Access in a global rattan production network: a case study of rattan originating from Central Sulawesi, Indonesia and upgraded for sale in international markets

Forests and forest users are increasingly engaged in global scale markets that connect different stages of commodity production and retail. This thesis adopts a Global Production Network framing in order to investigate the case of rattan cane and furniture. I examine the ways in which actors benefit from rattan (a non-timber forest product) and elucidate power dynamics that explain how some actors are better positioned to benefit from rattan than others. My conceptual framework combines the literature on access with global production networks. I explore access starting in the forests of Sulawesi, Indonesia, moving to processing in larger centres in Sulawesi and Java, and ending in retail shops in the UK. This approach enables an analysis of rich mixed-method empirical data. My main findings centre around Indonesia’s rattan export ban, which benefited only elites and served to support the overall decline of global rattan furniture markets. Further, I elucidate the influence that access at one phase of production has on another and highlight understandings of access within the context of the greater production system. While most actors engage in activities and trading relations that serve access to markets, non-actors enable these actions, but for different benefits, such as strengthened authority. Lastly, I link aspects of materiality to access, demonstrating how the biogeophysical features of rattan shape actors’ ability to benefit from natural resource products and how markets shape material features of rattan. These findings are significant to the greater bodies of knowledge around the power dynamics of production networks and show the specific mechanisms by which elites capture benefits of rattan. They demonstrate the importance of appreciating the complexity of production networks, which in this case was ill-considered by policy makers and even industry elites themselves.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of East Anglia

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Myers, Rodd

Language dc:language

en