A Forest Runs Through It: Gendered Work and Forest Transformations in Mountain Java

Based on research in a montane forest region of East Java, this article shows how women's and men's work as forest subjects has changed with the changing of the forest and the politics of gendered labour on and off the forest. We examine three conjunctures in the past century when the montane forests were sequentially constituted as subsistence forests, plantation forests and remittance forests. Our narrative is guided by the notion of a locally and globally situated Plantation–Migration Nexus in each conjuncture. We explore the dynamic interplay between changing plantation regimes (labour systems, access rules and ecological composition) and modalities of human migration (circular, transnational and state-directed). Each of these moments witnessed changes in the forest combined with the gendered politics of forest access and control. These in turn resulted in changes in the definition and practice of gendered forest work, production and social reproduction, and social and power relations between forest plantation workers and managers.