This book documents conflicts over control of the sources of livelihood in several parts of East Java through three main sections. The first section highlights agrarian inequality in Ijen, Bondowoso, where plantation workers and farmers have lived for generations without secure land rights and face conflicts with state-owned plantations and the expansion of geothermal projects.
The second section discusses the water crisis in Batu City. Water, which should belong to everyone, has become a commodity controlled by a handful of people. At the same time, the tourism industry and geothermal projects in Arjuno-Welirang and Songgoriti threaten the springs that sustain local livelihoods, identity, and culture.
The third section portrays the tangled web of energy infrastructure in the Tapal Kuda region, Gunung Pandan, and Gunung Wilis. From colonial plantations and coal-fired power plants to biomass co-firing and geothermal projects, extractivism continues to change its face while perpetuating the same pattern: the seizure of living space and the displacement of communities.
Taken as a whole, this book poses a fundamental question: who has the right to control the sources of livelihood? Land, water, forests, and energy have become arenas of contestation between the state and corporations, on the one hand, and communities whose lives and cultures depend on these territories, on the other.