Abstract
The exclusionary land grabbing promoted by the MIFEE project in Mereauke, Indonesia, generated since the beginning a strong broad resistance from the indigenous people whose territory is targeted for this project, and local, national and international NGOs that opposed it on the grounds of environmental conservation, food security, human rights and indigenous territorial rights, forming a resistance coalition guided by ethnic narratives and identity politics. While this resistance was able to stalk the project it was unable to stop it. This article aims to understand the potential and limits identity politics, local-national-global alliances, divergent indigenous agendas and the lack of long-term alternatives