The following comments are from Prof. Kim Voss of Sociology Department at University California, Berkeley, for my research prospectus "Land Reform by Leverage: Understanding the Resurgence of Agrarian Movements in Contemporary Java-Indonesia". I submitted the research prospectus as my final assignment for a course on Social Movement, Sociology 280S, Spring 2006. For her profile see: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/kim-voss
My research prospectus is available at: https://www.noerfauzirachman.id/2006/05/
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To: Noer Fauzi Rachman
From: Kim Voss
Re: Land Reform by Leverage: Understanding the Resurgence of Agrarian Movements in Contemporary Java-Indonesia,” research prospectus submitted for Sociology 280S, Spring 2006
In this very intriguing proposal, you put forward a plan to look at the many land occupations that have occurred in recent years in West Java. You begin with a thorough and highly informative literature review of both the social movements literature and the literature on peasant revolts, arguing that these two literatures need to be brought together. You then lay out a series of hypotheses and describe your data sources.
I learned a great deal from your paper. You have obviously done a lot of thinking about this project.
Given your experience, you have fantastic access for this project. And it has great potential, both theoretically and for movement activists. You have already made a lot of progress but I would like to push you on a few points, and to suggest that you broaden your approach.
First, your hypotheses: with the exception of your sub-hypotheses on p. 25, your hypotheses are not stated in a researchable manner. They are neither specific enough to actually be testable, nor is it clear what the counter argument might be. (For example, on p. 21, you write that political opportunity structures are undeniably important! I think you are right about the importance of political opportunities but it is always a bad idea to hypothesize that something is “undeniable.” Moreover, your hypothesis would be much more helpful if it specified what kinds of political opportunities you think are key. And it would be even better if it was formulated in a way that took into account what you will actually be able to compare—the 3 districts in West Java: What kinds of variation is there in the 3 provinces that you might be able to make use of to nail down the role of political opportunities in either sparking the land occupations or in accounting for the dynamics of the occupations themselves?
A good place to begin this process would be with the table on p. 28, where you lay out the political opportunity structures in your 3 provinces. Currently, you suggest only comparing the pre- and post- 1998 periods. But don’t the political opportunities vary in the 3 districts, both before 1998 and afterwards? For example, aren’t there different potential allies in the 3 districts, and perhaps different divisions among the relevant political parties?
Second, it would be a good idea to expand the types of independent and dependent variables you consider. In the proposal, you essentially have the following independent variables:
Political opportunity structures (which I’m hoping you’ll specify further)
Type of land (forest lands, individual-private agricultural lands, plantation lands)
And the following dependent variables:
When the occupation occurred
Outcome of occupation (success, failure)
On the independent variable side, I think you should consider adding:
Repression (whether it occurred, what type it was)
Variables that measure the actual strategy and organization of the land occupation. I’m assuming that this varies, largely based on what I know about the MST. In Brazil, the MST requires that the community itself do all the necessary advance work for the occupation: find the resources, provide the food, make the plan, etc. If it is the same in Java, your project is a great opportunity to look at the effects of organizing strategy and things like leadership development on the outcome of the occupation. Doing so would be a very valuable for the social movements literature, but also for activists in the field!
On the dependent variable side, you might think about including:
How long the occupation lasted: after all, you might discover that one of the big differences between, say, occupations on forest lands and plantation lands is that it takes longer to succeed on forest lands.
In general, then, my advice is to broaden the variables you’ll consider and to think more about the ways you’ll use the variation in your districts and occupations to answer your research questions.
Best of luck as you go forward.
Paper grade: A
Course Grade: A
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