time bound intervention with a fixed goal and budget, framed within a technical matrix which renders some problems amenable to intervention, while leaving others out of account. Thinking about rural development in terms of projects has become so routine that alternative ways of thinking and acting are scarcely considered. Yet, it was not always so. This paper compares the present conjuncture, in which the project system dominates, with historical conjunctures at which projects did not take the center stage. Two empirical studies serve to illustrate how a disparate set of actors –Indonesian government officials and politicians, social development experts at the World Bank, transnational conservation agencies and rural villagers – converged on the project system, with refractory results.
Second speaker: to be announced.
II. Governance, democracy and citizenship for climateas a common project, this paper questions the construction of “Masyarakat Adat” as an idea as well as an organizing principle to mobilize the so-called indigenous people in Indonesia. The idea of indigeneity and the right for inheritance embedded in the concept of “Masyarakat Adat” implies exclusion. That contrasts the national goal of inclusive development for all the Indonesian citizens.
Jacqueline Vel (KITLV): New law, new villages? Addressing inequality in rural areas
The village (desa) is the basis for an alternative imagination of the Indonesian nation. The slogan “desa membangun Indonesia” (building Indonesia from its villages) has recently been used in campaigns for further decentralization to the level of the more than 74,000 desa. The village has always been critical in Indonesian governance discourse. The village had a core role