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A. Oki Economic studies In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 144 (1988), no: 2/3, Leiden, 236-247 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:50:59AM via free access AKIRA OKI ECONOMIC STUDIES Japan has often been criticized for showing an interest in Southeast Asia solely in terms of economie benefit, not of the culture or history of the region. In view of this sort of criticism, one might reasonably expect a plethora of economie studies of this region by Japanese scholars. So f ar as academie work is concerned, however, one will be surprised at the relative paucity of economie studies, both when one considers the close economie relations between the two countries and when one compares this with other fields of study, such as politics, history in general, and cultural and social studies. The same applies to Indónesia itself. There may be several reasons for this. Among other things, Japanese students of economics proper are not, generally speaking, especially interested in Southeast Asian countries like Indónesia. Differently from, for instance, Australia, where one finds a sizable group of economists specialized on Indónesia, in Japan such economists are scarce. Nevertheless, a large number of studies of the Indonesian economy must have been made by Japanese scholars in connection with Japanese economie aid and investments by Japanese companies. However, such reports and studies have rarely been published or publicized. Since it is almost impossible to tracé these economie studies, we will exclude them from the present survey. The survey is divided into two parts, namely one describing historical studies and the other discussing studies on the contemporary economy. 1. Historical Studies Before going into details, we will glance at the overall situation as regards economie historical studies in Japan. This subject is often studied as part of courses in history in general, or as a background for understand- ing aspects of the contemporary economy. This way, economie history AKIRA OKI, who obtained degrees from the Waseda and Hitotsubashi Universities (Tokyo) and from the Australian National University, is particularly interested in the history of rice cultivation and the Javanese village, and has previously published 'A Note on the History of the Textile Industry in West Sumatra', in: F. van Anrooij et al. (eds), Between People and Statistics, pp. 147-156. Dr. Oki may be contacted at Yachiyodai Kita 17-5-7, Yachiyo-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan 276. Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:50:59AM via free access Economics Studies 237 has not been established as an independent branch of study in Japan. The study of the economie history of Indonesia has only just recently begun here. This may be because economie history may seem to many scholars rather unspectacular and unattractive as an area of study. But there is also a practical reason for the relative sluggishness with which the study of economie history is progressing, namely the difficulty in obtaining sufficient data and source materials in Japan, especially unpub- lished materials relating to the grass roots levels. As a result, scholars who are engaged in this field tend to restrict their use of source materials to those materials which are readily available in Japan, such as the Koloniaal Verslag and other statistical books, except for the exception- ally fortunate scholars who have had opportunities of doing thorough archive research either in Indonesia or in The Netherlands. Taking the above into account, we will now take a look at Japanese studies oh Indonesian economie history. A. Studies on the Land Ownership System The form of land ownership in Java has been one of the favourite topics in economie history in Japan. This strong inclination towards the topic among Japanese scholars may be partly based on the assumption, as Kensuke MIYAMOTO suggested in his article of 1981, that socio- economic structure in pre-modern society can be defined in terms of the mode of land ownership. This assumption in turn derives, explicitly or implicitly, from such Marxist notions as 'Asiatic mode of production' and the 'Asiatic community'. The most explicit example of this approach can be found in Hiroyuki KOTANI's book (1979) on Marx and Asia. According to Kotani, Raffles advocated the idea of 'the sole ownership of land by the State, and the lack of private ownership of land in Asia' on the basis of his study of Java (an idea of the kind which was later quoted by Marx as summing up the essence of 'Asiatic' societies), but rightly negated such formulations as 'the despotic State and the corri- munal ownership of land by the village community'. Kotani's criticism of Raffles is directed at the fact that Raffles described Asian society as static, undèrestimating the position of intermediaries, including land- lords and district and village heads, as that of mere state servants, and in so doing ignoring the dynamic class struggle between these inter- mediaries and the peasants. Though Kotani's arguments are interesting, scholars working on the land tenure system of Java have not so far directly referred to them. The issue of communal land ownership by the Javanese village (desa) has been enthusiastically debated.by several scholars, but from different viewpoints from that of Kotani. Kensuke Miyamoto, for instance, argued in his article of 1981 that during the period of the Cultivation System, the colonial government on thé one hand deliberately deprived the regents and other intermediaries/landlords of their land (appanage) Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:50:59AM via free access 238 Akira Oki and on the other hand preserved the appanage of the village head. It furtherencouraged communal ownership {gemeen bezit) of land by the village community in order to be assured of more labour for corvée and the cultivation of export crops. Hiroyuki MORI (1976) takes the same stance as Miyamoto on this point. He ascribed the origin of communal land ownership largely to Dutch intervention. Mori presented evidence for this hypothesis from Cheribon, where Dutch officials ordered the inhabitants to submit certificates issued by various kings before attesting their private ownership of land, and burned them. At the same time, these officials had individual ownership of land converted into communal ownership by force. In Banyumas, too, communal ownership of land only came about after Dutch rule was first introduced in 1830. According to Mori, this kind of conversion was particularly evident in regions where sugarcane and indigo growing was introduced. Yasuo UEMURA (1980) argued that the government tried to convert communal land ownership into individual ownership again towards the end of the Cultivation Sys- tem period. However, this conversion proceeded only slowly, so he claimed, because it would bring about a decrease in corvée labour, which was exacted from those who had shares in communal land, and in pro- portion to the area of the land so owned. While the above scholars more or less stress the Dutch origins of communal land ownership in Java, Yoshifusa NAITO in 1977 put for- ward a slightly different opinion, stating that the system of communal ownership was a part creation of colonial governments, including the British and the Dutch, but was in part also a traditional ownership form in Java. On the basis of a study of Balambangan, a region located in the eastern tip of Java, Norio TANAKA (1983) conclüded that tradition- ally there was no communal ownership of land by the village there, as in the Sundanese village. The Javanese seem to have had the notion of common property over uncultivated land, as opposed to cultivated land, in the village. This was especially conspicuous in Central Java, as became evident when European enterprises tried to use uncultivated land (Hiroyuki Mori; 1981). In the reviewer's opinion, the study of the land tenure system in Java is in need of more detailed investigations using broader surveys of source materials, as well as of comparative studies of regions other than Java.. B. Agricultural History The study of agricultural history is a rather recent phenomenon in the field of economie history in general. Hiroyoshi KANO (1981 and 1984) compared two sets of agricultural statistics, one relating to the period 1916-1920, and the other to that of 1975-1979. His major findings were: (1) though an increase in multiple cropping can be seen throughout Java, the proportion of rice to the total harvested erop, consisting of 7 main crops, is much higher in West Java than in East Java (except for Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:50:59AM via free access Economics Studies 239 the Eastern Division); (2) the arela under rice increased quite remark- ably in West Java and the Eastern Division, while in Central Java the increase in the area under crops other than rice was proportionately more significant; (3) in Central and East Java, population growth can largely be explained by the expansion of the area of land cultivated for food crops, while in West Java, population growth must be attributed rather to the expansion in economie activities in non-agricultural sectors. As an implication of the above, Kano casts doubts on the generally accepted idea of rice cultivation in Java that Central Java has been the core area of wet-rice cultivation - a notion propagated mainly by Clifford Geertz. His argument is further supported by the fact that, from the 1910s to the present day, the proportion of land under rice (even includ- ing dry rice) in Central Java has been at most 50%, as compared with a figure of 80% for West Java. Geertz is also challenged on three points by Yoshifusa Naito (1981), viz.: (1) the definitions of Pasisir and Keja- wen are originally cultural and political in nature, not ecological, as Geertz claims; (2) in the 19th century, 'involution' did not take place, but agriculture rather developed through an enlargement of the area of cultivated land; and (3) in ecological terms, rice and sugarcane are not necessarily in symbiosis.

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