Research interests/expertise

• Agricultural policy, agrarian change and land tenure
• Social capital, participation and environmental management
• Forest management, biodiversity conservation and climate change
• Natural resource conflict
• Politics, policy and natural resource governance in a developing context

Current projects

• "Oil Palm and Agrarian Transition on the Indonesian and Malaysian Frontiers". 
  (ARC discovery project)
• 'Social Capital, Natural Resources and Local Governance in Indonesia'
  (ARC discovery project)

Highlighted publications

• McCarthy, JF., Jacqueline A.C. Vel & Suraya Afiff (2012): Trajectories of land acquisition and enclosure: development schemes, virtual land grabs, and green acquisitions in Indonesia's Outer Islands, Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 521-549
• McCarthy, JF., P. Gillespie and Z. Zen (2012). "Swimming Upstream: Local Indonesian Production Networks in “Globalized” Palm Oil Production." World Development 40(3)
• McCarthy, JF. (2011) “The Limits of Legality: Governance, Extra-legality and Resource Control in Indonesia” in State and Illegality in Indonesia, KITLV Press edited by van Klinken and Aspinall
• McCarthy, JF. (2010) Processes of inclusion and adverse incorporation: oil palm and agrarian change in Sumatra, Indonesia, Journal of Peasant Studies, 37(4) pages 821 - 850
• McCarthy, JF. (2006) The Fourth Circle: A Political Ecology of Sumatra's Rainforest Frontier. Stanford University Press.
• McCarthy, JF. (2004) Changing to Gray: Decentralization and the Emergence of Volatile Socio-legal Configurations in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. World Development. 32(7) p. p. 1199-1223, July 2004.

Selected publications

• McCarthy, JF. and Moeliano, M., (2011) ‘The Post-Authoritarian Politics of Agrarian and Forest Reform in Indonesia’ In Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Politics, Richard Robison (ed), Routledge.
• McCarthy, JF. and Z Zen. (2010) Regulating the Oil Palm Boom: Assessing the Effectiveness of Environmental Governance Approaches to Agro-industrial Pollution in Indonesia Law & Policy 32(1) p 153-179
• McCarthy, JF. and R.A Cramp (2009) Policy narratives, landholder engagement, and oil palm expansion on the Malaysian and Indonesian frontiers, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 175, No. 2, pp. 112-123.
• McCarthy, JF. (2007) Shifting Resource Entitlements and Governance Reform During the Agrarian Transition in Sumatra, Indonesia. Journal of Legal Pluralism Nr 55. p65-122 2007
• McCarthy, JF. (2007) "The Demonstration Effect: Natural Resources, Ethnonationalism and the Aceh Conflict" Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (28) 314-333.
  
• McCarthy, JF. (2007) “Sold Down the River: Renegotiating Public Power over Nature in Central Kalimantan”. In ‘Renegotiating Boundaries: Local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia. KITLV Press, 2005. Edited by Henk Schulte Nordholt and Gerry van Klinken.
• McCarthy JF and Z Zen (2007) Learning from King Canute: policy approaches to biodiversity conservation, lessons from the Leuser Ecosystem In Biodiversity and Human Livelihoods in Protected Areas. Case Studies from the Malay Archipelago. Ed by Navjot S. Sodhi, Gregy Acciaioli, Maribeth Erb and Alan Khee-Jin Tan Cambridge University Press.
• McCarthy, JF (2000) Local Voice in Shifting Modes of Decentralised Resource Control in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia Resource Management in the Asia Pacific, Working Paper No 65.
• Barr, C.; Resosudarmo, I. A. P.; Dermawan, A.; McCarthy, J.F.; Moeliono, M.; Setiono, B. 2006 'Decentralization of forest administration in Indonesia: implications for forest sustainability, economic development and community livelihoods', Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia.
• McCarthy, JF (2000) The Changing Regime: Forest Property and Reformasi in Indonesia. Development and Change,Vol. 31, No. 1, January 2000, p91-129.

Selected books

• Warren, C & McCarthy, JF (2008) (2008) Community, Environment and Local Governance in Indonesia, Locating the commonweal.
• McCarthy, JF (2006) The Fourth Circle: A Political Ecology of Sumatra's Rainforest Frontier. Stanford University Press.

Teaching

• EMDV 8101 - State, Society and Natural Resources
• CRWF8016 - Food Wars: Food Security and Agricultural Policy

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