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  • Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak
  • Lee Poh Onn (bio)
Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak. By R.A. Cramb. Denmark: Nias Press, 2007. 442 pp.

Over the past five decades, forested uplands and lowlands in Southeast Asia have served as important sites for anthropologists to study the livelihood of indigenous communities facing social changes and economic development. In Sarawak, the plight of its indigenous communities gained global attention over the timber blockades in 1987 which led to an attempted ban by the European Union on timber produced from "unsustainable" sources. Linked to the timber debate then was the impact of timber extraction and deforestation on the indigenous peoples' livelihoods and their well-being. Also drawn into the debate was the impact of development and agricultural transformation on native subsistence and religious and cultural beliefs.

For Sarawak's indigenous communities, their agricultural practices, foraging and hunting behaviour, and religious beliefs have been studied in great detail from the 1980s to the 1990s by notable anthropologists like Peter Kedit (on the Iban in Lubok Antu and Paku); S.C. Chin (on the Kenyah Community in Long Selatong Ulu in Baram); J. Peter Brosius (on the Penan Community in Sarawak's Seventh Division); Henry Luhat (on the Kajang in the Belaga District); Ida Nicolaisen (on the Punan Bah in Long Bah at the Rejang River); and Sylvester Punchak (on the Bisaya at the Limbang River). Most of these works were published in the Sarawak Museum Journal, considered an authoritative and informative source of information.

Cramb, however, approaches the study of the indigenous Iban from the perspective of an agricultural economist. The Iban form the largest single ethnic group in Sarawak and western Borneo, and about 630,000 are grouped into around 6,000 longhouse communities. Hence the focus of Cramb's study is significant in that it studies the largest ethnic group in Sarawak, serving to highlight the dynamics influencing change and conflict of this particular group in light of modernization, the introduction of new forms of agrarian practices, and the intrusion of large-scale commercial activities into a traditional system of land ownership and shifting cultivation. [End Page 143]

Chapter One deals with general agrarian transformation movements and the theories associated with such transformation. The next chapter relates theory to the ground by looking at the Sarawakian Iban communities, and then narrowing the focus to a particular group of Iban in the Saribas uplands. Subsequent chapters deal with various thematic issues in a chronological order during the Brooke and post-war period.

The pre-colonial agrarian system of the Saribas Iban, notably shifting cultivation and Iban customs related to land tenure and its use, is discussed in Chapter Three. The Brooke State, and its attitude towards Iban land cultivation practices and customs is dealt with in Chapter Four. The struggle for land by the Iban during the Brooke period is explored in Chapter Five (the Government from then on viewed land as subject to state proprietorship and has, in effect, overridden many individual indigenous land rights). Chapter Six deals with the growth of commercial agriculture during the Brooke period, while Chapter Seven deals with the adaptation of land tenure to commercial agriculture.

In the post-war period, the issues covered include agrarian law and policy discussed in Chapter Eight, public and private agents of agrarian development in the uplands in Chapter Nine, post-war transformation of smallholder agriculture in the Saribas District in Chapter Ten, and land tenure and development in the same district in Chapter Eleven. Chapter Twelve concludes by discussing the need to achieve a balanced development in the Southeast Asian uplands.

Right at the onset, Cramb lays down the theoretical framework of his work by referring to works by Karl Polyani, Marx, Boserup, Geertz, and Myint to centre his discussion on issues on agricultural transformation, displacement, and economic development. However, Cramb also points out that no grand theory of agricultural transformation can be applied to the Iban. Rather he posits questions to examine the realities of the customary systems of land use and tenure by the Iban, why such systems have persisted into the current era, and how...

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