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13.8. Edge Effects: Salt-Making Landscapes of Indonesian Timor

Gillian Bogart (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Abstract

In hopes of boosting the national economy, the Indonesian government has deemed salt a strategic commodity, vowing to halt importation, industrialize production, and iodize all consumption salt. Kupang Bay, located in the Indonesian half of Timor Island, has been identified as an important site for the expansion of salt production. However, the official campaign for national salt self-sufficiency has revealed conflicting understandings of what salt is and how it figures into the lives of different populations.  My paper will shed light on the ways in which conceptions of both disparity and potential held by government officials impact local salt-making communities, their social practices, and the landscape they live on.  I insist that the practices and knowledge formations of salt-producing and consuming communities, and salt itself, have implications for how national policies and initiatives such as this are both framed and implemented.  As I am in the early phases of my research, the paper I will present is a prolegomenon for the dissertation research project that I will undertake later this year.