Agrarian Transitions in Sarawak: Intensification and Expansion Reconsidered

Abstract

Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo, has experienced the rapid conversion of forested land to large‐scale plantation agriculture in the past two decades, suggesting that capitalist agricultural expansion has been the driving force in the agrarian transition taking place. This paper draws on the seminal work of Ester Boserup to re‐examine the notions of agricultural intensification and expansion as they apply to agrarian change in a sparsely populated frontier territory such as Sarawak. By adopting a more detailed historical and geographical perspective, it is possible to discern three major agrarian transitions in Sarawak – the transition to shifting cultivation, the transition to smallholder cash crops, and the transition to large‐scale plantation agriculture. These transitions are partly overlapping in time and space, resulting in a layering, not only of different land‐use systems, but also of claims to tenure and territory, giving rise to a more highly contested and differentiated landscape than implied in a simple view of agricultural expansion. The paper concludes that expansionist agrarian policies that fail to acknowledge this complex historical and geographical layering invariably encounter the kinds of conflict, resistance, and losses experienced during the third agrarian transition in Sarawak.