Michael R. Dove

Theories of Swidden Agriculture, and the Political Economy of Ignorance

Swidden agriculture is today the focus of a great deal of debate in the context of agroforestry development in humid, tropical countries. This paper argues that much of this debate deals not with the empirical facts of swidden agriculture, however, but rather with widely-accepted myths, and that this explains the widespread failures of developmental schemes involving swidden agriculturalists. The paper examines three of these myths in some detail.One myth is that swidden agriculturalists own their land communally (or not at all), work it communally, and consume its yields communally. The truth is that their land (including land under secondary forest fallow) is typically owned by individual households, it is worked by individual household labor forces and/or by reciprocal but not communal work groups, and its yields are owned and consumed privately and individually by each household. A second myth is that swidden cultivation of forested land is destructive and wasteful, and in the worst cases results in barren, useless grassland successions. The truth is that swidden cultivation is a productive use of the forests, indeed more productive than commercial logging in terms of the size of the population supported, and forest-grassland successions are typically a function not of rapaciousness but of increasing population/land pressure and agricultural intensification — the grasses, including Imperata cylindrica, having value both as a fallow period soil-rebuilder and as cattle fodder. A third myth is that swidden agriculturalists have a totally subsistence economy, completely cut off from the rest of the world. The truth is that swidden agriculturalists, in addition to planting their subsistence food crops, typically plant market-oriented cash crops as well, and as a result they are actually more integrated into the world economy than many of the practitioners of more intensive forms of agriculture.In the conclusion to the paper, in a brief attempt to explain the genesis of these several myths, it is noted that they have generally facilitated the extension of external administration and exploitation into the territories of the swidden agriculturalists, and hence can perhaps best be explained as a reflection of the political economy of the greater societies in which they dwell.

Smallholder Rubber and Swidden Agriculture in Borneo: A Sustainable Adaptation to the Ecology and Economy of the Tropical Forest

This is a study of the role of Para rubber cultivation in a system of swidden agriculture in Indonesian Borneo. Such smallholdings produce most of Indonesia’s rubber, which is the country’s largest agricultural generator of foreign exchange. Rubber integrates well into Bornean systems of swidden agriculture: the comparative ecology and economy of Para rubber and upland swidden rice result in minimal competition in the use of land and labor — and even in mutual enhancement — between the two systems. Rubber occupies a distinct niche in the farm economy: it meets the need for market goods, while the swiddens meet subsistence needs. The intensity of production on these smallholdings is, as a result, characteristically low (and may even vary inversely with market prices). This reflects the independence of these smallholders from external economic and political influences, which has been the key to their historical success. The special virtues of such “composite systems” merit greater attention by development planners.AbstractPenilitian ini mempelajari peranan karet rakyat sebagai pasangan bagi sistem perladangan di Kalimantan-Indonesia. Perkebunan karet rakyat merupakan penghasil utama karet Indonesia, yang merupakan penyumbang pertanian terbesar bagi devisa negara. Karet rakyat membaur dengan baik dalam sistem perladangan di Kalimantan: pembandingan ekologi dan ekonomi antara karet rakyat dan sistem perladangan menunjukkan persaingan yang minimum dalam pemakaian lahan dan tenaga kerja—dan bahkan saling menguntungkan—antara kedua sistem tersebut. Karet rakyat menempati kedudukan yang penting dalam ekonomi usaha para peladang: yaitu memenuhi kebutuhan barang-barang pasar, sedangkan sistem perladangan memenuhi kebutuhan pokok hidup. Intensitas produksi perkebunan karet rakyat oleh karena itu, brasanya agak rendah (yang kadang-kadang berbeda berbalikan dengan harga pasar). Hal ini menggambarkan ketidak-bergantungan petani karet pada pengaruh-pengaruh ekonomi dan politik dari luar, dan ini merupakan kunci sukses mereka. Hal-hal khususyang menguntungkan dari sistem terpadu inipatut mendapatkanperhatian yang lebih besar dari perencana-perencana pembangunan.

The Agroecological Mythology of the Javanese, and the Political Economy of Indonesia.

Indonesia is a country known both for the magnitude of efforts directed towards the development of its agriculture, and for the apparently problematic results of many of these efforts. Some of the problems reflect the real difficulties of successfully articulating land, people, and work in a developing country; but others, as I will argue in this article, result from discontinuities between the empirical agricultural reality that must be addressed in development and the perceptions of those officials and planners who direct it. The basic discontinuity involves the contrast between the agricultural ecologies of inner and outer Indonesia, and the evaluation of this contrast by the preeminent culture of inner Indonesia, the Javanese. This is a contrast between irrigated rice cultivation in Java (and also Bali and Lombok), and the swidden cultivation of dry rice in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and the lesser Sunda islands. Contemporary Javanese (speaking here of those in decision-making positions) uniformly speak of the former agricultural system as more productive, more rational, and in general better for the nation and national development than the latter. The swidden-based system of agriculture is regarded not merely as less good than the system of irrigated rice cultivation, but explicitly as something bad -- irrational, destructive, and uncontrollable. It is the thesis of this article that this comparative evaluation of wet-rice and dry-rice agriculture is fundamentally distorted, and that the reasons for this are not pedagogical, but rather economic and political. My thesis is that the Javanese idealization of intensive rice cultivation and deprecation of extensive rice cultivation is based on a cultural myth, one important consequence of which is to rationalize and sustain the political and economic preeminence of their culture and government.

The Virtues of Mundane Science.

Kammen and Dove discuss the importance of mundane science, such as the design of delivery systems for oral rehydration therapy or microloans for the poor, and conclude that mundane issues need to be addressed and studied before a crisis emerges in which information from mundane science will be useful. There are a number of ways to give mundane science a larger role in research and policy decisions, including giving more support to academic-industry partnerships.

The Practical Reason of Weeds in Indonesia: Peasant vs. State Views of Imperata and Chromolaena

Peasant and state perceptions of two common weeds, Imperata cylindricaand Chromolaena odorata,are compared in four case study areas in Indonesia. Peasant perceptions are found to vary according to the similarity between these weeds plants and the fallow period vegetation in any given system of cultivation. All peasants attribute the origins of these weeds to external political authorities. State perceptions of both weeds are unvaryingly negative, based on its generally negative perception of systems of cultivation that employ fallow periods, and on its self-interest in expensive eradication programs and the alternate use of weed-covered lands. Both peasant and state perceptions of the two weeds are seen to be part of a broader structure of beliefs concerning not only plants and land, but also the relations between peasants and states themselves. This analysis demonstration that functional/ecological analysis is not restricted to local level relations, but can with equal validity be applied at the level of the state.

Hybrid Histories and Indigenous Knowledge Among Asian Rubber Smallholders

Practically since its inception as a discipline, anthropology has interested itself in the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples. This interest can be traced from early ethnographic work on local patterns of environmental relations and systems of resource-use, to more recent work in ethnoscience and ethnobotany (e.g.). Within the past two decades, however, the object of this interest has been redefined and reified as “Indigenous Knowledge”; anthropologists have been joined in its study by other social scientists, as well as development scholars, planners, and activists; and it has become the focus of newly established institutes and publications (cf. Warren, Slikkerver, and Brokensha, 1995). This burgeoning interest in Indigenous Knowledge is premised on the belief that many failures of development and under-development are due to the privileging of modern, global, scientific knowledge over local, traditional indigenous knowledge. A corollary premise is that a reversal of this imbalance, based on the study and utilization of Indigenous Knowledge, will have salutary effects. The challenge of successful development, therefore, is seen as ethnographic and pedagogical in nature: ignorance of knowledge that lies outside modern scientific traditions is seen as the problem, which can be remedied through the unearthing and study of this knowledge. This critique of the dominant paradigm of development was initially heralded as a great step forward; but within the past five years in particular, questions have been raised regarding its genuineness. Both of these perspectives are reflected in a recent issue of “Current Anthropology”, in which the lead author Paul Sillitoe refers to this new study of Indigenous Knowledge as a “revolution”, whereas one of the commentators, Carmen Ferradas, calls is just another “self-privileging antinomy” (Ferradas, 1998:240; Sillitoe, 1998:223,246). My purpose in the present analysis is to consider the truth in both of these views of Indigenous Knowledge. I will base this analysis on my own study of one system of Indigenous Knowledge, that of Southeast Asia’s smallholder cultivators of Para rubber.

Transition from Native Forest Rubbers to Hevea Brasiliensis (Euphorbiaceae) Among Tribal Smallholders in Borneo

This is a study of the historic transition in Southeast Asia, in particular Borneo, from the exploitation of native forest rubbers to Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis, Euphorbiaceae). During the second half of the nineteenth century, booming international markets subjected forest rubbers to more intensive and competitive exploitation. At the same time, the settlement patterns of tribal rubber gatherers were becoming more sedentary and their agriculture more intensive.Hevea spp. was better suited to these changed circumstances than the native forest rubbers, largely because it was cultivated not naturally grown. The status ofHevea spp. in Southeast Asia as a cultigen, as opposed to a natural forest product, and the political-economic implications of this helps to explain the contrasting histories of smallholder rubber producers in the New and Old Worlds. This study offers an historical perspective on current debates regarding relations between forest resources, forest peoples, and the state.RésuméPenelitian ini mempelajari sejarah peralihan di Asia Tenggara, khususnya Kalimantan, dari eksploitasi karet hutan menjadi penanaman karet Para (Hevea brasiliensis, Euphorbiaceae). Selama pertengahan kedua abad ke sembilanbelas, melonjaknya pasar internasional menyebabkan karet hutan di eksploitasi lebih intensif dan kompetitif. Pada saat yang sama, pola pemukiman pemulung-pemulung karet hutan menjadi lebih menetap dan sistem pertanian mereka menjadi lebih intensif. Penanaman Hevea spp. lebih sesuai terhadap peralihan ini dibanding dengan karet hutan, terutama karena Hevea spp. tersebut ditanam bukan tumbuh secara alami. Status Hevea spp. di Asia Tenggara sebagai suatu tanaman yang diusahakan (kultigen) yang berlawanan dengan pohon hutan alam, dan akibat ekonomi-politik untuk ini, menerangkan perbandingan sejarah pengelolahan Hevea spp. di Asia dan Amerika Selatan. Penelitian ini juga memberikan suatu pandangan sejarah pada perdebatan saat ini tentang hubungan sumberdaya hutan, suku terasing yang hidup di dalam hutan, dan kebijaksanaan pemerintah.

Peasant versus Government Perception and Use of the Environment: A Case Study of Banjarese Ecology and River Basin Development in South Kalimantan

The purpose of this paper is to carry out an ‘emic’ analysis not of the subjects of rural development but of its agents, the development planners, to illustrate how development plans fail, why they fail, and how this might be corrected. I take as a case study a single river basin in the Indonesian province of South Kalimantan. I begin with a brief description of the research site and of the hydroelectric project that has dominated development planning in the area for fifteen years. In succeeding sections, I analyze the impact of this project on the two major agroecosystems in the study area: forest-based swidden agriculture, and grassland-based permanent field farming. In each case I describe the peasant system, discuss government policy towards it, and then analyze the empirical basis or lack of basis for this policy. In the final section I attempt to explain why government policy has failed to meet so many of its stated objectives, and in particular why this policy has triggered such negative responses from both the physical and social environment.

Rice-Eating Rubber and People-Eating Governments: Peasant versus State Critiques of Rubber Development in Colonial Borneo

Two remarkable events took place in the 1930s in Borneo: a myth spread among the tribal societies of the interior, warning them that the introduced Para rubber tree was hostile to their swidden rice; and the International Rubber Regulation Agreement was established, in an attempt to protect plantation rubber production by restricting smallholder production through export duties and other measures. A comparative analysis of these two interlinked events makes the tribal dream look less fantastic and the international regulation look less rational than they otherwise do. This analysis contributes to current debates about the peasant tendency to differentiate the production of food crops and cash crops, the scholarly failure to link local and global histories, and the anthropological failure to integrate symbolic and political-economic studies.

Beyond the Sacred Forest: Complicating Conservation in Southeast Asia

This book is the product of a unique, decade-long, interdisciplinary collaboration involving research in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and it reflects new thinking about conservation in Southeast Asia. Scholars from these countries and the United States rethink the translation of environmental concepts between East and West, particularly ideas of nature and culture; the meaning of conservation; and the ways that conservation policy is applied and transformed in the everyday landscapes of Southeast Asia.