59
The system of payment to SPP remained provisory, but with the smallholders’ return to the contested lands in 2010, all kampungs of
Harumandala also began to contribute to the Village Office to the tune of
1,000,000 Rupiah annually. At first, the Village Office, its mayor and its
elected parliamentarians were reluctant to receive the funds. They were
unsure whether they were entitled to recover tax, and what it would mean
to accept it, but after some negotiation the Village Government of
Harumandala accepted the money at a public ceremony. While still perceived as illegal occupants by the State Forest Corporation, smallholders
were also beginning to be seen as taxpaying, voting, registered, Indonesian
citizens. Their ‘contribution’, or tax, established a new substantive relationship between them as landholders and the formal structures of the
Indonesian government at its lowest level, the Village Office. It remains to
be seen what this new relationship represents. One might argue that this
relationship not only established the SPP landholders as owners of property in the eyes of the Village Office; it also established the Village Office
as a public authority on questions of property in land that was classified as
forest. As the smallholders made claims to resources, they also invoked
public authority in the Village Office. Tax collection attributed to it governing capacity and the authority to validate land claims. This may, eventually, put the Village Office in competition with other statutory
institutions.
5.3
reflectionS
Accountability is a form of communication between people and institutions where one is held to account by the other. Parts of the scholarship
distinguish between upward and downward accountability (Fox 2018).
Upward accountability would involve acknowledgement of an authority
to sanction or validate operations or claims, whereas downward accountability refers to the institution of authority being responsible to the general public for their actions. While the directionality of accountability is
important, the case from Indonesia suggests that they may indeed be coconstitutive. When the villagers shifted from payment of rent as tenants to
one part of government (the Corporation), to payment of a community
tax to another part of government (the lowest level assembly and government), they not only morphed from undercover tenants to enfranchised
citizens, but also invoked capacities in the village government that it had
not had before. By deliberately and publicly complying with the idea of
5 A FEW REFLECTIONS ON ACCOUNTABILITY
The system of payment to SPP remained provisory, but with the smallholders’ return to the contested lands in 2010, all kampungs of
Harumandala also began to contribute to the Village Office to the tune of
1,000,000 Rupiah annually. At first, the Village Office, its mayor and its
elected parliamentarians were reluctant to receive the funds. They were
unsure whether they were entitled to recover tax, and what it would mean
to accept it, but after some negotiation the Village Government of
Harumandala accepted the money at a public ceremony. While still perceived as illegal occupants by the State Forest Corporation, smallholders
were also beginning to be seen as taxpaying, voting, registered, Indonesian
citizens. Their ‘contribution’, or tax, established a new substantive relationship between them as landholders and the formal structures of the
Indonesian government at its lowest level, the Village Office. It remains to
be seen what this new relationship represents. One might argue that this
relationship not only established the SPP landholders as owners of property in the eyes of the Village Office; it also established the Village Office
as a public authority on questions of property in land that was classified as
forest. As the smallholders made claims to resources, they also invoked
public authority in the Village Office. Tax collection attributed to it governing capacity and the authority to validate land claims. This may, eventually, put the Village Office in competition with other statutory
institutions.
5.3
reflectionS
Accountability is a form of communication between people and institutions where one is held to account by the other. Parts of the scholarship
distinguish between upward and downward accountability (Fox 2018).
Upward accountability would involve acknowledgement of an authority
to sanction or validate operations or claims, whereas downward accountability refers to the institution of authority being responsible to the general public for their actions. While the directionality of accountability is
important, the case from Indonesia suggests that they may indeed be coconstitutive. When the villagers shifted from payment of rent as tenants to
one part of government (the Corporation), to payment of a community
tax to another part of government (the lowest level assembly and government), they not only morphed from undercover tenants to enfranchised
citizens, but also invoked capacities in the village government that it had
not had before. By deliberately and publicly complying with the idea of
5 A FEW REFLECTIONS ON ACCOUNTABILITY