THE GODDESS AND THE

COMPUTER

The Goddess and the Computer demonstrates a study

in 1983 by James Kramer and Steve Lansing (ecologist
and anthropologist respectively) in a Indonesian Island,
Bali. The documentary reveals how development
projects can threaten a carefully balanced ecological
irrigation system that is maintained by religious
authorities.
Introduction of Green Revolution in 1990s threatened
the traditional system of rice cultivation and irrigation
that was being practised by the local people of Bali.
Considering water as gift by Goddess, people shared
the irrigation water by network of water temples,
making rice cultivation a religious matter. This moulded
a strong relation among the priest, temples and
farmers. The traditional system of Bali had dams down
the main rivers, controlling irrigation water for one
area. Each of this area is called Subaks and each
subak owned a temple devoted to Water Goddess. This
co-ordinated an integrated system of irrigation,
governed by priests, stretching uppermost reach of the
rivers to sea. Traditional methods includes the rice
growing rituals and aquatic community maintaining the
high productivity of plantation lands at massive scale.

While studying the religious aspects of temples

organising irrigation, Steve noticed the rising
controversy due to Green Revolution, which threatened
the traditional methodology.
In 1986, James and Steve ended up designing a
computer model that looked at ways in which the
temples worked for water irrigation and study the
coordination of farmers at different scales.
The interactive programme is written in the Indonesian
language, and is designed to be used by the Balinese to
explore the consequences of changes in their irrigation
system and was made accessible to temple priest to
add to their operational techniques. Farmers could
check the accuracy and work accordingly but they need
programming skills and work in coordination with the
Public Works Department.
The technology of Computer Model is too advanced for
the farmers to use, who lack vital programming skills. It
is viable for the PWDs and Income tax Department to
have the Model in hand first. Also, the high cost of the
model was too much for the people to pay. But
compared to the amount of money being spent on
dams and maintenance for improving crop patterns ,
the model seems worthy at its price.
This model was well accepted by the local people,
agreeing to work in coordination with the government
sectors including Public Works Department, Agriculture
Department and Income Tax Department. Making the
rice cultivation more efficient, the computer model
helped managing the crop patterns between the subaks

( a local unit comprising its own temple) and predicting

the rainfall and yields.
The film is also an excellent introduction to the ways in
which one cultural anthropologist used anthropological
concepts to study a real-world problem and how he
then attempted to solve it.
James and Steve, studied the ecology and social angle
on which the irrigation system works. They succeeded
not only in extracting the potential ecological benefits
of the traditional system of managing the watershed
but also created a visual tool to enable the local people
envision the process and aimed to help retain this tool
in the hands of the local people and keep it operational
for the future.

GREEN REVOLUTION

RICE CULTIVATION

REFERENCE

J.S. Lansing, 1987. `Balinese `water temples' and the

management of irrigation'. American Anthropologist, Vol. 89,
pp. 326-41
http://www.der.org/films/goddess-and-computer.html
http://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/ocn137238311