Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

http://journals.cambridge.org/SEA

Additional services for Journal of Southeast Asian

Studies:

Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

Gerak Penduduk, Pembangunan dan Perubahan Sosial:

Kasus Tiga Komunitas Padi Sawah di Sulawesi Selatan
(Population Mobility, Redevelopment and Social Change:
The Case of Three Rice-Growing Communities in South
Sulawesi). By Muhammad Idrus Abustam. Jakarta:
Penerbit Universitas Indonesia, 1989. Pp. xxx, 470.
Bibliography, Appendices. [In Indonesian.]

Tim G. Babcock

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies / Volume 25 / Issue 02 / September 1994, pp 417 - 419
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463400013576, Published online: 07 April 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022463400013576

How to cite this article:

Tim G. Babcock (1994). Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25, pp 417-419 doi:10.1017/
S0022463400013576

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/SEA, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 14 Mar 2015

Book Reviews: Southeast Asian-Language Books

Gerak Penduduk, Pembangunan dan Perubahan Sosial: Kasus Tiga Komunitas Padi
Sawah di Sulawesi Selatan (Population Mobility, Redevelopment and Social Change:
The Case of Three Rice-Growing Communities in South Sulawesi). By MUHAMMAD
IDRUS ABUSTAM. Jakarta: Penerbit Universitas Indonesia, 1989. Pp. xxx, 470.
Bibliography, Appendices. [In Indonesian.]

This book, as its title translates, concerns population mobility, development and social
change, as illustrated through an analysis of three communities in South Sulawesi pro-
vince, Indonesia, whose economies are heavily dependant on wet-rice cultivation.
Questions of population have long been prominent in South Sulawesi, home of the
Bugis-Makassar people with their ancient seafaring/trading tradition and more recent
propensity to open up agricultural settlements in the western archipelago. Interesting
demographic features of the area include rates of population growth below the national
average, and net out-migration. While these facts inform the background of this
study, the author's major contribution is his attempt to describe and understand intra-
provincial population movements, a phenomenon not captured in national demographic
surveys to date.
More specifically, Abustam's quest is not only to uncover local patterns of rural-
to-urban population movement but to unearth contributing factors as well as social
and cultural impacts of mobility on the villages of origin. Implications of the research
for development policy, a standard element of most Indonesian thesis material, are
also touched on, though this is brief and superficial and one of the less successful
components of the work. The foolishness of earlier government policies to stem the
outflow of population from the province, however, is clearly demonstrated.
To delve into these exploratory questions, Abustam uses fairly conventional survey
methodology (we are unfortunately not made privy to the questionnaire instruments
used and therefore have to take some of the analysis on faith). It is noteworthy in the
Indonesian context, however, that the "survey slavery" in this work is well supplemented
with material from the literature and from qualitative investigations, and there are
even two short case studies of individual migrants squirrelled away in an appendix -
if only there had been more, and fuller ones, and included in the body of the text!
Historical and cultural material (e.g. the effects of specific cultural values on mobility)
is presented, as is comparative data for the national and regional level.
Abustam chooses three wet-rice villages for his sample; probably this choice of sub-
sistence pattern is intended to reflect a major occupation of the province's population,
though the choice is not clearly explained. The villages are intended to represent three
levels of resource base and technology: well-irrigated paddyfields with advanced rice
production technology, and a similar situation with an even poorer land base limited
by steep slopes. The two latter villages would seem to represent the one type of agro-
ecosystem, but in fact Abustam brings other factors into play: each of the villages
is also chosen to represent a different ethnic group (Bugis, Makassar, and Toraja
respectively) while the third village is further distinguished by its relatively great dis-
tance from Ujung Pandang, the major migrant destination.

417
418 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 25, 2 (1994)

Further, the writer attempts to link migration patterns (whether permanent, semi-
permanent or commuting) to class, defined in terms of land ownership (not, be it
noted, access to land). Interestingly, higher class is positively correlated with higher
mobility rates, though interclass motivations differ: wealthier individuals move in
search of education, while the less well-off seek employment.
More useful is the discussion that links mobility to sociocultural change and to
induced development activity; fortunately, Abustam makes clear the circular/non-linear
and multiplex nature of the relations between these three elements. Improved agri-
cultural technology, for example, may reduce the need for out-migration in cases where
labour opportunities are increased (e.g. the change to irrigated double-cropping).
Before long, however, increased incomes lead to higher demands for such services as
advanced education, which cannot be provided in the rural areas.
The reviewer, an anthropologist, was particularly pleased to note the author's data
confirming the effect of migrants' remittances on raising and equalizing their socio-
economic status in the hierarchical village societies, and most strikingly on the utiliza-
tion of resources gained outside the homeland in preserving and intensifying key
traditional rituals. In the case of Bugis-Makassar people, it is the series of rituals sur-
rounding marriage which is enhanced, and through which higher status is claimed or
demonstrated. In Tana Toraja, extended funerary ritual serves the same purpose (and
absorbs a higher percentage of migrants' resources, even of those many who have
permanently left the village).
The book is not without its problems. The attempt in Chapter 7 to contrast the
"modernity" of migrants with the supposed conservatism of the "stayers" is based on
rather dated notions. So too is the discussion of the impact of mobility on the status
of women. The author finds that high mobility levels correspond positively with in-
creased participation of women in income-generating activity (though he does not
explain the connection). His opinion (p. 370) that working for income (Indonesian,
"nafkah") is something relatively new for women in South Sulawesi simply reflects
(educated, South Sulawesi) more bias affecting what is defined as "work". In the
reviewer's experience in the area, women's work in the rice fields, for example, is fre-
quently defined as merely "helping out". Women, too, reflecting officially propagated
definitions of the correct role of women, will commonly state their occupation to
survey interviewers as "housewife", though they will quite happily give "farming" as
their second occupation.
It would have also been useful had the researcher chosen a non-migratory village
or two to help tease out the relative importance of the various and complex factors
in the migration equation. This would doubtless have complicated the research con-
siderably, however, but would be a fruitful avenue for further investigations.
The book, basically a doctoral dissertation completed at the Bogor Agriculture
University in 1987, is organized in a standard, if unexciting format, and reads well.
The University of Indonesia Press is to be congratulated for publishing this study in
a relatively short time, and in a low-cost edition which is fairly accessible to potential
Indonesian readership. In this age of desk-top publishing, however, a much more at-
tractive presentation (with livelier and more legible graphics for statistical material and
maps) would have added much to the book at relatively little cost. The bibliography
contains inaccuracies as well as a number of omissions of works referred to in the
Book Reviews 419

text (e.g. Lineton, Crystal, McTaggart, Sulawesi Regional Development Study). These
points aside, however, the book is a valuable resource for students of local-level
population dynamics in Indonesia.

University of Guelph, Canada Tim G. Babcock

Nahdlatul Ulama dan Pancasila: Sejarab dan Peranan NU dalam Perjuangan Umat
Islam di Indonesia dalam Rangka Penerimaan Pancasila Sebagai Satu-satunya Asas
(Nahdlatul Ulama and Pancasila: The History and Role of the NU in the Struggle of
the Islamic Community in Indonesia in the Framework of Accepting Pancasila as Its
Sole Basis). By EINAR M. SITOMPUL, M.TH. Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1989.
Pp. 271. Appendices, Photographs, Bibliography, Index. [In Indonesian.]

Quo Vadis NU Setelah Kembali ke Khittah 1926 (Quo Yadis NU After Returning to
Khittah 1926). By KACUNG MARIJAN. Jakarta: Penerbit Erlangga, 1992. Pp. xxviii,
349. Appendices, Bibliography. [In Indonesian.]

The traditionalist Muslim Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is Indonesia's largest organisation.

Credibly claiming the loyalties of twenty or thirty million Indonesians, it is also the
largest organisation of its kind in the Muslim world, even if the number of dues-
paying members is but a small minority of that figure. In contrast to the modernist
Muslim movements and organisations, however, NU is relatively little studied. There
is no published monograph in any European language yet (although several are under
way now). A number of books on NU in Indonesian have recently appeared, however,
of which the two books under review are the most interesting.
Both books give a summary overview of the history of the organisation but con-
centrate primarily on the important decisions taken in the mid-1980s: the acceptance
by NU of the state ideology Pancasila as its one and only foundation (asas tunggal)
and its loosening of the organic ties linking it with the Muslim political party PPP.
These decisions amounted to emphatic declarations of loyalty and obedience to the
Suharto regime, a clear foreswearing of the oppositional attitude of the 1970s. To
some observers it appeared that the NU had returned to its opportunism of the
Sukarno period. It was, in fact, obvious that the decisions were taken under heavy
pressure by the government. At the same time, however, these decisions also presented
themselves as the logical consequences of a process of soul-searching among reform-
minded, committed NU members that had started well before the pressure was on.
Both Sitompul's and Marijan's books have received an imprimatur in the form of
a laudatory preface by a prominent NU leader. It is perhaps not surprising that their
interpretation of the events largely follows that of NU's apologists. They uncritically
repeat the claim that the accommodating attitude of the 1980s does not represent a
break with the uncompromising one of the 1970s, and that both were rooted in fiqh,
Islamic jurisprudence, applied to different situations. As a result, they pay relatively
little attention to the sheer pressure exerted by the authorities in order to force NU into
compliance.
Einar Sitompul is a Protestant theologian, and he wrote the book under review as
his master's thesis. Pancasila may represent different things to different people, but