The politics of law and gender-skewing: the systematic weakening of indigenous women's property rights through legal formalization

Abstract

Background: This article analyzes the mechanisms and impacts of state legal intervention on the property rights of indigenous women in West Sumatra. Within Indonesia's legal pluralism, state-led legal formalization often collides with customary norms that protect matrilineal communal rights. While prior studies acknowledge this tension, they have not systematically linked the conservative character of macro-level politics of law with its gender-skewing impacts at the micro-level. This study fills that gap by examining how state legal formalization weakens women’s rights previously guaranteed by custom. Methods: This study employs a socio-legal approach grounded in a multi-layered theoretical framework, combining macro-level politics of law and micro-level gender-skewing analysis. Data were examined through an in-depth review of statutes, court decisions, and relevant literature. Findings: The results show that state intervention in land governance imposes a formalistic and bureaucratic validation process for customary rights. This process prioritizes written proof, certification, and individual registration, which are structurally misaligned with communal and matrilineal land tenure systems. As a result, women’s collective authority over pusako land becomes increasingly vulnerable to reinterpretation and reallocation under state law. Court decisions further reinforce individualized ownership models, indirectly legitimizing the transfer or fragmentation of communal assets. These dynamics illustrate how formalization, framed as legal certainty, systematically restructures power relations and diminishes women’s substantive control over property. Conclusion: Legal formalization transforms communal matrilineal rights into individualized property regimes, facilitating gender-skewing and marginalizing customary dispute resolution. Novelty/Originality of this Article: This research demonstrates that conservative politics of law at the macro-level directly contribute to the systematic weakening of indigenous women’s property rights at the micro-level.