Women’s Grievances and Land Dispossession: Reading Landscapes through Papuan Independent Films

Abstract

Papuan indigenous women depend on forests and gardens. Through forests, women play an important social-economic role in the community; through gardens, women practice care and reciprocity. Tropical forests, plant species, and animals are also their kin relations (Chao, 2018). Nature and culture are deeply intertwined. However, the role of women is disappearing along with deforestation and the large-scale expansion of oil palm plantations. Selecting independent documentary films mostly produced by Papuan Voices, a community network of indigenous Papuan filmmakers, this article describes women’s frustration at being separated from their lands and their discontent at being considered second-class citizens according to customary law. Women's lowly position in the Papuan patrilineal structure is utilized by the plantation industry to dispossess women from their forests and gardens, and thereby threaten their social-economic roles. This article concludes that land dispossession does not serve as a guarantee for development, but is deeply impoverishing.