M Adityanandana

M. ADITYANANDANA, then a graduate student at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “Politics of Distribution and Labor in Indonesia’s Resettlement Project,” supervised by Dr. Jenny Goldstein. This project examines how population resettlement, labor, and agricultural development intersect in contemporary Indonesia through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Dadahup District, Kapuas Regency, Central Kalimantan, from August 2024 to August 2025. The study investigates three central questions: 1) how the state enacts resettlement and determines who is deemed worthy of inclusion; 2) how “transmigrants” make livelihoods in resettlement spaces; and 3) how resettlement policy has transformed over the last century. Methodologically, the research relies on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with transmigrants, local communities, rural youth, plantation workers, village leaders, bureaucrats, and civil society actors. Dadahup provides a strategic site due to its history of overlapping state interventions, including peatland development, food security megaprojects, and oil palm plantation expansion. Findings show that contemporary resettlement has shifted from centralized schemes to localized and selective schemes shaped by land scarcity. Migrant livelihoods remain precarious due to flooding, fire, and dysfunctional infrastructure, leading many to depend on plantation labor despite resettlement areas being designated for rice cultivation. The project further challenges assumptions that presumed differences associated with ethnic categories and inevitable rural–urban migration determine engagement in agriculture, demonstrating instead that environmental conditions, knowledge, and livelihood viability shape farming practices and rural youth aspirations.