulhaq, Afrizal, and Otto Hospes offer a new perspective on why land rights movements often fall short. When the legal system is unreliable, people aim lower—and the deeper power imbalances facilitating their dispossession go unchallenged.