The plantation-migration nexus: emergent geographies of social reproduction in Indonesia

Abstract

Extractive agrarian capitalism has exploded across the globe, gobbling up land to turn into plantations. These massive land acquisitions both generate and redirect the mobilities of labourers–men and women–living on and around plantations. In this Special Issue, we target the varied means by which plantations and migration converge and shape one another, in order to understand their diverse entanglements through the grounded experiences of plantation workers and their families in Indonesia. The concept of Plantation-Migration Nexus (PMN) theorizes the dynamic relationship between migration and plantations as it hinges on social reproduction and survival. The intensification of agrarian capitalism has involved the large-scale expansion and accelerated the development of plantations alongside rising numbers of labour migrants participating in an increasingly wide range of migration modalities. Contributors to this Special issue examine shifting social reproduction practices to ground their analyses in historically and geographically specific plantation-migration nexuses. We focus on the lives of workers and their families, targeting their struggles to socially reproduce themselves, their families, and their communities.