@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004580,
 author = {関本, 照夫 and Sekimoto, Teruo},
 issue = {3},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Jan},
 note = {This paper examines the sociological aspects of agriculture in a
rice-growing village of Central Java, and is based on field research
conducted by the author from June to December, 1975, in villages
near the city of Surakarta. The research area previously belonged
to the principality of susuhunan and was dominated by Dutch
agricultural enterprises. The area is economically advanced and
is characterized by a high population density (1,796 per ㎢) and
a relatively high productivity of rice with double or triple cropping.
The research was confined to only a few hamlets and is an intensive
case study of Javanese rural society. The results should not be
generalized for Javanese agriculture as a whole. The paper focuses
first on the categories into which people engaged in agriculture
are divided, and secondly on the analysis of the properties of each
category and their interrelationships.
The main categories are:
1. Kuli kenceng, a traditional and surviving category for cultivators
of rice fields. During the Dutch colonial era each kuli lancing
was alloted two rice fields, each with an area of 0.5 ha. On one
plot they cultivated rice and on the other tobacco or sugarcane
for the Dutch agricultural enterprise that rented the land from the
susuhunan. Although domination by both the susuhunan and the
Dutch enterprises disappeared with national independence, the
concept of kuli kenceng still survives and the term is used to refer to
nominal holders of rice field. It should be noted, however, that each kuli kenceng still holds 0.5 ha of rice fields, but in some cases
more than one kuli lancing is found within a single household, and
some kuli kenceng live in urban areas, leaving the cultivation of
their rice field to villagers.
2. Pitani, also a category of rice field holder. Although the term
pitani is broadly equivalent to "farmer," it refers in local usage to
rice field holders including those who do not themselves engage
in 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 together
with other categories like' village officials (pamong clesa), petty
traders (bakul), artisans and traditional workers (tukang) and wage
earners (buruh).
3. Pamong clisa, village officials. Each village official is entitled
to use official rice field (sawah lungguh) during their period of service.
The size of those official rice fields is enough to provide a
respectable level of living. Of six officials of the village investigated,
five have no private rice field in addition to the official
field. Village officials can be distinguished from other villagers
by better education and descent from or the some relationship
with the traditional lower literati class. In contrast, some wellto-
do owner-cultivators of rice fields cannot influence intravillage
socio-political relations, because they lack education and
have no relationship with the literati.
4. Penggarap, cultivators of rice fields. They are those who
control the cultivation of rice fields, regardless of whether they
themselves work in the field or hire wage laborers. Some culti-,
vators own rice field themselves and others only temporarily
rent a field by paying cash in advance (nyiwa). Because of
rentals, it is often difficult to discern who now controls the cultivation
of individual rice fields. Some cultivators rent additional
fields. Others rent out all or part of their rice field for
fixed periods to obtain cash to cover the cost of family rituals
or to purchase expensive goods such as motorcycles. In some
cases, landless ones who cultivate only rented fields are wealthier
than small-scale owners of rice fields.
5. Sharecroppers. There are three kinds of sharecropper (siromo,
mirtilu, mirapat) according to the form of contract between land
owner and sharecropper. Sharecropping is rarer than cash
rental, and can be considered as transitional between rental and
wage 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 officials
have official fields, and 20 households cultivate rice fields. Many
villagers engage in agriculture only as wage laborers or make
their living by occupations other than agriculture. Cultivators
make use of the abundant supply of cheap labor (Rp 150 for males,
Rp 100 for females per day). Mobilization of agricultural labor
through traditional social institutions like labor exchange or
patron-client relations is now being replaced by more strictly
economic forms such as arbitrary, day-by-day employment of
laborers.
In this area the social relationships in agriculture are characterized
by five factors; a) standardization of the size of nominal rice
field holding; b) separation between land holding and actual land
control accelerated by the dominant practice of cash rental, and, as
a consequence; c) frequent change of cultivators for any given rice
field; d) abundance of cheap landless labor; e) exclusive use of a
large area of rice fields by village officials.
As a result of factors a—d, social relationships in agriculture
can 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 through
concrete social institutions but rather through personal choice.
Such personalized and complicated relationships might reaffirm
the familiar picture of rural Java; "involution," "vagueness" and
"a monotonous poverty of social substance ," as depicted by Clifford
Geertz. But this considers only the socio-economic aspect of
Javanese agriculture and over-simplifies the picture of Javanese
rural societies. In order to link the economic aspect of rural life
with its socio-political dimension, the rural power structure must
be considered.
In this core region of the former Mataram Kingdom, the
socio-political structure of village societies is largely based on a
cultural hierarchy traditionally centered around the court and the
aristocrats. Village officials retain a large portion of the official
rice field ex officion, ot because they are already at the top of economic
hierarchy but because they belong partly to the literati.
This paper forms part of a study on social expression of rural
Javanese culture. Therefore, the relationship and contradictions
between economic and socio-political structures of village societies
is discussed in the concluding chapter.
The contents of this paper are :
I. Introduction
II. Geographical and economic setting of agriculture
III. Rice field and kuli lancing
IV. Ownership and control of rice fields
V. Social relations in the process of cultivation
VI. Individual households—cases of their life history and agri-culture
VII. Conclusion and perspectives},
 pages = {345--415},
 title = {農業をめぐる人のカテゴリーと相互関係 : 中部ジャワの一事例},
 volume = {3},
 year = {1979},
 yomi = {セキモト, テルオ}
}