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Wet rice cultivation in Indonesia Chapter four
7. Has this non-traditional system been subject to modernisation influences and if so, how
to explain this?
8. What are the similarities and the differences between traditional systems and nontraditional
systems and how can they be explained?
9. Do both systems influence each other considering utilisation and management of
sawahs and if so, how can these influences be explained?
10. Do people change from one system to the other system and if so, why do they change
and what are the consequences?
4.3 Approach of the research
The main goal of this thesis is to explore why some rural communities in Indonesia do
implement new methods and techniques within wet rice cultivation and others not. One way
to research this, is a comparative approach. In other words, to understand influences of
modernisation trends it is necessary to gather information from both the traditional wet rice
system as the non-traditional system. In this manner, the similarities and differences
between both systems can become clear to the researcher.
Therefore, we will analyse the traditional wet rice cultivation of the people of the
Kasepuhan and the non-traditional wet rice cultivation of non-Kasepuhan people in the
mountains of West-Java. If we combine both analyses with the theoretical framework of
chapter three, it is possible present some explanations for the different stages of
development in the modernisation of wet rice cultivation in Indonesia
4.4 The research location
We are going to discuss two issues in this section; firstly the circumstances in the field and
secondly the arguments for choosing this research location.
The specific village in which the research was done is Ciptarasa, which means so
much as ‘increasing the feeling’ in the Indonesian language. This village (desa) is located in
the sub district (kecamatan) of Cikakak, the district (kabupaten) of Sukabumi, and the
province (provinsi) of West-Java. The closest significant town is Pelabuhanratu, which is a
two-hour drive southwards to the Indian Ocean. An important note to make here is that
Ciptarasa lies inside the National Park of Gunung Halimun (see figure 3.3 below). This
implies that the inhabitants of this village have to comply with the official regulations that are
set up for National Parks, considering the utilisation of wet rice fields. Creating a new sawah
in this area, or extracting wood from the rainforest for building houses, has – at least
officially – to be done in consultation with local governmental institutions such as the Agency
of Agriculture, Crops and Food (Dinas Pertanian Tanaman Pangan) and the Agency of
Agriculture and Forestry (Dinas Pertanian dan Kehutanan)
Figure 4.1: Indonesia, with a focus on Java
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