Transformative Islam and Peasant Independence: Experiences from an Indonesian Village

Muhyar Fanani*    -  Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia
Irwan Abdullah    -  Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Nur Hasyim  -  Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia
Endang Supriadi    -  Universitas Islam Negeri Walisongo Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia

(*) Corresponding Author
DOI: 10.21580/ihya.26.2.23577
Indonesian peasants have been dependent on market forces and global phenomena since the establishment of the New Order (1966), and this has been detrimental to their welfare. However, this phenomenon has long been ignored by scholars, and thus the government has received little feedback regarding the creation of fairness and justice in agricultural management. This study, thus, seeks to empower farmers by transforming their traditional understanding of Islam into a transformative one. This study involved participatory action research, cycling twice through five strategies: imparting knowledge of transformative Islam, cultivating new understandings, developing strategic action plans, implementing these action plans, and reflecting/gathering feedback for further action. This study finds that peasant empowerment can be realized by transforming their religious understandings, and that the five strategies identified above can be employed fruitfully. At the same time, this study provides important feedback to the government and academics, offering a means of sustainably and systematically empowering farmers in Indonesia and around the world, thereby changing their fates and creating justice in agriculture.

Keywords: Agriculture; Peasant Empowerment; Transformative Islam

  1. Achwan, R. (2013). Living with Oligarchy: The Clothing Business in Provincial Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2(43), 276–294.
  2. Aminah, S., Sumardjo, Lubis, D. P., & Susanto, D. (2015). Factors affecting peasants’ empowerment in West Halmahera District – A case study from Indonesia. Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics.
  3. Arsal, T. (2014). Kemiskinan dan Ketahanan Pangan di Kalangan Petani. Forum Ilmu Sosial, 41(1), 54–66. Retrieved from https://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/FIS/article/view/5379
  4. Baharuddin. (2009). Tipologi Pemikiran Keislaman di Indoesia Abad XXI. MIQOT: Jurnal Ilmu-Ilmu Keislaman, 33(1).
  5. Bahua, M. I., Arsyad, M., & Jamil, M. H. (2016). Farmers Community Empowerment through Institutional Strengthening of Rural Food Barn. International Journal of Agriculture System. https://doi.org/10.20956/ijas.v4i2.689
  6. Baranauskiene, I., Gerulaitis, D., & Radzeviciene, L. (2011). Social Empowerment and Participation of People With Disabilities Through Ngo Activities. Social Welfare Interdisciplinary Approach.
  7. Bezner Kerr, R. (2013). Seed struggles and food sovereignty in northern Malawi. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2013.848428
  8. Blattman, C., Green, E., Annan, J., Jamison, J., Aryemo, F., Carlson, N., … Segura, A. (2013). Building Women’ s Economic and Social Empowerment Through Enterprise: An Experimental Assessment of the Women’ s Income Generating Support (WINGS ) Program in Uganda. LOGiCA Study Series No. 1.
  9. Borras Jr, S. M. (2009). Agrarian Change and Peasant Studies: Changes,Continuities and Challenges: an Introduction. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(1), 5–31.
  10. Cantor, K. M. (2010). Agricultura urbana: Elementos valorativos sobre su sostenibilidad. Cuadernos de Desarrollo Rural.
  11. Cohen-Blankshtain, G., Ron, A., & Perez, A. G. (2013). When an NGO Takes on Public Participation: Preparing a Plan for a Neighborhood in East Jerusalem. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01174.x
  12. Corbera, E. (2012). Powers of exclusion. Land dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2012.656241
  13. Elizabeth, R. (2016). Fenomena Sosiologis Metamorphosis Petani: ke Arah Keberpihakan pada Masyarakat Petani di Pedesaan yang Terpinggirkan Terkait Konsep Ekonomi Kerakyatan. Forum Penelitian Agro Ekonomi. https://doi.org/10.21082/fae.v25n1.2007.29-42
  14. Feischmidt, M., & Szombati, K. (2017). Understanding the rise of the far right from a local perspective: Structural and cultural conditions of ethno-traditionalist inclusion and racial exclusion in rural Hungary. Identities. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2016.1142445
  15. Fortin, C. J. (2011a). The Biofuel Boom and Indonesia’s Oil Palm Industry: The Twin Processes of Peasant Dispossession and Adverse Incorporation in West Kalimantan.
  16. Fortin, C. J. (2011b). The Biofuel Boom and Twin Processes of Peasant Dispossession and Adverse Incorporation in West Kalimantan Global Land Grabbing. Food Policy.
  17. Fukuoka, Y. (2015). Beyond Oligarchy: Wealth, Power, and Contemporary Indonesian Politics. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 51(3), 480–482.
  18. Gellert, P. K. (2019). Neoliberalism and altered state developmentalism in the twenty-first century extractive regime of Indonesia. Globalizations.
  19. Gibbons, D. S., Hart, G., Turton, A., White, B., Fagen, B., & Ghee, L. T. (1990). Agrarian Transformations: Local Processes and the State in Southeast Asia. Pacific Affairs. https://doi.org/10.2307/2759754
  20. Gilbert, D. E., & Afrizal. (2019). The land exclusion dilemma and Sumatra’s agrarian reactionaries. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1404990
  21. Goldman, M. J., Davis, A., & Little, J. (2016). Controlling land they call their own: access and women’s empowerment in Northern Tanzania. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2015.1130701
  22. Großmann, K. (2017). Gaharu King–Family Queen: material gendered political ecology of the eaglewood boom in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1341408
  23. Halid. (2005). Paradigma Islam Transformatif Rekonstruksi Pembahauan Islam Indonesia Dekade 70-an hingga 90-an,†al-Turas, Vol 11, no 1, 2005: 23-37. Jakarta Paramadina, Vol 11(no 1), 23–37.
  24. Han, K.-Q., Huang, C.-C., & Han, W.-J. (2011). Social Mobility of Migrant Peasant Workers in China. Sociology Mind. https://doi.org/10.4236/sm.2011.14026
  25. Hart, G. (1986). Exclusionary Labour Arrangements: Interpreting Evidence on Employment Trends in Rural Java. The Journal of Development Studies, 22(4), 681–696. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388608422005
  26. Hart, G. (1998). Regional linkages in the era of liberalization: A critique of the new agrarian optimism. Development and Change, 29(1), 27–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00069
  27. Hüsken, F. (1989a). Cycles of Commercialization and Accumulation in a Central Javanese Village. In Agrarian Transformations.
  28. Hüsken, F. (1989b). Urban Idioms in a Village World: Power and Communication in Rural Java. Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia. https://doi.org/10.1355/sj4-1h
  29. Jakimow, T. (2012). A site for the empowerment of women? The clash of patriarchal values and development norms in a family-based NGO. Ethnography. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138111420507
  30. Kartodirjo, S. (2013). Pemberontakan Petani Banten 1888. In Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling.
  31. Kenney-Lazar, M. (2012). Plantation rubber, land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2012.674942
  32. Kruijt, D. (2011). Revolución y Contrarrevolución: El Gobierno Sandinista y la Guerra de la Contra en Nicaragua, 1980-1990. (spanish). Revolution and Counterrevolution: The Sandinista Government and the Contra War in Nicaragua, 1980-1990. (English).
  33. Liu, Q., & Wang, R. Y. (2019). Peasant resistance beyond the state: Peasant-NGO interactions in post wenchuan earthquake reconstruction, China. Journal of Contemporary China. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1497917
  34. Lsm, P., Yogyakarta, P., Pemberdayaan, D., Di, M., Bintialo, L., Selatan ’alin, S., & Silmi, F. (2017). PARTICIPATORY LEARNING AND ACTION (PLA) DI DESA TERPENCIL. Jurnal Pemberdayaan Masyarakat.
  35. Matenga, C. R., & Hichaambwa, M. (2017). Impacts of land and agricultural commercialisation on local livelihoods in Zambia: evidence from three models. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1276449
  36. Montefrio, M. J. F. (2017). Land control dynamics and social-ecological transformations in upland Philippines. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1257988
  37. Mudimu, G. T., Zuo, T., & Nalwimba, N. (2020). Inside an enclave: the dynamics of capitalism and rural politics in a post-land reform context. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1722106
  38. Ngok, K. (2012). Migrant labour, urban exclusion and social harmony in China. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice. https://doi.org/10.1332/175982712X657073
  39. Nurdin, A. (2013). Paradigma Islam Transformatif dan Implikasinya terhadap Pengembangan Pendidikan Islam. Uin-Malang.
  40. Pinheiro Machado Brochner, G. (2014). Peasant Women in Latin America: Transnational Networking for Food Sovereignty as an Empowerment Tool. Latin American Policy. https://doi.org/10.1111/lamp.12054
  41. Purwandari, H. (2011). Respon Petani Atas Kemiskinan Struktural (Kasus Desa Perkebunan dan Desa Hutan). Journal of Social and Agricultural Economics).
  42. Rahman, Budhy Munawar. (2001). Islam Pluralis: Wacana Kesetaraan Kaum Beriman. Jakarta:Paramadina.
  43. S, S., & K, M. (2011). Role of micro finance in women’s empowerment (an empirical study in pondicherry region rural shg’s). Journal of Management and Science. https://doi.org/10.26524/jms.2011.1
  44. Sätre, A. M. (2014). Paid and unpaid social work in Russia: Is women’s social work opening up opportunities for empowerment processes? International Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872814536419
  45. Schneider, A. (2011). What shall we do without our land? Land Grabs and Resistance in Rural Cambodia.
  46. Scott, J. (1986). Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. The Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066158608438289
  47. Shobha, S., & Kala, N. (2015). Value Education towards Empowerment of Youth-A Holistic Approach. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.354
  48. Sianipar, C. P. M., & Widaretna, K. (2012). NGO as Triple-Helix Axis: Some Lessons from Nias Community Empowerment on Cocoa Production. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.456
  49. Song, A. M., Bodwitch, H., & Scholtens, J. (2018). Why marginality persists in a governable fishery—the case of New Zealand. Maritime Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-018-0121-9
  50. Stoler, A. (1977). Class Structure and Female Autonomy in Rural Java. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. https://doi.org/10.1086/493440
  51. Sugden, F., & Punch, S. (2014). Capitalist expansion and the decline of common property ecosystems in China, Vietnam and India. Development and Change. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12103
  52. Vandermeer, J. (2013). Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 3(40), 601–602.
  53. Vélez-Torres, I., Varela, D., Cobo-Medina, V., & Hurtado, D. (2019). Beyond property: Rural politics and land-use change in the Colombian sugarcane landscape. Journal of Agrarian Change. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12332
  54. Vera Delgado, J., & Zwarteveen, M. (2008). Modernity, exclusion and resistance: Water and indigenous struggles in Peru. Development. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.development.1100467
  55. Xu, Y. (2019). Politics of inclusion and exclusion in the Chinese industrial tree plantation sector: the global resource rush seen from inside China. Journal of Peasant Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1405936

Open Access Copyright (c) International Journal Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

International Journal Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din 
published by Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Walisongo Semarang, Indonesia

Jl. Walisongo No.3-5, Tambakaji, Kec. Ngaliyan, Kota Semarang, Jawa Tengah 50185
Phone: +62 857-3303-6860
Website: http://pasca.walisongo.ac.id/
Email: [email protected] 

ISSN: 1411-3708 (Print)
ISSN: 2580-5983 (Online)
DOI : 10.21580/ihya

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

 
View My Stats
apps