ALONG THE LAUNG RIVER
By Siti Maimunah
These photos trouble water in the capitalist frontier along the Laung river of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Laung river is the home of the Dayak Murung ethnic group, who are shaped by the encounter with global commodity change, new religion, territorialization, and landscape change because of monoculture rubber cultivation, logging, and coal mining corporations.
(I)
Initially,
God is plural,
female and male when the sky and the river united
The men and women are created when the big battle of the hornbill bird is over
They are growing the rice along the river, collecting rattan, tengkawang and resin
(II)
God is singular,
only male God when the river subordinated
The state formation is formed when the ‘colonial power matrix” continues
They are humiliating the diversity of forest transform to the monoculture rubber
(III)
God is singular,
only male God when the river subordinated
the corporations enter and calculates the body(s) of the forest, soil and river
Ripping the skin and the hair, transporting by the river
Digging the flesh and the bone, transporting by the river
(IV)
God is singular,
only male God when the river subordinated
the road becomes the front yard and the river is the backyard
the river is transporting the women and men, and
delivering the skin, hairs, bones, flesh, and blood
(V)
Finally,
God is singular when the river subordinated
Siti Maimunah is a scientist, an environmental activist and a writer. She is a Doctoral student at the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Research – Southeast Asia at the University of Passau on the topic of Feminist Political Ecology within the framework of the WEGO-ITN network, funded by European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (MSCA grant agreement number 764908). She is researching the configuration of ethnicity, resource frontier making and resistance.