Kami Bukan Hanya Penjaga Hutan : Marginalisasi Perempuan Adat di Sumatera Utara dan Politik Kuasa dalam Perspektif Foucault

Abstract

Indigenous women in North Sumatra live between two equally oppressive worlds: a patriarchal customary structure that limits their space, and a state system that marginalizes their rights through unjust sectoral policies. This research uncovers the practices of power that normalize the marginalization of indigenous women through Michel Foucault's approach, particularly the concepts of power-knowledge, governmentality, and resistance. By combining official data from Komnas Perempuan, KSPPM, BPS Sumut, as well as field stories from the Sihaporas and Pandumaan Sipituhuta communities, this paper shows that indigenous women are not only victims, but also actors of resistance. They not only protect the forest as an ancestral heritage, but also take care of their bodies from the dangers of industrial waste, and defend the values of life from the invasion of masculine and exploitative development discourses. This research does not only want to explain, but also be part of a collective call to shift the state's perspective on who is called the guardian of the earth.