and/or control over certain territo

and/or control over certain territories.This resulted in the creation not only of a national society but also of a new legal category: the citizen.Peluso and Harwell further explain, “In Indonesia, the creation of the national citizen and the attempt to eliminate both the territorialized local ethnic group and the colonial institution of legal pluralism created new problems in the establishment of land control and resource access.So-called ethnic or “cultural” identities…were officially de-territorialized.The national government emphasizes people's collective identities as Indonesian citizens rather than as territorially based “ethnic groups”.That is, not only were local modes of authority eliminated, but also adapt or custom was no longer “law”, and racially based territorial claims were virtually erased as parts of nationally sanctioned “local culture”” (Peluso and Harwell 2001, 105).The construction of national citizens and the parallel de-territorialization of ethnic identities aimed at creating a new territory, a national territory.This national territory became the boundary marker of a national indigeneity, of an Indonesian-ness.At the same time, and contrary Dutch legal statuses, Indonesian citizens received equal rights under the law to acquire and exploit lands freely, that is to say free from any ethnic or culturally based limitation of access and control.This meant that Indonesian could claim a right of occupancy of a nationally-constructed space (Peluso and Harwell 2001, 106).From this literature I argue that the re-territorialization of local administration through the creation of desa was indeed part of processes belonging to both state-building and nation- building.The implementation of the Village Law allowed for the state bureaucracy's control over the village population; at the same time, it facilitated the creation of a national territory and community.Resources, land, natural resources and people, were de- localized and integrated into a national community within a national territory.I will now turn more particularly to the territorialization of forestland.I will try to show that the designation of specific areas as “state forest” is a form of state strategy to extend its territorial control and how this designation can be perceived as participating in the state-building project of the Indonesian state.