Formulating new plantation studies. Nature/non-nature relations in Borneo

The distinction between what constitutes a social and a natural domain continues to make communication for researchers in these two areas an uneasy task. The current confluence of geosphere, biosphere, and human society under global capitalism, however, is too important to be addressed in any way other than through a trans-disciplinary approach. We can no longer afford to be in isolation and separation when investigating relations between natural and social systems. In this article, I would like to introduce our challenge to conventional anthropocentric perspectives in the social sciences by examining connections and changing relations between nature and non-nature. We do so in one part of Southeast Asia that is under spatial reconfiguration through the dispossession of biomass and land.

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