ARTICULATING AGENCY WITHIN SITES OF CONTESTATIONS IN HARAPAN RAINFOREST: PROBLEMATIZING PALM OIL PLANTATIONS IN JAMBI, INDONESIA

The increasing global demand for palm oil due to the global new orientation on bio-fuels has affected the rapid expansion of the palm oil plantations in Indonesia. Previous research findings have shown there are multiple actors involved in the palm oil plantations; however, few have taken into account the social interactions between these actors in relation to specificity of the local context. This article problematize how the actors and networks intertwine with one another as sites of contestations and also negotiations. The main problem to be investigated is how these actors articulate their agencies within the socio-economic and cultural life of the communities, who live around forest conservation in Jambi province, namely Harapan Rainforest. Research findings show that the network of actors is problematic in a sense that each actor‟s agency is mostly overshadowed by their own “politics.” Furthermore, from the ethnographic data, the locals in Jambi perceive and negotiate with this situation in their own framework of social network and cultural capital

URBAN CULTURAL OMNIVORES, UPSCALING ETHNIC FOOD AND CULINARY REPRODUCTION IN MARCO AND SUNTIANG

Culinary practices have always been considered as social and cultural activities signifying ideas of continuity and transformation regarding one‟s culture and identity. As migration happens, people move from their hometown and recreate familiar food and flavors in their new home. Therefore, the study of culinary practices will reveal the dynamics of constant negotiation between having to trace back the familiar taste, for example by using inherited recipes, with the necessity to innovate and reproduce meals from their hometown with new ingredients and materials found in the new place. Furthermore, in an urban setting that has been heavily influenced with a variety of culinary practices from other locales in Indonesia or from other countries, culinary practices in Jakarta could no longer be analyzed as merely everyday activities as they have become an arena of contestation and negotiation. This research discusses how two up-scale restaurants, Suntiang (a Padangnese-Japanese fusion restaurant) and Marco (a self-proclaimed Padang peranakan restaurant), re-inscribe Padangnese cuisines and make new meanings on „old‟ traditional delicacies