Making Landscapes Extractable: Epistemic Politics and Relational Ecologies in Ayu Welirang's Jejak Balak and Ayu Utami's Bilangan Fu

Ardianta Selasa, September 15, 2026
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FORMOSA NEWS

How Indonesian Novels Reveal the Knowledge Regimes Turning Living Landscapes into Extractable Resources

Before physical machinery alters a landscape through deforestation or mining, complex systems of classification, law, and administrative authority must first frame the land as an extractable resource. This core mechanism is revealed in a comparative literary study published in August 2026 by Dr. Heru S.P. Saputra and a team of researchers from Universitas Jember and Universitas PGRI Banyuwangi. By analyzing two prominent Indonesian novels—Ayu Welirang's Jejak Balak and Ayu Utami's Bilangan Fu—the researchers demonstrate how epistemic politics and legal-bureaucratic infrastructures transform forests and karst mountains into exploitable commodities. The study offers critical insights for environmental governance, demonstrating that ecological crises stem not only from physical damage, but also from how societies define, value, and authorize control over nature.

The Hidden Mechanisms Behind Ecological Degradation

Environmental destruction is widely recognized through visible symptoms such as deforestation, soil erosion, and flooding. However, the institutional and intellectual processes that enable these physical transformations remain less understood. In Indonesia, rapid land-use changes often trigger intense conflicts between corporate interests, state authorities, and local communities.

The research addresses this challenge by examining how landscapes become epistemically legible as property or concessions before extraction takes place. Customary forests are reclassified into government-released land (lahan lepasan) and commercial exploitation rights (Hak Guna Usaha or HGU), while ancient limestone karst topographies are detached from local hydrological systems to become licensed mining zones. Understanding these underlying administrative and conceptual conversions is essential for evaluating environmental policies and territorial rights.

Methodological Approach to Literature and Political Ecology

To investigate these processes, Dr. Heru S.P. Saputra and the research team conducted a comparative qualitative analysis using 68 analytically salient textual units extracted from Jejak Balak (2023) and Bilangan Fu (2008). The methodology integrated close reading with analytical frameworks from critical resource geography, ecocriticism, and political ontology.

Rather than treating literature as mere fiction or static representation, the team analyzed how narrative structures depict competing systems of knowledge and authority. The researchers evaluated textual passages detailing legal language, technical forestry monitoring, geological surveys, local rituals, and corporate strategies, tracing how different forms of knowledge validate or resist resource extraction.

Key Findings on Epistemic Politics and Extraction

The comparative analysis revealed four major findings regarding the production of extractability and ecological knowledge:

  • Prior Authorization of Extraction: Physical resource extraction is consistently preceded by legal classification, boundary mapping, and discursive framing that isolate natural elements from their broader social and ecological systems.
  • Institutional Contingency of Knowledge: Scientific expertise and technical data do not inherently favor extraction or conservation. Technical monitoring and geological science can expose environmental vulnerabilities and support conservation, whereas local cultural practices can sometimes be co-opted by corporate entities to facilitate mining projects.
  • Agency of Non-Human Entities: Natural entities—such as limestone formations, subterranean water systems, and ancestral forest guardians (Inyiak)—actively shape human narrative understanding, setting physical and ethical boundaries to human action.
  • Ontological Dimensions of Conflict: Resource disputes escalate into ontological conflicts when opposing parties disagree on the fundamental nature of the landscape itself, contrasting land viewed strictly as private property against land understood as an interconnected living ecosystem.

Real-World Impact and Policy Implications

The findings carry direct implications for environmental policymakers, legal experts, and civil society organizations. By demonstrating that environmental conflicts are rooted in competing knowledge regimes, the study highlights the necessity of incorporating customary territorial rights and local ecological understandings into official land-use planning.

"Landscapes become extractable not merely through material removal, but through classification, valuation, legal authorization, and their transformation into property or concession space," states Dr. Heru S.P. Saputra of Universitas Jember. "Addressing ecological degradation requires examining the epistemic and political infrastructures that grant authority to specific ways of knowing and governing the environment."

Relying solely on standardized technical assessments often obscures complex local ecological dependencies. Furthermore, the study positions Indonesian contemporary literature as a vital framework for advancing global environmental theory, proving that creative works can offer rigorous models for understanding political ecology.

Author Profile

Dr. Heru S.P. Saputra, M.Hum., is an academic and researcher in the Department of Indonesian Literature at Universitas Jember, Indonesia, specializing in literary sociology, ecocriticism, and ethnoscience. He co-authored this research with Wiwin Indiarti from Universitas PGRI Banyuwangi, alongside Titik Maslikatin, Edy Hariyadi, L. Dyah Purwita Wardani, and Ulil Lauhul Mahfudah from Universitas Jember.

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