Abstract
Smallholder farmers are an important and interesting contributor to the economy, society and ecological relations of developing world countries. They are particularly interesting for both their potential economic contribution to regional and national wellbeing, but also their unique vulnerabilities to multiple pressures. This thesis examines how smallholder dairy farmers in Indonesia are resilient to these multiple pressures – particularly through the operation of high levels of social capital. The existing literature suggests that social capital has become an essential aspect for smallholders in the developing world to cope with and adapt to pressures and to respond to changes in economic, ecological and social dynamics. However, while social capital has been indicated as a key point of difference in the survival of smallholders, there has been a lack of research looking in more detail into the specific dynamics of social capital in supporting the resilience of smallholder dairy farmer communities. This knowledge gap has led the enquiry reported in this thesis to examine the role of social capital in one particular kind of case study: how smallholder dairy farmers in Indonesia manage to negotiate and sustain access to a common pool resource - agroforestry lands – which perform an essential role in supporting their dairy farming systems. The dynamics of access to lands held by completely different institutional actors, both in its initiation and its maintenance, provide a compelling case study of how social capital is central to the economic survival of smallholder farmers by facilitating and securing potential fragile ties and dependencies into an enduring resource base for dairy farming.
In addressing this gap, this thesis employs a theoretical framework that integrates the theory of social capital and community resilience. The framework deployed in this study characterizes both the way that social capital is embedded within social relations as well as the specific dynamics of social capital that are pivotal in establishing a resilient community. By employing qualitative methods, four smallholder dairy communities engaging with agroforestry practices in protected forest areas in West Java are explored as case studies in the dynamics of social capital that link smallholders to a vital external resource. From these case studies, empirical findings are derived which explore the operation and subtle dynamics of social capital that were indicated by the theoretical framework developed in the thesis.
This empirical results confirm that social capital has become a valuable asset to the survival of four communities in this study area. The theoretically-derived framework is used to characterize these dynamics into: structural social capital— social networks and formal rules, and cognitive social capital— trust and social norms. The results show that these two interconnected dimensions of social capital both facilitate collective actions through which the farmers can access various resources like fodder collection on protected forestry lands. The findings also identify specific dynamics of social capital in shaping the communities' ability to access agroforestry lands in three ways. Firstly, it is shown that social capital enables societies to have flexibility in developing resilience by providing affordable access to environmental capital. Secondly, social capital facilitates the communities to possess options for adapting to adversity by providing long-term access derived from a diversity of forest-origin resources and a secure land tenancy. Thirdly, social capital facilitates the learning capacity of the communities in deepening their awareness of sustainable forest management. These mechanisms have allowed the development of smallholder dairy farmers' resilience through the interplay between social capital and environmental capital (various forms of resources derived agroforestry lands), enabling the communities to accumulate and benefit from the resources and to mitigate forest-related natural disasters. In conclusion, the thesis both confirms the importance of social capital as a framework for understanding the resilience of smallholder farmers to multiple vulnerabilities. It also elaborates a particular framework for understanding the complex, specific, dynamics of social capital in enabling resilience in these communities. This conclusion informs particular policy recommendations which supersede the prior overly-simple focus on the development of economic capital or on specific technological interventions.