The Role of Customary Land Ownership in Land-Use Conversion in the Peri-urban of Bukittinggi, Indonesia

Taluak is located in the peri-urban area of the city of Bukittinggi, in Agam Regency, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Bukittinggi is rapidly expanding into this peri-urban area. Due to a lack of sound land-use regulations, the growing population and increasing development are encroaching into the peri-urban area. In 1999, the administrative area of Bukittinggi was formally expanded to include some of the surrounding land that had previously been part of Agam Regency. However, although the physical development of the city has encroached into parts of Agam Regency, including Taluak, the communities of the village refused to be administratively included in Bukittinggi. One of their reasons for this refusal is a belief that such urbanization will harm the culture and traditions of the village. This article aims to explain how the communities of Taluak have resisted the formal expansion of Bukittinggi to include them in order to maintain their culture and traditions of land management and to estimate how long such resistance can survive. The article also explains how the process of land conversion in Taluak is carried out, particularly the conversion from rural use into urban use, which creates rurban (rural-urban) areas.