Organizer: NYSEAN
Type/Location: In Person / New York, NY
Description:
Join NYSEAN for the book launch of Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Ward Berenschot, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam.
About the Book:
In Rightless Resistance: Postcolonial Citizenship, Palm Oil, and Land Grabs in Indonesia, Ward Berenschot and his co-authors investigate why resistance to land grabbing so often fails. Based on an unprecedented study of 150 such conflicts in Indonesia, 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. In addition to discussing the main findings of the book, Professor Berenschot will share clips from a recent documentary, Colonial Debris.
About the Speaker:
Ward Berenschot is Professor of Comparative Political Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and Senior Researcher at KITLV in Leiden. Focussing on politics in India and Indonesia, he is the author of Riot Politics and coauthor of Democracy for Sale and Rightless Resistance. That book led to the Watchdoc documentary Colonial Debris on palm oil conflicts in Indonesia.
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here.