Miranda Morgan
Email:miranda.morgan@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
BAH Development Studies and Political Studies (Distinction), Queen's University, 1999-2003.
MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Policy (Distinction), University of Oxford, 2005-2006.
Women, gender and protest: contesting oil palm plantation expansion in Sambas district, Indonesia
Supervisors: Erik Swyngedouw and Noel Castree.
Research interests
Political ecology; women and gender; contentious politics and social movements; political participation and governance; agrarian change, especially social impacts of biofuel/oil palm expansion and land use change; sustainable development.
The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations throughout Indonesia has resulted in a range of environmental and social consequences, including dispossessing rural people of their land. But these people are not accepting the infringements passively. As oil palm plantations have expanded and spread, so have instances of oil palm-related protest and resistance. In almost all accounts of oil palm, however, women and gender relations are overlooked. My research examines the role of women and gender relations in oil palm expansion and resistance in Indonesia today.
Using a combination of secondary literature (specifically, the fields of agrarian political economy, feminist political ecology and contentious politics) and primary data, my thesis provides both a new case study and a new way - through the lens of gender - of understanding oil palm expansion and resistance in Indonesia. At the heart of this research study are the voices, opinions and experiences of 42 women who participated in one protest against dispossession in Sambas district, Indonesia. Emphasizing the role of these women in their households, communities and in this protest, as well as the gender relations that shape and are shaped by the womenʼs participation at all of these levels, my study offers new analysis of who is impacted by oil palm expansion, who resists it and in what ways.
The Sambas case study demonstrates how gender relations shape all stages and facets of a protest, from women’s decisions to participate in protest (by informing their motivations and political opportunities) to women’s protest activities and how women experience protest outcomes. It also reveals how at all stages of mobilization, gender relations are not fixed. Rather, gender relations themselves may also be shaped by and through women’s participation in protest. My research has far-reaching implications not only for the future of oil palm expansion and resistance, but on womenʼs participation in protest, in politics in general and on gender relations.
Co-author, "How to Tap Geography's Potential for Synergy with Creative Instructional Approaches" in Journal of Geography in Higher Education (2011), Vol. 35, No. 3, 409-423
Author, "Book review: Resistance, space, and political identities: the making of counter-global networks", D Featherstone in Environment and Planning A (2009), Vol. 41, 1523-24.