Human Categories and Interpersonal Relations in Agriculture : A Case from Rural Central Java

This paper examines the sociological aspects of agriculture in arice-growing village of Central Java, and is based on field researchconducted by the author from June to December, 1975, in villagesnear the city of Surakarta. The research area previously belongedto the principality of susuhunan and was dominated by Dutchagricultural enterprises. The area is economically advanced andis characterized by a high population density (1,796 per ㎢) anda relatively high productivity of rice with double or triple cropping.The research was confined to only a few hamlets and is an intensivecase study of Javanese rural society. The results should not begeneralized for Javanese agriculture as a whole. The paper focusesfirst on the categories into which people engaged in agricultureare divided, and secondly on the analysis of the properties of eachcategory and their interrelationships.The main categories are:1. Kuli kenceng, a traditional and surviving category for cultivatorsof rice fields. During the Dutch colonial era each kuli lancingwas alloted two rice fields, each with an area of 0.5 ha. On oneplot they cultivated rice and on the other tobacco or sugarcanefor the Dutch agricultural enterprise that rented the land from thesusuhunan. Although domination by both the susuhunan and theDutch enterprises disappeared with national independence, theconcept of kuli kenceng still survives and the term is used to refer tonominal holders of rice field. It should be noted, however, that each kuli kenceng still holds 0.5 ha of rice fields, but in some casesmore than one kuli lancing is found within a single household, andsome kuli kenceng live in urban areas, leaving the cultivation oftheir rice field to villagers.2. Pitani, also a category of rice field holder. Although the termpitani is broadly equivalent to "farmer," it refers in local usage torice field holders including those who do not themselves engagein agriculture. This category largely overlaps with kuli kenceng.But those kuli kenceng who live far away are not regarded as pitani,the latter category being reserved' for village inhabitants togetherwith other categories like' village officials (pamong clesa), pettytraders (bakul), artisans and traditional workers (tukang) and wageearners (buruh).3. Pamong clisa, village officials. Each village official is entitledto use official rice field (sawah lungguh) during their period of service.The size of those official rice fields is enough to provide arespectable level of living. Of six officials of the village investigated,five have no private rice field in addition to the officialfield. Village officials can be distinguished from other villagersby better education and descent from or the some relationshipwith the traditional lower literati class. In contrast, some wellto-do owner-cultivators of rice fields cannot influence intravillagesocio-political relations, because they lack education andhave no relationship with the literati.4. Penggarap, cultivators of rice fields. They are those whocontrol the cultivation of rice fields, regardless of whether theythemselves work in the field or hire wage laborers. Some culti-,vators own rice field themselves and others only temporarilyrent a field by paying cash in advance (nyiwa). Because ofrentals, it is often difficult to discern who now controls the cultivationof individual rice fields. Some cultivators rent additionalfields. Others rent out all or part of their rice field forfixed periods to obtain cash to cover the cost of family ritualsor to purchase expensive goods such as motorcycles. In somecases, landless ones who cultivate only rented fields are wealthierthan small-scale owners of rice fields.5. Sharecroppers. There are three kinds of sharecropper (siromo,mirtilu, mirapat) according to the form of contract between landowner and sharecropper. Sharecropping is rarer than cashrental, and can be considered as transitional between rental andwage labor.6. Buruh tani, agricultural wage laborers. Of the total of 73 house-holds in the two hamlets, only 16 own rice fields, 3 village officialshave official fields, and 20 households cultivate rice fields. Manyvillagers engage in agriculture only as wage laborers or maketheir living by occupations other than agriculture. Cultivatorsmake use of the abundant supply of cheap labor (Rp 150 for males,Rp 100 for females per day). Mobilization of agricultural laborthrough traditional social institutions like labor exchange orpatron-client relations is now being replaced by more strictlyeconomic forms such as arbitrary, day-by-day employment oflaborers.In this area the social relationships in agriculture are characterizedby five factors; a) standardization of the size of nominal ricefield holding; b) separation between land holding and actual landcontrol accelerated by the dominant practice of cash rental, and, asa consequence; c) frequent change of cultivators for any given ricefield; d) abundance of cheap landless labor; e) exclusive use of alarge area of rice fields by village officials.As a result of factors a—d, social relationships in agriculturecan be seen as an accumulation of innumerable interpersonal,dyadic relations. These dyadic relations are limited in contract,not enduring and always optional in that they are fixed not throughconcrete social institutions but rather through personal choice.Such personalized and complicated relationships might reaffirmthe familiar picture of rural Java; "involution," "vagueness" and"a monotonous poverty of social substance ," as depicted by CliffordGeertz. But this considers only the socio-economic aspect ofJavanese agriculture and over-simplifies the picture of Javaneserural societies. In order to link the economic aspect of rural lifewith its socio-political dimension, the rural power structure mustbe considered.In this core region of the former Mataram Kingdom, thesocio-political structure of village societies is largely based on acultural hierarchy traditionally centered around the court and thearistocrats. Village officials retain a large portion of the officialrice field ex officion, ot because they are already at the top of economichierarchy but because they belong partly to the literati.This paper forms part of a study on social expression of ruralJavanese culture. Therefore, the relationship and contradictionsbetween economic and socio-political structures of village societiesis discussed in the concluding chapter.The contents of this paper are :I. IntroductionII. Geographical and economic setting of agricultureIII. Rice field and kuli lancingIV. Ownership and control of rice fieldsV. Social relations in the process of cultivationVI. Individual households—cases of their life history and agri-cultureVII. Conclusion and perspectives