Rural Social Movements and Popular Struggles under Jokowi’s Presidency

Abstract

The victory of Joko Widodo in the 2014 presidential election and the early phase of his first-term presidency brought some hope to Indonesian rural social movements. However, the structural constraints under oligarchic politics, the elite jockeying surrounding Jokowi, and the president’s lack of willingness to support an agrarian justice agenda rendered the movements’ strategy of intervention by state institutions and policies ineffective. This tension persuaded some sections of rural communities and activists to pursue a more contestational approach in advocating their rights, especially during Jokowi’s second term (2019–2024). This article examines the prevalence of the logic of concessionary capitalism in Jokowi’s rural policies, its devastating impacts on rural communities and the creative, sometimes impromptu, responses of rural social movements to dispossession and marginalisation. It also analyses the limits and gains made by the movements’ actors and provides an overall assessment of state-rural social movement relations under Jokowi’s presidency and the Covid-19 pandemic.