Michelle Ann Miller - National University of Singapore

Michelle Ann Miller - National University of Singapore
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Michelle Ann Miller
National University of Singapore
Asia Research Institute
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I am an interdisciplinary social scientist working at the science-policy interface of environmental governance. My research on emerging spaces and boundaries of environmental governance, social justice, conflict resolution and urbanisation has developed through my sustained engagement over the past two decades with the political and ecological transformation of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia.
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Refereed journal articles by Michelle Ann Miller
A transboundary agenda for nature-based solutions across sectors, scales and disciplines: Insights from carbon projects in Southeast Asia
Ambio
, 2024
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are integral to efforts to keep global warming below 2°C in accordan...
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Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are integral to efforts to keep global warming below 2°C in accordance with the United Nations' 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Yet the transboundary governance dimensions of NbS remain unclear and largely undocumented. In Southeast Asia, NbS have emphasised the conservation and/ or sustainable commodification of carbon sinks found in terrestrial and mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, peatlands and agricultural soils. Mostly project-driven and fixed-term, these ''solutions'' have often failed to meet their social and ecological objectives. Increasingly, they have added to cross-border problems of: (1) displaced carbon emissions; and (2) economic migration and societal dispossession. This perspective paper delineates a transboundary governance research agenda to mitigate these trade-offs and enhance the co-benefits of NbS in carbon sinks. Building on NbS literature, it identifies crosssector, multi-scalar and interdisciplinary pathways to improve transboundary cooperation, inclusion and equity in carbon sink governance in varying Southeast Asian contexts.
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Southeast Asia's 11 countries encompass 196 million hectares of terrestrial forests, showing significant potential for scalable NbS actions in carbon sinks.
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Carbon Territoriality at the Land-Water Interface
Global Environmental Change
, 2025
Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatla...
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Large volumes of organic carbon are stored in wetland ecosystems such as mangrove forests, peatlands, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change are transforming the governance of these naturally saturated carbon sinks. Scientific and market valuations of wetlands as carbon have prompted diverse experimentation with carbon sequestration projects and offset programs. These activities may displace wetland-reliant communities and add to societal equalities. This perspective paper develops the concept of carbon territoriality to explore emerging spaces of climate governance in wetlands. It moves beyond terracentric policy debates tied to fixed and flat landscapes by integrating literature on the dynamic (sub)surface and atmospheric territorial dimensions of carbon. It posits that combining scientific knowledge of fixed carbon stocks with the inherited knowledge of coastal and riparian communities about fluid land-water connections could foster more inclusive and equitable forms of climate stewardship within biogeophysically relevant boundaries.
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Existing terrestrial governance frameworks inadequately address wetland carbon flows, risking displacement of local knowledge systems.
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Leveraging plural valuations of mangroves for climate interventions in Indonesia
by
Michelle Ann Miller
and
Prayoto Tonoto
Sustainability Science
, 2023
Mangrove forests are globally significant blue carbon sinks that remain critically under-governed...
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Mangrove forests are globally significant blue carbon sinks that remain critically under-governed and under threat. In Indonesia, the rapid rate of mangrove loss over the past three decades, combined with the promise of these carbon-dense ecosystems to mitigate climate change impacts, has catalyzed the world's largest replanting program. Institutional and ideological divisions between advocates of conservation and commodification approaches to mangrove governance, however, have historically compromised Indonesia's ability to meet its climate commitments. Market valuations of mangroves as blue carbon have further complicated their governance by opening up new opportunities for environmental collaboration and resource exploitation. Drawing on the concept of leverage points, this study examines how plural valuations of mangroves might be applied to sustainability interventions in Riau Province, Indonesia. Using document analysis and interviews with public, private and societal stakeholders, we examine how sector-level values translate into collaborative actions through mangrove partnerships. We posit that integrating indigenous knowledge and place-based values into mangrove policy development could help to address the existing conservation-commodification divide. As plural values are mutually transformative, we argue that recognizing areas of strategic compatibility creates space for flexible and adaptive cross-sector cooperation. Such recognition is especially important for mangrove communities, whose marginal socioeconomic position reinforces their need to remain ideologically and tactfully open to areas of compatibility with shifting market valuations, both to sustainably develop locally important resources and to avoid livelihood capture by predatory development interests.
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Riau Province aims to replant 600,000 ha of mangroves by 2024 amidst conflicting values between conservation and development.
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Closing the loop or widening the gap? The unequal politics of Thailand's circular economy in addressing marine plastic pollution
Journal of Cleaner Production
, 2023
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Inequities in governance perpetuate societal inequalities within the circular economy framework, which primarily focuses on material waste management.
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A transboundary political ecology of air pollution: Slow violence on Thailand's margins
Environmental Policy and Governance
, 2022
This study develops a transboundary political ecology of air pollution to show how its spatially ...
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This study develops a transboundary political ecology of air pollution to show how its spatially and socially unequal distribution constitutes a form of slow violence among already marginal sections of society. Recent research on transboundary air pollution in Southeast Asia and globally has mainly focused on the supranational or regional scale of environmental governance without taking into proper account the socially differentiated impacts of these cross-border flows of environmental harm at lower organisational scales. Air pollution in Thailand, which ranks amongst the worst in the world, generates spill-over effects across sub-national borders that disproportionately impact the urban and rural poor. We examine the drivers of the three major sources of air pollution in Thailand: vehicular emissions, agricultural emissions and industrial emissions to direct attention toward the barriers and opportunities for collaborative governance in urban, peri-urban and rural settings. The article argues that administrative fragmentation and the protection of vested economic interests by Thai business and political elites have compromised transboundary governance of the air while adding to socio-spatial inequalities and environmental injustices. We recommend legislative reforms centred on crosssectoral and cross-jurisdictional cooperation to provide redress for the slow violence perpetrated against marginal citizens in the governance of air pollution.
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In 2019, Thailand faced 32,200 premature deaths from air pollution, reducing life expectancy by 2 years, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
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Making illegality visible: The governance dilemmas created by visualising illegal palm oil plantations in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Land Use Policy
, 2022
This study focuses on how Indonesia’s One Map Policy renders illegal palm oil plantations in Indo...
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This study focuses on how Indonesia’s One Map Policy renders illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia visible and the governance dilemmas this creates. Using Central Kalimantan as a case study, we first draw on spatial data to visualise the extent of illegal palm oil plantations on forest land. The vast majority of illegal palm oil is large plantations, with illegal independent smallholdings constituting just 0.4%. We then draw on key stakeholder interviews to analyse the governance dilemmas such visualisations create. We explore stakeholder perspectives of the new Omnibus Law and other attempts to legalise illegality. Four governance scenarios that emphasise the interests of either business, smallholders, environments, or adopt a multi-stakeholder perspective are developed and measured according to their different social and ecological land use implications. In the interests of promoting sustainable and effective governance for forests, peatlands and palm oil production, we caution against the pro-business option currently favoured by the Indonesian government that aims to legalise illegal plantations and which risks the reassignment of forests for commercial production. Our article outlines alternative policy solutions, including an approach that seeks to balance business and environmental interests while also paying heed to sustainable development needs. This approach could be applied in other contexts similarly struggling with the governance dilemmas about what to do when widespread land use illegalities are made visible.
Sustainable development of carbon sinks? Lessons from three types of peatland partnerships in Indonesia
Sustainable Development
, 2022
Peatland conversion for agriculture is the leading cause of Indonesia's terrestrial carbon emissi...
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Peatland conversion for agriculture is the leading cause of Indonesia's terrestrial carbon emissions that contribute substantially to global warming. Indonesia's peatlands contain 55-57 billion tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of almost 2 years of global carbon emissions at existing rates. This paper examines initiatives to retain soil-based carbon in Indonesia's province of Riau, where over half the surface area is composed of agriculturally productive peatlands. We qualitatively evaluate three types of partnership programmes (bilateral, co-governed and internationally funded local initiatives) in Riau aimed at the sustainable development of peatlands. The article finds that carbon loss is likely to persist in all case studies. Public, private and civil society actors in each partnership have exploited funding and political opportunities to advance agendas not directly related to the environment. The administrative category of the peatland hydrological unit as an ecologically meaningful scale of peatland governance is also under-utilised by the partnerships studied.
Hydrosocial rupture: causes and consequences for transboundary governance
by
Michelle Ann Miller
and
Carl Middleton
Ecology and Society
, 2021
Unsustainable models of growth-based development are pushing aquatic ecologies outside known hist...
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Unsustainable models of growth-based development are pushing aquatic ecologies outside known historical ranges and destabilizing human activities that have long depended on them. We develop the concept of hydrosocial rupture to explore how humanwater resource connections change when they are exposed to cumulative development pressures. The research analyzes stakeholder perceptions of hydrosocial ruptures in two sites in Southeast Asia: (1) peatlands in Riau Province, Indonesia, and (2) Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia. In both contexts, capital-driven processes have reconfigured human-water resource connections to generate transgressive social and environmental consequence that cannot be contained within administrative units or property boundaries. Our findings show how these ruptured hydrosocial relations are perceived and acted upon by the most proximate users of water resources. In Cambodia, a policy of resettlement has sought to thin hydrosocial relations in response to biodiversity loss, chronic pollution. and changing hydrology in Tonle Sap Lake. By contrast, in Indonesia's Riau Province, efforts are underway to thicken human-water relations by hydrologically rehabilitating peatlands drained for agricultural development. We argue that in both of these contexts hydrosocial ruptures should be understood as phenomena of transboundary governance that cannot be addressed by individual groups of users, sectors, or jurisdictions.
A Transboundary Political Ecology of Volcanic Sand Mining
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
, 2022
Sand, the main ingredient of cement, glass, and asphalt, is being mined for urban development and...
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Sand, the main ingredient of cement, glass, and asphalt, is being mined for urban development and global production at a pace that exceeds natural renewal. Yet research on the sustainability of sand mining has concentrated on extraction rates and socioecological impacts in rivers and coastlines. The potential of active volcanoes to generate a renewable supply of sand through cyclical or intermittent eruptions has been understudied, as have the asymmetrical power relations that animate around this dangerous but financially lucrative industry. This article uses a transboundary political ecology framework to examine the geographically dispersed development interests that drive volcanic sand mining on Mount Merapi, Indonesia's most active stratovolcano. I argue that to make Mount Merapi's volcanic sand trade more sustainable, collaborative forms of environmental governance are needed to bridge critical gaps in knowledge about industry practices that create environmental impacts extending well beyond the volcano's slopes. I develop this argument through three sets of transboundary political ecology themes centered on (1) knowledge boundaries that inform differentiated place-based practices; (2) the transboundary governance dilemma posed by disconnects between upstream mining practices and downstream environmental impacts; and (3) the potential of cross-border governance networks to collaboratively address these policy deficits.
Market-based commons: Social agroforestry, fire mitigation strategies and green supply chains in Indonesia's peatlands
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
, 2022
This article develops the transboundary concept of market-based commons to explore how partial an...
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This article develops the transboundary concept of market-based commons to explore how partial and incomplete privatisation measures are contributing to the creation, operation and maintenance of common property in agrarian societies embedded in global economies. Focusing on Indonesia's Riau province, I show how transboundary publics and geographically dispersed users of peatland resources collectively engage in environmental stewardship around sustainable forms of peatland development and activities aimed at mitigating the socioecological costs of growth. The article explores three types of peatland commons centred on social agroforestry using paludiculture (wet cultivation) techniques, fire mitigation strategies and green supply chains around sustainable peatland products. I argue that while these market-based commons are still in their infancy, they inscribe a specific set of transboundary Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved governance relationships that seek to reform rather than resist capitalism by promoting both the protective and productive functions of carbon-rich peatlands as profitable environmental goods of public value.
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Riau's peatland ecosystem services cover 54% of its area, yet lack official support, revealing stark policy disconnect.
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The geopolitical economy of Thailand's marine plastic pollution crisis
Asia Pacific Viewpoint
, 2020
Currently approximately 9 million tons of plastic enter the world's oceans annually. This is a ma...
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Currently approximately 9 million tons of plastic enter the world's oceans annually. This is a major transboundary problem on a global scale that threatens marine wildlife, coastal ecologies, human health and livelihoods. Our concern in this paper is with the environmental governance of marine plastic pollution that emanates from Thailand, the sixth biggest contributor globally. By zooming in on land-based polluters in Thailand, we highlight both the systemic nature of the marine plastic problem and the relative impunity with which drivers of transboundary environmental harm function at all levels of governance. Drawing from 19 interviews conducted with actors from the public, private and non-profit sectors, we examine three stages of the problem: production, consumption and waste management. We found that three major barriers prevent Thailand's government, private sector and citizens from engaging in the sort collective action needed to reduce marine plastic pollution. They are: (i) insufficient incentives to enact political change; (ii) scalar disconnects in waste management; and (iii) inadequate public and private sector ownership over plastic waste reduction. As the state alone cannot change corporate and consumer behaviour, we argue that multi-stakeholder efforts across organisational scales of governance and administrative boundaries are needed to address the barriers.
Governing resilient cities for planetary flourishing in the Asia-Pacific
Urban Studies
, 2020
For the first time in 2019, the Asia-Pacific became a majority urban region. The unprecedented pa...
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For the first time in 2019, the Asia-Pacific became a majority urban region. The unprecedented pace and magnitude of urbanisation across Asia and the Pacific has exposed tens of millions of urban residents to heightened risks and vulnerabilities associated with the expanding ecological footprint of urban energy, food and water demands and the increasingly severe effects of global climate change. This special issue directs attention toward the challenges, innovations and examples of best practice in environmental governance for urban resilience in the Asia-Pacific region. Our understanding of urban resilience is tied to the concept of planetary flourishing that links the health and well-being of urban populations with sustainability behaviours that promote regenera-tion of the biosphere while redistributing environmental risks and benefits in more socially inclusive and equitable ways.
Hybrid Governance of Transboundary Commons: Insights from Southeast Asia
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
, 2020
This article examines how hybrid environmental governance produces, maintains, and reconfigures c...
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This article examines how hybrid environmental governance produces, maintains, and reconfigures common
property across transboundary geographies of resource access, use, and ownership. Transboundary commons are
a category of environmental goods that traverse jurisdictions and property regimes within as well as between
nation-states. They are forged through collaborative partnerships between spatially dispersed state, privatesector, and societal institutions and actors. This article disaggregates these transboundary commoning
arrangements into two geographically discrete yet conceptually intertwined categories of governance: mobile
commons and in situ commons. We ground our enquiry in Southeast Asia, a resource-rich region where diverse
formal and informal practices of resource organization blur the boundaries of environmental governance.
Whereas environmental commons are often analyzed in terms of resource rights and entitlements, this article
argues that a focus on power relations offers a more productive analytical lens through which to understand the
dynamic and networked ways in which transboundary common property is continually being (re)made through
processes of hybrid governance in response to changing ecological systems and shifting social realities.
B/ordering the environmental commons
Progress in Human Geography
, 2020
Transboundary environmental commons are usually conceived in terms of the spatial arrangements th...
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Transboundary environmental commons are usually conceived in terms of the spatial arrangements that govern transboundary resources and coordinate responses to cross-border environmental threats and crises. Borders in this context tend to be viewed as relatively stable institutions in the administration of geographically dispersed resources with well-defined properties by a jurisdictionally divided collective of users. In practice, however, the transboundary commons defy such clear spatial resolution. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship on the transboundary commons by showing how processes of com-moning and b/ordering are continually changing in relation to each other to generate flexible new geographies of conservation practice.
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Transboundary commons face conflict as communal property rights and state priorities clash, highlighting socioecological injustices.
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Decentralising Disaster governance in Urbanising Asia_2016.pdf
Habitat International
, 2016
The worldwide trend towards the devolution of state authority to sub-national administrations tha...
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The worldwide trend towards the devolution of state authority to sub-national administrations that has accompanied globalization has been strongest in Asia and Africa, where political reforms have had profound implications for the efficient and equitable distribution of resources. In
times of disaster in particular, decentralisation is often portrayed as the preferred means for bringing government closer to the people, and is tied to an expectation that people and their communities will become more empowered to politically articulate their needs and priorities through public decisionmaking. Decentralised decision-making is also expected to more quickly respond to environmental disasters due to proximity to events and better ability to mobilize social resources and local knowledge in planning for, responding to and gaining resilience for future catastrophic events. However, decentralisation defined as the devolution of political power and financial capacities to autonomously govern local constituencies remains uneven, and such issues as political repression and corruption are a concern at local levels just as they are at national scales. As environmental disasters impact urbanising populations at multiple scales, the need differentiate different modes and contexts of decentralisation to better understand connections between national and local governance regimes is integral to the pursuit of more inclusive and effective policy choices in dealing with the myriad causes and far-reaching consequences of disasters in Asia's rapidly urbanising societies.
Introduction. Ethnic minorities in Asia: Inclusion or Exclusion?
Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol.35, no.4
, May 2011
This special issue, devoted to ethnic minorities in Asia, originated with the International Sympo...
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This special issue, devoted to ethnic minorities in Asia, originated with the International Symposium on Ethnic Minorities in Asia: Subjects or Citizens, held at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. As one of the most ethnically-diverse regions in the world, Asia is the site of large indigenous minority populations as well as non-indigenous minorities through ever-growing legal and illegal migrant flows. This article maps out some of the key themes explored by the contributors to this special issue in the processes and structures of accommodation for Asia’s minorities. These themes revolve around the changing meaning of citizenship in Asian contexts, state models of accommodation, constructions and representations of identity and belonging, post-colonial legacies and nation-building, the legitimacy of minority rights claims, and questions of human security. This article provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical contributions that the essays in this special issue bring to the study of ethnic minority issues in increasingly heterogeneous and divided Asian societies.
From reform to repression: the post-New Order’s shifting security policies in Aceh
Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, Vol.38, No.2
, Oct 2004
In the years since the fall of General Socharto's authoritarian regime, Indonesia's uncertain dem...
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In the years since the fall of General Socharto's authoritarian regime, Indonesia's uncertain democratisation process has included some efforts to reform the security sector. These reforms have principally aimed to assert civilian supremacy over Indonesian national li fe by limiting the military's involvement in political processes and reducing its function to a predominantly external defensc· role. There have also been initiatives to depart from the New Order's heavy-handed security approach in dealing with the armed separatist movements in Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya (now Papua) by emphasising dialogue, decentralisation and 'special autonomy' to achieve conflict resolution.
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An estimated 10,000 fatalities occurred during military operations in Aceh, highlighting human rights abuses and enduring separatist sentiment.
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Post-Disaster Economic Development in Aceh. Neoliberalization and other Economic-Geographical Imaginaries
by
Nicholas Phelps
and
Michelle Ann Miller
Geoforum, vol. 42, no.4
, Jul 2011
"The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 and a subsequent Memorandum of Understanding ending th...
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"The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 and a subsequent Memorandum of Understanding ending three decades of armed conflict has opened up Aceh to international aid, trade, ideas and potential investment. For Naomi Klein in her (2008) book 'The Shock Doctrine', such disasters have been exploited systematically in processes of neoliberalization. Based on fieldwork in Aceh and Jakarta, this paper shows that while neoliberal elements are present within important economic-geographical imaginaries in post-disaster Aceh, they are intertwined with and exceeded by other imaginaries. We draw attention to the theoretical importance of a fuller understanding of such imaginaries, their origin and reach, content and the actors and mechanisms associated with their promulgation. The paper recounts four economic-geographical imaginaries of the future of Aceh: (1) Aceh as newly (re)opened to overseas investors; (2) Aceh as a site of revivable trade connections to the Malay and Islamic worlds; (3) Aceh as a self-governing economic space; (4) Aceh as a united territory of diverse cultures and districts. The first of these is most closely associated with processes of neoliberalization but is exceeded by the others which, taken together, unsettle any singular script of a ‘‘disaster capitalism complex’’ at work in the reconstruction of Aceh."
Jakarta in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Decentralization, Neoliberalism and Global City Aspiration
Space and Polity, vol. 15, no.1
, Apr 2011
"In this paper, an examination is made of Jakarta’s changing political and economic position sinc...
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"In this paper, an examination is made of Jakarta’s changing political and economic position since the mid 1990s. This period of transformation is dealt with in four parts: the first relates to spatial and administrative changes to Jakarta and its wider urban region; the second considers the impact and implications of the 1997 Asian financial crisis (krismon) and ensuing political transformation which saw the resignation of President Suharto; the third part details the decentralisation laws of 1999 and their implications for urban and regional development; and the fourth considers the context of the 2008–10 global financial crisis (krisis global) in which ‘neo-liberalisme’ became a political slur in Indonesia, ironically at the same time as the governor of Jakarta declared ‘global city’ aspirations."
The Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Law: A Serious Response to Acehnese Separatism?
Asian Ethnicity, vol.5, no.3
, Oct 2004
The passing of Law No. 18 of 2001 on ‘Special Autonomy for the Province of Aceh Special Region as...
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The passing of Law No. 18 of 2001 on ‘Special Autonomy for the Province of Aceh Special Region as the Province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam’ signified a major development in the Indonesian government’s strategy to resolve Aceh’s protracted conflict. Ratified by President Megawati Sukarnoputri on 9 August 2001, the ‘NAD law’ conferred unprecedented authority to Aceh over its internal affairs. This paper evaluates the challenges that have been involved in implementing the three main tenets of the legislation — aspects of Syari’ah (Islamic law), the return of Aceh’s natural resource revenue and a provision to hold direct local elections. The paper argues that the Megawati administration’s failure to redress Acehnese grievances through special autonomy largely stems from its suspicion of the NAD law itself, its greater reliance on militaristic measures than on political policies in Aceh, and pre-existing systemic factors such as Aceh’s dysfunctional state infrastructure, corrupt political culture and war economy.
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