Resource Management Regimes Among the Swidden Agriculturalists of Borneo: Does the Concept of Common Property Adequately Map Indigenous Systems of Ownership?

Abstract

"The emergent nature of multiple interests over land and forest resources in the Rungus society of northern Borneo and their jural loci are analyzed and compared to the property systems of other swidden agriculturalists of Borneo: Kantu', Iban, Bulusu', Kenyah, and Bidayuh. In order to map faithfully the local contours of property systems, cross-culturally valid observational procedures are developed to distinguish the type of jural entity holding rights and the incidents of ownership. The variety of jural mechanisms a collection of individuals can utilize to manage multiple interests are illustrated by this comparison. Rights may be owned by a corporation, a corporate group, or by individuals, in the latter case jural collectivities and jural aggregates must be distinguished. The literature on 'common property systems' has not developed such formal observational procedures that isolate the dimensions of indigenous jural systems, and therefore tends to pose ethnocentric questions. And development planning proceeds in ignorance of local systems of property relations and their controls, thereby contributing to the degradation of resources as illustrated by cases in Borneo."