In the mountains of Java, forests are being reconstituted and reconfigured by unexpected constituents: the daughters and wives of contracted forest workers and other forest villagers.  Working as transnational domestic laborers in Hong Kong and other prosperous Asian cities, many invest their accumulated wages in rural resources, remaking forest lands to suit new investments.  Dr. Peluso's  talk will examine some of the dynamics set in motion by remittances as these new forest politics are playing out in East Java, Indonesia.

Nancy Lee Peluso is the Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. She will also be speaking at the Seattle Art Museum on March 2nd as part of the Saturday University series.