Description
Book SynopsisDrawing upon anthropology, political science, environmental history, and political ecology, this study looks at how control over and access to resources have been defined, negotiated, and contested by colonial state agents, the postcolonial Malaysian state, and local people.
Trade Review"I regard this book as an excellent discourse on aspects of land rights and of immense value for its comparative perspective and lengthy time horizon, which makes it indispensible for anyone researching property issues, unequal power relations, and the interests of indigenous peoples."
* American Historical Review *
"This book provides an extensive view of the human ecological dynamics in one of the most biodiverse locations in the world. The author…provides a preliminary formula for a meta-approach to community conservation strategies which international institutes and NGOs would be wise to note."
* The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"This very welcome book offers important insights into the logic of development in Malaysia, as well as its impact on local struggles for land rights. Amity Doolittle has written an exemplary work that utilizes ethnography, political economy, and historical analysis. An impressive, well-written, and well-researched book."
* American Anthropologist *
"The book is remarkable because it not only concentrates on land rights aspects, about which little information has been available to date concerning Sabah, but furthermore includes aspects regarding the use of resources and the goals of the state and its policies. The author's work is unusually fruitful."
* Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture *
"Using a multi-disciplinary approach that straddles the disciplines of anthropology, political science, environmental history and political ecology, Doolittle explores changes in property relations and rights of access to land and natural resources in Sabah over the period 1881-1996."
* Pacific Affairs *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
A Note on the Text
Introduction / Powerful Persuasions: Resource Control and State Rhetoric
1. Colliding Discourses: Western Land Laws and Native Customary Rights in North Borneo, 1881-1928
2. Redefining Native Customary Law in Govuton: Struggles over Property Rights between Native Peoples and Colonial Rulers
3. Resources, Ideologies, and Nationalism: The Politics of Development in Postcolonial Sabah
4. Land Disputes in Tempulong: Colonial Land Laws, Customary Practices, and the Postcolonial State, 1950-1996
Conclusion / Imagining New Environmental Futures: Alternative Stategies for Natural Resource Governance
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
