Making Landscapes Extractable: Epistemic Politics and Relational Ecologies in Ayu Welirang’s Jejak Balak and Ayu Utami’s Bilangan Fu
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Environmental degradation is not only material but also epistemic-political: landscapes must be classified, valued, and authorized before extraction becomes legitimate. This study compares Ayu Welirang’s Jejak Balak and Ayu Utami’s Bilangan Fu to examine how forest and karst landscapes become extractable, protectable, or relationally inhabitable. Using comparative qualitative literary analysis, page-by-page screening, close reading, and deductive–inductive coding, 68 analytically salient textual units were interpreted. Findings show that extractivism operates through infrastructures of knowledge and authority that render landscapes ownable and governable. Yet ecological knowledge is politically contingent: scientific expertise may support protection, while ritual or local knowledge may be co-opted. Indonesian fiction thus becomes a site for theorizing extractability, relational ecology, and conditional ontological conflict
DOI: 10.55927/djb1k109
Institutions: Universitas Jember, Universitas Pgri Banyuwangi
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7204812083