Geoforum 132 (2022) 92–102 Available online 27 April 2022 0016-7185/© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Land reform rationalities and their governance effects in Indonesia: Provoking land politics or addressing adverse formalisation? John F McCarthy a, * , Ahmad Dhiaulhaq b , Suraya Afff c , Kathryn Robinson a a Australian National University, Australia b Leiden University, the Netherlands c University of Indonesia, Indonesia A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Land tenure Agrarian reform Social forestry Land governance Indigenous rights Indonesia ABSTRACT While land remains a critical element of diversifed rural livelihoods across the Global South, especially during crises, mounting inequalities and enduring rural vulnerability lead to demands for redress. In response, rival reform ideas have emerged concerning how to improve land governance, drive rural development and rectify distributional injustices. Yet, reformist programs in Southeast Asia struggle to address the pervasive problem of ‘adverse formalization’ – a term we use to describe processes where the state claims sovereign control of extensive ‘public lands’ and embarks on formalization processes that include local populations into new land- based production systems on adverse terms. Using the natural experiment of Indonesia, where four tenurial reforms coincide, this paper draws on the governmentality literature to examine how travelling tenure knowl- edges work as rival and ambiguous political rationalities. We demonstrate how political economy, the need for political legitimacy, and frictional encounters between political knowledges, interests and practices shape the governance effects produced by tenure rationalities. Formalisation processes institutionalise state governance in areas previously resistant to such political rationalities, stabilise existing property relations, and accommodate ad hoc settlements without substantially resolving adverse formalisation while provoking a new politics of land. 1. Introduction Land remains a critical element of rural livelihoods across the Global South. The safety net provided by agriculture remains essential for households, even after they have moved into diversifed or more ‘modern’ occupations that may offer only precarious livelihoods (Pritchard, Rammohan and Vicol, 2019; Rigg, Salamanca and Thomp- son, 2016). Economic disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, intensify rural vulnerabilities and increase reliance on the safety net provided by farming. However, with states claiming ‘ownership’ over large land areas across the Global South irrespective of longstanding but undocumented rights, state assertions of sovereignty are associated with large-scale land acquisitions, concession licensing and land commodi- fcation processes that decrease smallholder control over land (Wolford et al., 2013; Kelly and Peluso, 2015). 1 Where tenure formalisation processes exclude smallholders or include them into production systems (plantations, mining) on adverse terms, mounting inequalities lead to demands for redress. A large body of research has reported positive links between improved land tenure security, human well-being and environmental outcomes (Tseng et al., 2021). Scholars have focused on the possibilities of mitigating, renegotiating, blocking, or rolling back large-scale land transfers (Borras, Franco and Wang, 2013) ‘after the land grab’(Li, 2018). Current state strategies to pursue land reforms draw on global ‘travelling ideas’ that variously aim to enhance tenure security by: converting vernacular forms of tenure into freehold title; providing legal recognition of customary arrangements; or granting usufruct rights to user groups under social forestry initiatives. The emergence of new forms of international scrutiny for global capital has also led to gover- nance regimes such as industry codes of conduct that aim to operate alongside or even despite state policies. Michel Foucault’s (1991) work on governmentality provides a framework for understanding the political reasons and rationalities of government behind tenurial reforms. Political rationalities rely on travelling knowledges in claiming legitimacy, asserting effectiveness, and providing moral justifcations for exercising power. They classify, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: john.mccarthy@anu.edu.au (J.F. McCarthy). 1 Sovereignty refers to a bundle of powers held by the state and involves the idea that property should be regulated on behalf of the people (see Ripstein, 2017). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoforum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.008 Received 20 December 2019; Received in revised form 6 April 2022; Accepted 11 April 2022