Keywords
Indigenous women
agrarian injustice
How to Cite
Abstract
This study analyzes how Indigenous women build social-ecological resilience to defend their living space amid agrarian injustice in Sihaporas, North Sumatra. The study employs a qualitative approach with a case study design, with data obtained through in-depth interviews with Indigenous women and administrators of Indigenous peoples’ organizations and supported by documentation and literature studies. The results show that social-ecological resilience is built through community solidarity, the preservation of local ecological knowledge, women’s participation in advocacy for customary territories, and the transmission of collective memory concerning the history of and rights to customary territories. These four mechanisms mutually reinforce the community’s capacity to endure, adapt, and maintain social-ecological continuity amid prolonged agrarian conflict. This study focuses on one Indigenous community with a limited number of informants; therefore, its findings are not intended to be generalized. The study enriches agrarian sociology, gender, and Indigenous peoples studies by placing women’s experiences at the center of the analysis of agrarian conflict. The novelty of the study lies in applying a gender-responsive social-ecological resilience framework to explain the interconnections among social action, local ecological knowledge, advocacy, and intergenerational memory in agrarian conflict.
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