Occasionally a book appears that represents an especially important contribution, one likely to have lasting impact, and fill a crucial gap in the literature. Powers of Exclusion is such a book. This volume is worthy of attention by those with an interest in political ecology, land tenure and conflicts, as well as nature-society issues in Southeast Asia more generally. The interdisciplinary collaboration that brought a political scientist (Hall), geographer (Hirsch) and anthropologist (Li) together emerged as a result of a multi-faceted Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded research project titled Challenges of the Agrarian Transition in Southeast Asia (CHATSEA).
The book is focused on the idea of “exclusion,” a term commonly used in studies of land access globally. However, the authors conceptualize it differently than most, not simply thinking of exclusion as something negative counterposed with the positive idea of “inclusion,” but rather as inevitable; something that everyone with an interest in land issues sees as valuable in some way. Viewing the opposite of exclusion as “access” rather than inclusion, and being attentive to power relations, the authors examine an array of ways people have both been excluded and have excluded others from land in Southeast Asia in the 1990s and 2000s, including villagers excluding other villagers. Crucial to their conceptual framework, they argue that interaction between regulation, force, the market and legitimation are fundamental to understanding the processes that result in various kinds of exclusion. Regulation, as they conceptualize it, is linked with the state and legal instruments. Force refers to exclusion through violence or the threat of violence from both state and non-state actors. The market limits access through price and also provides incentives for private land claims. Finally, legitimation establishes the moral grounds for excluding others.
The book is divided into eight chapters with the six main ones (apart from the introduction and conclusion) each dealing with one of the key processes that the authors believe are driving changes in rural land relations. They are 1) the regularization of access to land, through land titling, formalization and settlement; 2) the spatial expansion and intensification of efforts to restrict agriculture and thus protect forest; 3) the cultivation of various “boom crops” that result in the conversion of significant amounts of land; 4) the conversion of land for non-agricultural uses; 5) processes of agrarian class formation on an intimate village scale; and 6) the collective mobilization for defending or asserting access claims to land, often at the expense of others.
Powers of Exclusion is notable for the rich empirical accounts drawn mainly from Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and (to a lesser extent) Malaysia. The book is full of insightful observations and analysis, clearly indicating the depth of the authors' research experiences, which span the geographical coverage of the volume.
Without wanting to diminish its value, Powers of Exclusion, like every other great book, does have some limitations. It does a fantastic job illustrating how exclusion occurs at various scales, and in a wide variety of ways, especially in relation to class and ethnicity, but much less is included about other important factors, such as religion and gender. How, for example, do men exclude women within families in particular contexts? But it is never possible for one book to do everything, so in many ways this is more of a quibble than a substantial criticism.
One of the key points of the book relates to “Exclusion's Double Edge.” Exclusion is seen as both necessary and potentially harmful. Even village farmers need to be able to exclude others from taking their crops, but one group's gain can result in another's loss. This is a valuable insight with considerable analytical traction. To take the point further, their idea could be usefully extended to encompass the idea of “Exclusion's Multiple Edges,” moving beyond the binary of exclusion and access to consider the spaces that exist between being fully excluded and having complete access. The authors frequently refer to people who are either excluded or not, but their own empirical material seems to points to a framing that considers in more depth the nuanced varieties of exclusion and access that occur over space and time. In much the same ways as boundaries are presently seen as varyingly fuzzy, broad, contested and conditional, and never static, exclusion too, is frequently partial and incomplete, and is always shifting, something I think the authors would have been well positioned to discuss more considering their thought-provoking field observations.
Overall, Powers of Exclusion provides an excellent balance between easily accessible theory and well described and analyzed empirical material. Apart from being of considerable scholarly value, the book represents a useful teaching tool for upper level undergraduate or graduate courses. Practitioners should also find it thought provoking. I certainly plan to make use of it!
