R. A. Cramb, 2007, Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak.
Wadley, Reed L.
R. A. Cramb, 2007, Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in
the Uplands of Sarawak. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Monograph
Series, No. 110. Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press, 422 pp.
Over 20 years ago, in my first semester of graduate school, I wrote
a research paper for Jim Eder's Ecological Anthropology seminar
looking at the variable success of some Southeast Asian societies to
negotiate a place for themselves in the global economy (before
"globalization" became one of the latest buzz words); my prime
example of "success" was the Iban, and I worked in rather
vague notions about their participation in the market economy as being
central. I got decent marks for the paper, but never felt fully
satisfied with it (and for good reason). Thankfully, Rob Cramb's
new book, Land and Longhouse, takes on the issue so much more thoroughly
and insightfully, showing how the critical factors of Iban (specifically
Saribas) culture, social organization, and historical circumstance come
together to create the dynamic, vibrant, and resilient society that many
of us have come to know, love, and respect. Cramb's book is where
important research activities come together--long-term field research,
attention to often excruciating detail (e.g., rice and pepper yields:
what the late Bob Netting referred to as "counting potatoes"),
and a solid sense of what's important in the big picture--to give
usa valuable, reliable, and ultimately useful account of Saribas Iban
livelihood transformation.
Cramb sums up the essential variables thus: (1) "the
resilience and cohesiveness of the longhouse community during the
process of agrarian transformation;" (2) "distinctive social
and cultural norms and attitudes ... forged in the context of migration,
warfare, and pioneering agriculture;" (3) "a timely
redirection of energies" allowing localized economic development;
and (4) the Brooke practice of indirect rule which encouraged engagement
with both market and government on local terms (pp. 379-380). But this
work is not merely a specific case study, as Cramb places his research
within the broader context of agrarian transformation of the uplands
throughout Southeast Asia. He shows that the Saribas case is part of a
larger set of tensions and trends involving the increased
diversification of livelihoods as households and communities have
responded through different configurations of intensification,
commercialization, and migration in the face of population growth, the
expansion of the global market economy, and increased government
involvement in local affairs. In the conclusion, he compares the
strategies of other folks in Sumatra, Central Sulawesi, and southern
Mindanao (the latter based on Cramb's more recent research),
highlighting these tensions among state, community, and market.
Land and Longhouse is divided up into three main parts that serve
to flesh out these issues: (1) the ethnographic and historical
background of the Iban generally, and the pre-colonial agrarian system
of the Saribas specifically; (2) transformation of that system under
Brooke rule, as the White Rajahs extended their influence over Iban
political activities and livelihoods through land laws and the use of
courts to settle land disputes; and (3) the rapid transformation after
World War II under the transitional colonial government and
post-independence Malaysia. Throughout the account, Cramb compares the
variation seen in his long-term focus on two communities in the Spak
area of the upper Saribas--Batu Lintang and Nanga Tapih. The contrasts
that emerge in these two cases, as their residents respond to the
changes facing them, provide an invaluable guide to the variation we
have all too long neglected in our studies of Iban culture and society.
For this brief review, rather than provide a chapter-by-chapter
summary of the book, I will make a few specific comments instead, as I
can provide no higher endorsement than "Read the book!" First
off, within the context of traditional swidden practices, Cramb shows
convincingly the speculative nature of Freeman's conclusions on
Iban pioneering swiddening, particularly his harsh judgment of krukoh
farming (i.e., farming a plot for two seasons in succession). Despite
there being little to no evidence of permanent damage to forest
regeneration under supposedly "prodigar" farming practices (p.
93), the label has stuck over the decades, and this on the opinion of
one social anthropologist and carried forth by others, some with an
outright agenda to end sustainable swiddening.
One strength (among many) of the book, alongside the explicit
historization, is Cramb's use of colonial era court records; these
flesh out the general historical trends and provide concrete evidence of
profound livelihood changes. This is especially important regarding Iban
land rights as communities and households have sought to navigate
through redefinitions of their territorial rights, the persistent issue
of migration as a solution to land shortage, and how all that has
affected those rights. This in particular reveals the overwhelming
importance Iban have placed on maintaining the integrity of their
traditional menoa, and the relative success they have had in doing so
despite continuai government and market pressures to end such supposedly
"outmoded" institutions.
Cramb provides a rather d isconcerting account of the expansion of
the"clientist" state that Sarawak has become through its
incorporation into Malaysia, with its strong emphasis on "economic
development" as manipulated by networks of patrons, clients, and
their own clients further down the line. The high-modernist state comes
to most Iban with the face of government programs and departments such
as SALCRA (Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority); the
Iban whom I study across the border in West Kalimantan seem downright
neglected (indeed they have been until recently) compared to the
government initiatives and the like aimed at their cousins in Sarawak.
Cramb spells out the incredibly profound implications these programs
have had on Saribas livelihoods--the expansion of commercial crops,
participation in private plantation schemes, titling and leasing of
household land, and most fundamentally the decline and eventual
abandonment of swidden rice farming. Yet despite all this bad news,
Cramb makes sure to emphasize that the Iban have not been passive
victims but rather have remained very much their own agents,
constrained, to be sure, by more powerful interests but their own agents
nonetheless. That is, of course, what we have come to expect of the
Iban.
(Reed L. Wadley, Department of Anthropology, University of
Missouri-Columbia)