Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Rooted resistance: Gendered narratives of land dispossession and planetary health in Central Java

Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Education dan Gender, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper explores the intersections between land system changes and planetary health through a decolonial feminist lens, foregrounding women’s voices from Central Java, Indonesia. Drawing on testimonies from five women environmental defenders - traditional midwives, interfaith activists, Catholic leaders, peasant mothers, and grassroots educators - the research situates reproductive health, ecological integrity, and spiritual resistance within community-led responses to ecological injustice. It highlights how large-scale development projects such as dams, mining, hotel construction, and corporate agriculture intersect with socio-religious hierarchies to degrade women’s sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) and the planetary life systems they steward. Central to this study is the use of decolonising methodologies that position women as co-creators of knowledge, not merely subjects of research. Through narrative inquiry and contextualised analysis, this paper challenges dominant technocratic and Eurocentric discourses in planetary health, which often marginalise indigenous knowledge systems and gendered labor. The testimonies reveal how women’s care work - such as planting, cooking, healing, and educating - becomes a radical act of environmental stewardship and resistance to both environmental degradation and colonial-capitalist modes of development. Theoretically, this study bridges decolonial feminist thought with environmental humanities, offering a model of planetary health rooted in relational ontologies, cultural memory, and intersectional justice. It contends that reclaiming local epistemologies - embedded in Muslim, Catholic, indigenous Samin, and peasant cosmologies - can reconcile land system transformations with ecological and reproductive justice. By centering the voices of Javanese women who resist land dispossession, the research advances inclusive pathways for reimagining planetary health, where land, body, water, and belief are inseparable domains of identity.

Keywords: Decolonial feminism, ecological injustice, indigenous knowledge, land system change, planetary health, SRHR, women’s stories

Contact Address: Dewi Candraningrum, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Education dan Gender, Jl A. Yani Tromol Pos 1, 57162 Surakarta, Indonesia, e-mail: dcandraningrumgmail.com