Researching Indonesian Cultural Complexity

KOMPAS/AHMAD ARIF

J Stephen Lansing

Indonesia has changed the course of life of J Stephen Lansing, 72. As a student of physics, the cultural wealth in Bali interested him and turned him to the study of anthropology that made him a professor who originated the theory of complexity in social sciences.

Steve, as he is intimately called, was still 21 when his father, John Lansing, Head of the Economics Department in Michigan University, United States, died from brain cancer. “I was disappointed. I wanted to be away from home. By coincidence, there was a campus announcement on a six-month scholarship overseas,” he said.

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Steve, then a third-semester student of physics at Wesleyan University, promptly enrolled and chose Bali, about which he had read a brief review. In March 1971, he started living in Bali. “I stayed with Ida Bagus Sudiasa, a brahman in Sanur, who is knowledgeable about anthropology,” he added.

Through Sudiasa, Steve got acquainted with and interested in the culture of Bali and also anthropology. As soon as he secured his diploma, he continued his study in the department of anthropology in Michigan University. From 1974 to 1976, Steve conducted his doctoral research on the relations between history, religion and art in Bali.

Back in the US, Steve received an invitation from an anthropologist who specialized in Indonesian studies, Clifford Gertz, for his dissertation at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton. Steve earned his doctorate in anthropology from Michigan University in 1977. Thereafter, he began his professional career at the Southern California University until he became a professor of anthropology.

One of the aspects that attracted him most was Bali’s subak (communal irrigation) tradition, which at the time was facing the pressure of the Green Revolution.

In 1979, Steve revisited Bali to attend the Eka Dasa Rudra, a rare Balinese ritual performed once in a century. Later Steve, who already had a command of the Balinese language, engrossed himself in the island even more. One of the aspects that attracted him most was Bali’s subak (communal irrigation) tradition, which at the time was facing the pressure of the Green Revolution. "Balinese farmers were forced to ignore the crop planting pattern arranged by the temple or pura and asked to grow paddy as frequently as possible to increase production. This condition caused a shock. There were harvest failures and a famine threat,” he revealed.

Dynamism of subak

Steve inquired into the system of subak in Bali. He strived to find out the key to the success of water management and paddy cultivation based on subak in the past.

He also mapped out the irrigation network from the lake on Mount Batur that irrigated rice fields on the slopes of this mountain to the coastal region that formed subak communities. On average, a subak area comprised 80 farmers’ fields and covered 40 hectares of land.

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

Farmers work in terraced rice fields with a subak irrigation system in Tegalalang, Ubud, Bali.

The subak irrigation system made farmers comply with the calendar determined by the pura authority through a ceremony by allowing a bera (fallow) period or a planting break. “Balinese farmers learned to control pests in their rice fields by flooding the fields after harvesting. This practice had for centuries eliminated pests and protected paddy crops,” said Steve.

However, the Green Revolution disregarded this traditional knowledge. The bera period was disrupted because farmers were told to grow paddy throughout the year. The government forced farmers to plant new varieties, which was considered more productive. Consequently, bacterial and viral diseases as well as the insect and rat population grew rapidly.

Along with James Kremer, a marine science professor at Connecticut University, Steve created a computer model connecting famers’ behavior with the subak environment. The model showed that farmers could interact and learn from each other, for instance, by imitating a neighbor producing bigger yield, a pattern would immediately appear.

Steve wrote a scientific article entitled Balinese “Water Temples” and the Management of Irrigation (American Anthropologist, 1987), which indicates that the relations between humans and nature can produce an efficient, harmonious and sustainable pattern.

The article became a forerunner of complexity theory in social sciences. This forced the Asian Development Bank that provided loans to Indonesia’s Green Revolution to review its program in Bali.

Up to the present, the subak system in Bali has remained operational and Bali became the UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape of 2012. Steve’s research on water temples in the subak system was the basis for the award.

Since then, he has been intensively following the Eijkman LBM team’s research on various ethnic groups in the interior regions of Indonesia.

Steve’s interest further covered other parts of Indonesia. He collaborated with a molecular biologist of the Eijkman Institute of Molecular Biology (LBM), Herawati Supolo Sudoyo, to visit several regions. He focused on the relations between language and culture on one side and genetics on the other. In order to stay close to Indonesia he set up the Complexity Institute and served as a professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore from 2015 to 2019. Since then, he has been intensively following the Eijkman LBM team’s research on various ethnic groups in the interior regions of Indonesia.

Recently, he was involved in “discovering” and introducing Punan Batu, the last group of hunters and gatherers of Kalimantan, to the outside world. His paper, written with Eijkman LBM researchers in the Evolutionary Human Science (2022) journal, is the first scientific work on Punan Batu.

Despite his advanced age, Steve strives to join field surveys, including the search for Punan Batu at the end of 2018. “There’s no retirement for researchers. I will keep doing field work to the end,” said Steve, who is finalizing his newest book.

KOMPAS/COKORDA YUDISTIRA

The atmosphere of the Bali International Field School for Subak event in Jero Tumbuk, Selat Village, Selat District, Karangasem, on Monday (12/13/2012).

The book summarizes Steve’s journeys to several Indonesian regions. Steve sees the presence of a pattern of knowledge behind cultural complexity. The knowledge pattern formed by a long cultural process is affected by harmonious, not linear, and adaptive interaction between humans and their nature. This can contribute to the response to environmental and climate crises.

J Stephen Lansing

Age: 72

Career:

- External Professor at Complexity Science Hub Vienna and Santa Fe Institute, and emeritus professor of anthropology at University of Arizona.

- Founder and Director of Complexity Institute and professor at Asian School of Environment, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (2015-2019)

Books, including:

- Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali (1991).

- Guide to Bali’s UNESCO World Heritage (2012).

- Islands of Order: A Guide to Complexity Modeling for the Social Sciences (2019).

(This article was translated by Aris Prawira)