Leemann, A.

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Book Reviews 325The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case Studies from Indonesia.Edited by MICHAEL R. DOVE. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. xiii,289. Figures, Photographs, Tables, Index.The subject of inquiry in the volume at hand revloves around the viewpoint adopted bymany development planners that traditional cultures are static and therefore impededevelopment. The merit of the 11 case studies is the empirically-supported evidence ofthe inner dynamics and vitality inherent in traditional cultures. Divided by the editorinto five parts: ideology, economics, ecology, social change and evaluation, eachindividual study investigates a traditional culture, whereby its function with regard tothe corresponding community is analyzed, the development measures described andtheir consequences discussed.Part I, "Ideology", refers to the official Indonesian conceptualization of religion andits consequences for the minorities, who do not follow any of the recognized world reli-gions. As Atkinson shows in her essay "Religion and the Wana of Sulawesi", their reli-gion is not fossilized but has developed further in its contact with Muslims and Christ-ians. There are obvious analogies between the Wanna religion and the faith of the SasakBoda of Lombok, who pay just as little homage to a "book religion", but consider theirwhole cultural heritage to be their religion (cf. Leemann, 1989: Internal and ExternalFactors of Socio-cultural and Socioeconomic Dynamics in Lombok, Nusa TenggaraBarat). Degraded by followers of world religions as "orang yang belum beragama"(p. 49), self-assured Wana (and Sasak Boda) as opposed to this, refer to the seniorityof their faith.Such opposing points of view lead to tensions, which become all the more conflict-ridden as abidingness in a non-recognized religion is interpreted as an act of politicalsubversion by the Government and persecuted. In their contribution "Shamans andCadres in Rural Java", Rienks and Iskandar refer to the fact that the health cadreprogramme does not actually reach the village poor because the acceptance of the men-tioned programme requires at the outset the renunciation of indigenous health caresystems in favour of a new system, whose priorities are determined from without andhave no relation to Javanese cosmology that deals with human vulnerability.Part II, "Economics", contains amongst others, the essay by Brewer entitled "Trad-itional Land Use and Government Policy in Bima, East Sumbawa". The author refersto government programmes which are forcing intensive irrigated rice agriculture (at thecost of swidden cultivation) and which do not take into account that the two forms ofland utilization are based on a fundamental difference in value systems. Whereas thatof the swidden cultivators is aligned to work, that of the government is based on capitalor land. It would be worth pursuing in depth the theme "Time as a neglected resource"— the preference for idleness is interpreted, however, by development economists ashidden unemployment, whereas subsistence-oriented people admit a higher benefitfrom non-work. Leisure and time make up the main social resource in such life-styles.Festivals have to be carried out and religious rituals celebrated in order to ensure socialreproduction. Such time-consuming activities reinforce group identity and with that,unity and solidarity in a network of social security (cf. Groh on the interaction betweenprevailing ideas about time and economic behaviour, in Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 11January 1989, p. 63).use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463400018270Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 08:44:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of326 Book ReviewsIn his essay "The 'Wild Punan' of Borneo: A Matter of Economics", Hoffman showsthat the Punan do not belong to one indigenous group of primitive, subsistence-orientedisland-dwellers, but are forest-based wings of distinct, sedentary agricultural groupswho have specialized as collectors of forest products and whose economy functionswithin larger trade networks which include the sedentary Dayak, coastal Malays andChinese.In Part III, "Ecology", Dove postulates in his chapter "The Ecology of Intoxicationamong the Kantu' of West Kalimantan", that the physical environment of the Kantu',according to the prevailing swidden technology necessitates a dispersion or scattering ofthe population in semi-autonomous socioeconomic units and how this requires, on theother hand, a periodical collaboration for the exchange of grain and labour. Dove attri-butes the function of the traditional Kantu'-system of ceremonial alcoholic intoxicationto the maintenance of the above-mentioned exchanges thereby reducing the influenceof environmental constraints on socioeconomic development. In the paper "Perceptionof Volcanic Hazards: Villagers Versus Government Officials in Central Java", Laksonoshows how the Javanese try to minimize imminent threats in that they monitor volcanicactivity empirically and explain it within the framework of their religious system ofmeaning. They feel implicitly that staying in their original villages is less of a risk, thanlife in the lowlands of Sumatra under the government's transmigration programme. Thehigh death rate during the first two months after resettlement points to an overestima-tion of the human capacity to adjust to new living situations.In his essay, "The Mentawai Equilibrium and the Modern World", Schefolddemonstrates how the Mentawai transfer the principles of conflict regulation betweengroups over to relationships between man and his environment. Just as man has to makeallowances for his soul and the requirements of his fellow-man, so is he obliged torespect the souls of things in the natural world. Commercial deforestation stands incontradiction to the Mentawai ideology of harmony in the ritual specifications and pro-hibitions with regard to the maintenance of ecological balance, as does the resettlementof dispersed 'uma'-communities in villages close to the coast.Part IV is dedicated thematically to "Social Relations/Social Change". Developmentplanners see themselves ex officio as the main agents of social change considered neces-sary for modernization. This self-assessment fails to recognize that traditional societiesadjust themselves to changing frames of reference if these innovations lie within theirown interests. This point is confirmed by King's contribution, "Social Rank and SocialChange among the Maloh of West Kalimantan" and Daeng's "Ritual Feasting andResource Competition in Flores". King describes how the traditional Maloh system ofranks has lost its earlier significance and has given way to other forms of socioeconomicdifferentiation under external pressure. None of the aspects of stratification based oneconomic strength, political power and ritually-determined superiority differentiatesthe aristocracy from the common Maloh. For his part, Daeng shows, that not all changeis induced from outside the society. In his analysis of a religious faith in Flores, theauthor interprets the function of the early "boka goe" feast (by which two clans slaugh-ter livestock competitively as regulator of the balance between the historically changingdemographic structure of a population and its resources. While the manifest function ofcompetitive slaughter lies in the regulation of disputes over land, the latent function isto mediate disputes over relative status or prestige, whereby the latter serves thepurpose of enforcing the entitlement to land as a diminishing resource.use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463400018270Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 08:44:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms ofBook Reviews 327In Part V, "Evaluation", Appell discusses the theme "Costing Social Change"(pp. 271-82). From the point of departure that development and social change havebecome the uncontested aims of development planning, the author sees the task ofanthropologists to be to show and measure the sociocultural costs inherent in socialchange. To inform planners of the negative effects of their efforts to modernize, thecosts of the destruction of social systems have to be adequately measured, added to thedevelopment scheme and formulated in a language accessible to planners.The eleven essays — each stimulating in its own right — are drawn together within abroader framework and commented with cross-references by Dove in his brilliant intro-duction, "Traditional Culture and Development in Contemporary Indonesia". Thebook deserves to occupy not only a place in every Indonesia-relevant library, but shouldalso be compulsory reading for development experts.University of Zurich A. LeemannSocial Commitment in Literature and the Arts: The Indonesian "Institute of People'sCulture" 1950-1965. By KEITH FOULCHER. Monash University: Centre of South-east Asian Studies, 1986. Pp. 234. Appendix, Bibliographic Notes, List of ReferencesCited.This book sets out to describe the character and evolution of LEKRA (Institute ofPeople's Culture) and the circumstances that shaped it during the period 1950-65. Italso contains examples of work by LEKRA writers. In the first chapter, "The shapingof Indonesian literary history", the author argues that those who have set the terms forthe discussion of Indonesian literature since 1965-66, i.e. the liberal humanist school ofliterary criticism founded by Teeuw in the 1950s, have misinterpreted the Left's concep-tion of literature and its role during the 1950-65 period. Teeuw is said (pp. 4-5) to havedismissed as without credibility the few left-wing writings mentioned in his ModernIndonesian Literature (1979), because they posited some intrinsic relationship betweenart and ideology. [To be exact, it was Marxism as an artistic creed to which Teeuwdenied credibility, on the grounds that its literary products were so unconvincing (1979,vol. II, p. 31).] Jassin took a firmly anti-communist position and Yahya Ismail ignoredLEKRA statements on the need to reconcile artistic individuality with collective com-mitment, although other critics have adopted a more liberal attitude towards left-wingliterature. Radical voices have been confined to the periphery, and the "Teeuw-Jassinschool" has attained the status of orthodoxy, in much the same way, the authorsuggests, as the Leavisite critical tradition once achieved legitimacy in the sphere ofEnglish literary studies.In his second chapter Dr Foulcher begins by tracing LEKRA's origins to the climateof opposition towards the Indonesia-Netherlands Cultural Accord that was expressed atthe conference on Indonesian culture held in Jakarta in August 1950. A few days lateruse, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463400018270Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 08:44:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

Book Review: The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case Studies from Indonesia: The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case Studies from Indonesia. Edited by DoveMichael R.. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. xiii, 289. Figures, Photographs, Tables, Index

Book Review: The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case Studies from Indonesia: The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case Studies from Indonesia. Edited by DoveMichael R.. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. xiii, 289. Figures, Photographs, Tables, Index

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