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The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics
The Will to Improve is a remarkable account of development in action. Focusing on attempts to improve landscapes and livelihoods in Indonesia, Tania Murray Li carefully exposes the practices that enable experts to diagnose problems and devise interventions, and the agency of people whose conduct is targeted for reform. Deftly integrating theory, ethnography, and history, she illuminates the work of colonial officials and missionaries; specialists in agriculture, hygiene, and credit; and political activists with their own schemes for guiding villagers toward better ways of life. She examines donor-funded initiatives that seek to integrate conservation with development through the participation of communities, and a one-billion-dollar program designed by the World Bank to optimize the social capital of villagers, inculcate new habits of competition and choice, and remake society from the bottom up. Demonstrating that the “will to improve” has a long and troubled history, Li identifies enduring continuities from the colonial period to the present. She explores the tools experts have used to set the conditions for reform—tools that combine the reshaping of desires with applications of force. Attending in detail to the highlands of Sulawesi, she shows how a series of interventions entangled with one another and tracks their results, ranging from wealth to famine, from compliance to political mobilization, and from new solidarities to oppositional identities and violent attack. The Will to Improve is an engaging read—conceptually innovative, empirically rich, and alive with the actions and reflections of the targets of improvement, people with their own critical analyses of the problems that beset them.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
49 people are currently reading
662 people want to read
About the author
Tania Murray Li
13 books26 followersProfessor at St. George Campus and Canada Research Chair in the Political-Economy and Culture of Asia-Pacific
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May 4, 2022
Buku ini cocok dikatakan sebagai buku terlarang bagi orang-orang yang pro-pembangunan. Singkatnya, buku ini mengulas tiga gelombang, pertama pembangunan dari masa kolonialisme sampai orba yang cenderung koersif dengan kekerasan, kemudian munculnya pembangunan berkedok wisata atau konservasi, hingga yang kekinian pembangunan berkedok participatory research atau community developement.
Buku ini adalah pembuktian yang luar biasa atas concern Tania Li terhadap study site yang dikajinya puluhan tahun terakhir. Li menangkap detil historis dan teknis suatu peristiwa, serta relasi sosial yang menyusunnya tanpa mengabaikan adanya struktur yang lebih mengglobal: kapitalisme.
Menariknya, berbeda dari buku-buku Tania Li sebelumnya: Lihat buku Tania Li lainnya di sini. Biasanya, Li akan menggambarkan suatu peristiwa sebagai contoh untuk dianalisa menggunakan pisau yang ia perkenalkan di bab awal. Ciri kajiannya adalah sangat fokus tapi terkesan hidup. Li banyak mengut wawancara langsung dan mendeskripsikan pilihan secara nyata dari aktor-aktor yang mudah bermanuver. Yah, walaupun terkadang agak bertele-tele.
Tapi kali ini, rasanya Li tidak terlalu banyak menyempit. Pada buku ini ia tidak menjadikan kasus sebagai sebuah studi kasus yang sempit dan terfokus. Ia tidak terlalu ingin menjelaskan teknis (justru itu kritiknya). Melainkan, ia justru menjadikan kasus sebagai bagian dari perkembangan kapitalisme di era Neoliberalisme yang global.
Pembaca akan dibawa mengambang-ambang pada cerita yang disajikan. Peristiwa yang kita rasa akan dibahas detail ditarik mundur pada pembahasan kapitalisme, neoliberalisme, dan peran sentral World Bank. Sebaliknya, ketika sedang membahas sistem, kita akan tiba-tiba ditarik lebih dekat untuk mengamati rinci kekacauan dari program pembangunan yang didonori oleh Word Bank.
Secara pribadi, sebagai seorang Antropolog muda, saya rasa buku ini adalah merupakan bagian dari seri roasting Tania Li terhadap profesinya. Tidak dapat dipungkiri, Antropolog adalah anak kandung kolonialisme. Kehadiran Antropolog yang dianggap menjadi ahli ini dapat menjadi masalah. Bagi Li, Antropolog merupakan orang-orang yang terdidik dan dianggap mampu memberikan gambaran sosio-kultural terhadap suatu kebudayaan menggunakan metode etnografi.
Permasalahannya, kini Antropolog berada dalam posisi canggung. Kebanyakan diantaranya menjadi ujung tombak project pembangunan World Bank, bekerja secara normatif, teknikal, dan sering kali abai pada permasalahan struktural yang mendasar. Terlebih, kini Antropolog diembankan tanggung jawab untuk menggagas oleh serangkaian upaya participatory yang tidak benar benar memberikan kesempatan komunitas untuk berpartisipasi. Justru, terdengar seperti upaya cuci otak secara halus.
Dan yah, sebagai penutup saya akan menyarankan bahwa buku tebal nan padat ini perlu dibaca dengan penuh kesabaran. Seperti yang sudah sempat saya singgung, Li sering kali menjelaskan secara bertele-tele. Bagi pembaca yang gemar membaca penulisan paragraf yang tertib agaknya Li bukan penulis yang tepat. Beberapa kali saya temukan satu paragraf yang terdiri dari satu halaman full. Ia menjelaskan paragraf dengan penuh kalimat keterangan yang tidak bisa diabaikan.
Buku ini adalah pembuktian yang luar biasa atas concern Tania Li terhadap study site yang dikajinya puluhan tahun terakhir. Li menangkap detil historis dan teknis suatu peristiwa, serta relasi sosial yang menyusunnya tanpa mengabaikan adanya struktur yang lebih mengglobal: kapitalisme.
Menariknya, berbeda dari buku-buku Tania Li sebelumnya: Lihat buku Tania Li lainnya di sini. Biasanya, Li akan menggambarkan suatu peristiwa sebagai contoh untuk dianalisa menggunakan pisau yang ia perkenalkan di bab awal. Ciri kajiannya adalah sangat fokus tapi terkesan hidup. Li banyak mengut wawancara langsung dan mendeskripsikan pilihan secara nyata dari aktor-aktor yang mudah bermanuver. Yah, walaupun terkadang agak bertele-tele.
Tapi kali ini, rasanya Li tidak terlalu banyak menyempit. Pada buku ini ia tidak menjadikan kasus sebagai sebuah studi kasus yang sempit dan terfokus. Ia tidak terlalu ingin menjelaskan teknis (justru itu kritiknya). Melainkan, ia justru menjadikan kasus sebagai bagian dari perkembangan kapitalisme di era Neoliberalisme yang global.
Pembaca akan dibawa mengambang-ambang pada cerita yang disajikan. Peristiwa yang kita rasa akan dibahas detail ditarik mundur pada pembahasan kapitalisme, neoliberalisme, dan peran sentral World Bank. Sebaliknya, ketika sedang membahas sistem, kita akan tiba-tiba ditarik lebih dekat untuk mengamati rinci kekacauan dari program pembangunan yang didonori oleh Word Bank.
Secara pribadi, sebagai seorang Antropolog muda, saya rasa buku ini adalah merupakan bagian dari seri roasting Tania Li terhadap profesinya. Tidak dapat dipungkiri, Antropolog adalah anak kandung kolonialisme. Kehadiran Antropolog yang dianggap menjadi ahli ini dapat menjadi masalah. Bagi Li, Antropolog merupakan orang-orang yang terdidik dan dianggap mampu memberikan gambaran sosio-kultural terhadap suatu kebudayaan menggunakan metode etnografi.
Permasalahannya, kini Antropolog berada dalam posisi canggung. Kebanyakan diantaranya menjadi ujung tombak project pembangunan World Bank, bekerja secara normatif, teknikal, dan sering kali abai pada permasalahan struktural yang mendasar. Terlebih, kini Antropolog diembankan tanggung jawab untuk menggagas oleh serangkaian upaya participatory yang tidak benar benar memberikan kesempatan komunitas untuk berpartisipasi. Justru, terdengar seperti upaya cuci otak secara halus.
Dan yah, sebagai penutup saya akan menyarankan bahwa buku tebal nan padat ini perlu dibaca dengan penuh kesabaran. Seperti yang sudah sempat saya singgung, Li sering kali menjelaskan secara bertele-tele. Bagi pembaca yang gemar membaca penulisan paragraf yang tertib agaknya Li bukan penulis yang tepat. Beberapa kali saya temukan satu paragraf yang terdiri dari satu halaman full. Ia menjelaskan paragraf dengan penuh kalimat keterangan yang tidak bisa diabaikan.
November 23, 2014
Most postdevelopment literature focuses on the limitations of development and conservation projects. These works often set out to: demonstrate the failure of technical projects to enable political action; focus on the ways technical projects artificially enclose problems; and the way current solutions often lead to unintended consequences.
Not all post-development literature is patently negative and defeatist, but quite a bit is.
For me, Tania Murray Li's book is different -- perhaps in some ways even "modern" (as opposed to postmodern) in its approach. Tania Murray Li sets out to demonstrate two things: the will to improve is stubborn; and that this stubborn will to improve often survives the misadventures of development and conservation projects.
Unlike a lot of scholarly work, this book seems almost literary in its ambition. By trying to demonstrate how the "will to improve" permeates a wide range of improvement projects the author often seems to make a larger point about the human condition. (Even the term "human condition" often gets much maligned by postmodern scholars who disparage "essentializing" discourses).
In Sulawesi, Indonesia the colonial interventions caused death, destruction, and impoverishment because they ignored local ecology, livelihoods, and cultures. New Order interventions were a little better but were narrowly sectoral and failed to plan ahead. Though the integrated development and conservation plans had all the "right" components of development as conceived in 1990s (micro-credit, participatory planning, and community development), implementation was uneven. The participatory interventions of the World Bank—though done with loan funds—represented an ethnographic turn, were bottom-up, and avoided much of the corruption and accountability problems of the other projects.
Through failure, uneven success, and unexpected follow on problems, the will to improve would not go away.
Though Li simultaneously employs several theorists to help tease out meaning in her work, eventually these theoretical tools end up returning her to her essential theme of the will to improve. As a motif that ties the disparate strands of her work together, it is much superior to any of the several theoretical tools she uses individually and overcomes many of the limitations of defeatist postmodern accounts of development.
Not all post-development literature is patently negative and defeatist, but quite a bit is.
For me, Tania Murray Li's book is different -- perhaps in some ways even "modern" (as opposed to postmodern) in its approach. Tania Murray Li sets out to demonstrate two things: the will to improve is stubborn; and that this stubborn will to improve often survives the misadventures of development and conservation projects.
Unlike a lot of scholarly work, this book seems almost literary in its ambition. By trying to demonstrate how the "will to improve" permeates a wide range of improvement projects the author often seems to make a larger point about the human condition. (Even the term "human condition" often gets much maligned by postmodern scholars who disparage "essentializing" discourses).
In Sulawesi, Indonesia the colonial interventions caused death, destruction, and impoverishment because they ignored local ecology, livelihoods, and cultures. New Order interventions were a little better but were narrowly sectoral and failed to plan ahead. Though the integrated development and conservation plans had all the "right" components of development as conceived in 1990s (micro-credit, participatory planning, and community development), implementation was uneven. The participatory interventions of the World Bank—though done with loan funds—represented an ethnographic turn, were bottom-up, and avoided much of the corruption and accountability problems of the other projects.
Through failure, uneven success, and unexpected follow on problems, the will to improve would not go away.
Though Li simultaneously employs several theorists to help tease out meaning in her work, eventually these theoretical tools end up returning her to her essential theme of the will to improve. As a motif that ties the disparate strands of her work together, it is much superior to any of the several theoretical tools she uses individually and overcomes many of the limitations of defeatist postmodern accounts of development.
March 20, 2013
Geez, this book is an excellent ethnography of development, too bad it's way too dense for the average undergraduate to wade through. I assigned it for a class on the anthropology of development and my students are really struggling with it. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 are good case studies of development in action and of the operation of governmentality. Chapter 6 dissects the practice and planning of a project by The Nature Conservancy and Chapter 7 traces the neoliberal premises of a World Bank project focused on "Social Development" (i.e. community development).
She does such a good job in tracing the assumptions then outcomes of 200 plus years of intervention in Sulawesi, Indonesia that I really wish it was more accessible to students. If I teach it again I will assign only 2-3 chapters.
She does such a good job in tracing the assumptions then outcomes of 200 plus years of intervention in Sulawesi, Indonesia that I really wish it was more accessible to students. If I teach it again I will assign only 2-3 chapters.
July 26, 2024
This is an interesting and important contribution to the literature that looks at international development, locating development in it's historical roots of colonial language about improvement. Throughout the books Li makes interesting conceptual observations, my favourite being her description about how the development process 'renders technical'. This book is well worth a read for anyone interested in development.
While the book is useful, and at times interesting, it is a pretty hard read (whence the 3 stars), in reality it should be 3.5 stars, but even as someone who reads academic anthropology pretty regularly this book was a particularly tricky read.
While the book is useful, and at times interesting, it is a pretty hard read (whence the 3 stars), in reality it should be 3.5 stars, but even as someone who reads academic anthropology pretty regularly this book was a particularly tricky read.
August 10, 2016
An excellent book that details the many problems with the development industry. She could have gone further in her critique of international agencies, however, as well as local Western NGO workers.
July 10, 2018
Seringkali niat baik pembangunan atas nama masyarakat tidak berjalan sesuai dengan yang diharapkan. Banyak pihak-pihak yang merasa bertanggung jawab untuk memperbaiki kehidupan masyarakat menjadi lebih baik. Namun dari sekian banyak proyek yang di jabarkan Li, mereka yang merasa bertanggung jawab sudah memiliki bekal gambaran masing-maing bagaimana seharusnya masyarakat hidup sehingga proyek ini tidak bebas nilai dan tidak bebas kepentingan. Dengan fokus program di Sulawesi, Li menguraikan bagaimana hubungan kekuasaan dan praktik pengaturan perilaku masyarakat diberlakukan. Dalam buku ini Li memaparkan jabaran panjang dengan detail yang sangat kompleks dari program-program tersebut. Tidak seperti humanis dengan pendekatan romatisnya bahwa masyarakat/ kelas tertindas harus dibela dan selalu benar, Tania Li berusaha menguraikan permasalahan ini dari berbagai sisi dengan pendekatan etnografis.
Bagi saya meskipun buku ini sangat ruwet, rumit dan capek untuk diselesaikan, banyak sekali narasi baru yang muncul untuk dapat dijadikan refleksi atas usaha perbaikan kehidupan. Seperti contohnya konsep partisipatif, sebagian kritikus berpendapat bahwa pembangunan berbasis masyarakat gagal dalam menyelesaikan masalah kemisikinan dan marjinalisasi. Pendekatan ini juga bersifat memaksa, karena menggunakan kekuatan yang tidak sah serta tidak adil untuk mengendalikan, membatasi ruang gerak, dan memanipulasi masyarakat. Namun bukan berarti pendekatan ini harus sepenuhnya ditinggalkan, melainkan harus ditingkatkan dengan pemahaman kekuasaaan atau partisipasi yang lebih efektif dan egaliter.
Bagi saya meskipun buku ini sangat ruwet, rumit dan capek untuk diselesaikan, banyak sekali narasi baru yang muncul untuk dapat dijadikan refleksi atas usaha perbaikan kehidupan. Seperti contohnya konsep partisipatif, sebagian kritikus berpendapat bahwa pembangunan berbasis masyarakat gagal dalam menyelesaikan masalah kemisikinan dan marjinalisasi. Pendekatan ini juga bersifat memaksa, karena menggunakan kekuatan yang tidak sah serta tidak adil untuk mengendalikan, membatasi ruang gerak, dan memanipulasi masyarakat. Namun bukan berarti pendekatan ini harus sepenuhnya ditinggalkan, melainkan harus ditingkatkan dengan pemahaman kekuasaaan atau partisipasi yang lebih efektif dan egaliter.
May 29, 2019
One of the most nuanced analyses of NGOs and “improvement” programs i’ve read. So nuanced you leave with more questions than answers, and need to review every bit of social justice you’ve ever committed to. It’s a long and dense read but a crucial exercise in understanding ethnographic frameworks and practice. I read this for a cultural anthropology course, not sure it fit the bill for an intro class but I still thoroughly enjoyed peeling back each layer of a chapter Tania Li has to offer. I just can’t give it five stars because at certain points it read like a dissertation, and a lot of fellow students weren’t keen on the length or thoroughness. I enjoyed it, but wish it could have been written in a way that a larger audience would enjoy. But every detail is important, so that’s a hard balancing act.
January 11, 2022
Difficult stories from the ground level that we all need to hear. Particularly those interested in global poverty and preservation and national parks. Shows how the World Bank, NGOs, and those seeking to help, "educate" the natives and preserve open spaces ignore the knowledge and needs of the people who live on the land.
February 18, 2022
Pada saat yang sama dengan ketika membaca buku ini, contoh kasusnya yang paling aktual muncul lewat pemberitaan tentang apa yang terjadi di Desa Wadas. Negara ini memang tidak menunjukkan kemauan untuk berbenah diri dan tidak menampakkan niat untuk belajar dari kesalahan-kesalahan di masa lalu.
March 12, 2024
As a social worker, this book remind me to be attentive on what Im doing: am I treating the agency of the community for the sake of the cause, can I work side by side with them equally and listen to their ideas on creating changes.
March 6, 2022
Nuanced critique. Would be happy to read more about the author's relationship with the communities she studies.
April 27, 2020
In characteristic style, Gene Anderson has written a great review of a great book. I would add (having read ch. 1-6) along the lines of his comments on Foucault and Weber at the end that this book draws upon Ferguson's Anti-Politics machine, and shares some of its shortcomings (see Lipton's review in Development Southern Africa ca. 1992): the accounts of the "developers" rest heavily upon a reading of official documents. Li points out repeatedly that conservation interventions avoid confronting the shortage of agricultural land, and thus "render technical" a set of political questions, but I'd like to hear in the words of development planners why they avoid the land issue, and how they justify this omission.
Li provides great examples of speaking with villagers about the various interventions put in place, but rarely treats development workers in the same way they primarily appear through their documents, rather than as positioned social actors in the field. This asymmetry is frustrating it's understandable when she's dealing with historical material, but I had hoped the contemporary ethnography would be less textually focused in its treatment of "developers."
Li provides great examples of speaking with villagers about the various interventions put in place, but rarely treats development workers in the same way they primarily appear through their documents, rather than as positioned social actors in the field. This asymmetry is frustrating it's understandable when she's dealing with historical material, but I had hoped the contemporary ethnography would be less textually focused in its treatment of "developers."
September 22, 2025
4/10 ★★
Buku opini politik mengenai proyek pembangunan, khususnya di Sulawesi Tengah pada era Orde Baru, dengan tambahan kajian Indonesia masa kolonial Belanda dan wacana good governance oleh Bank Dunia, dibungkus pendekatan governmentality dan metode etnografi.
Buku ini memiliki referensi penelitian dan data pendukung yang melimpah. Terlalu melimpah untuk selera saya yang ingin memahami lebih kepada opini penulis. Saya kurang merasa nyaman jika harus membaca 5 kalimat referensi, belum menghitung footnote, atau harus melalui ∼30 menit pelajaran sejarah untuk mendapat 1 kalimat opini dari penulis.
Ditambah hasil terjemahan yang sulit dimengerti, dan kata-kata yang seharusnya tidak perlu diterjemahkan, seperti governmentality, the will to improve, the will to empower, wali masyarakat, perbaikan, dan masih banyak lagi.
"Seperti halnya semua intervensi kepengaturan (governmentality) yang saya singgung dalam bagian lain buku ini, proses perencanaan di tingat desa yang dikembangkan oleh Bank Dunia ditopang oleh pedoman-pedoman peraturan, pemantauan, dan audit yang didesain oleh Bank Dunia sendiri, dirancang untuk membentuk ulang keinginan warga dan mengarahkan perilaku mereka, dengan menyiapkan kondisi sehingga orang-orang bertindak seperti yang seharusnya tanpa harus diperintah."
PS. Buku ini bikin ane semakin enggan baca buku terjemahan.
Buku opini politik mengenai proyek pembangunan, khususnya di Sulawesi Tengah pada era Orde Baru, dengan tambahan kajian Indonesia masa kolonial Belanda dan wacana good governance oleh Bank Dunia, dibungkus pendekatan governmentality dan metode etnografi.
Buku ini memiliki referensi penelitian dan data pendukung yang melimpah. Terlalu melimpah untuk selera saya yang ingin memahami lebih kepada opini penulis. Saya kurang merasa nyaman jika harus membaca 5 kalimat referensi, belum menghitung footnote, atau harus melalui ∼30 menit pelajaran sejarah untuk mendapat 1 kalimat opini dari penulis.
Ditambah hasil terjemahan yang sulit dimengerti, dan kata-kata yang seharusnya tidak perlu diterjemahkan, seperti governmentality, the will to improve, the will to empower, wali masyarakat, perbaikan, dan masih banyak lagi.
"Seperti halnya semua intervensi kepengaturan (governmentality) yang saya singgung dalam bagian lain buku ini, proses perencanaan di tingat desa yang dikembangkan oleh Bank Dunia ditopang oleh pedoman-pedoman peraturan, pemantauan, dan audit yang didesain oleh Bank Dunia sendiri, dirancang untuk membentuk ulang keinginan warga dan mengarahkan perilaku mereka, dengan menyiapkan kondisi sehingga orang-orang bertindak seperti yang seharusnya tanpa harus diperintah."
PS. Buku ini bikin ane semakin enggan baca buku terjemahan.
Want to read
February 21, 2008Her essay on compromised power is hugely sensitive, I expect a lot from this post-Gramscian-Foucault read on development in Indonesia.
April 26, 2017
I would never have believed there was a book about rural development plans for small hill communities that reads as a tragicomic farce and yet I am writing a review for it....
The will to improve is a detailed study on how the villagers of Northern Sulawesi (Indonesia) have underwent the development plans devised to improve them and how their lives as actors have been shaped by the experience. Tania Murray Li spent equal amount of time on the big picture (colonial and first years of independence, Suharto New order and the last 20 years of neoliberal world bank plans) as she does on the very local ( the struggles of farmers to keep their farmland and the efforts of various groups of experts and governments trying to determine what the best use of the farmland should be). The big picture and detailed local setting interact very well and both kind of chapters help each other to better understand the dynamics of what was going on and how it mattered for those involved. It is quite sobering to read contemporary conservation ngo experts dismiss stubborn squatting farmers as vagabonds, warily familiar to frustrated colonial and new order administrators all of whom wanted to resettle the farmers from land they assumed was their by custom right to land they deemed more suited. Suited better according to whom? That is the main question Murray Li asks when discussing these ethical/rational/sustainable resettlement plans.....
Murray Li never gave the impression that she took a side in the various debates unless it is the side that rejects wishfull thinking. For this is a book dripping with hopes disguised as rational assessments by all parties, be it local farmers who expect to get land lost to them for generations or a fair share in the wealth of society, conservation agencies who want to teach farmers the importance of a national park without any real benefit for them and most of all the wish full thinking of experts out looking for the communities on which they built their ambitious plans. It was quite shocking to discover how from colonial times onward to this day, the same kind of ideals are projected on the hill people of north Sulawesi. Sure the emphasis and objectives changed, but in the end Communities are assumed to be natural homogeneous groups ready to be molded to the needs of the plans made in far away bureaus. The liking Murray Li has for James Scott is quite understandably. Yet Murray Li goes beyond James Scott by going in great lengths to analyse the local people's conflicts and contradicting aspirations, the dream to plant lucrative cacao plants by the farmers or selling their land to migrating new villages; were as much a potent force of dynamic and source of drama in this setting as was the will to mold the communities and region by various experts and governing powers.
But despite the tragicomic vibe, the book does state that development or trying to improve people's lives are a bad or inherently impossible attempt. On the contrary if anything the book proves how strongly people can be affected by development plans, only often not along the lines planned by those who came up with the plans. This is a book that forces experts to reevaluate themselves and their supposed objective technical approaches and ask themselves whether trying to improve peoples lives can and should be reduced to a technical dilemma. Whether nervously avoiding any political dimension and the reality of governing (or worse sticking to a fictional beneficial state where in reality it is a violent one) has any positive effect or if communities social conditions in the regions they work do not match their premade plans and refusing to significantly alter those plan accordingly, is in any way improving anyone's lives or worse making it more conflict ridden.
This book is the result of years of study and field work for Murray Li was a consultant in the region and takes a rather peculiar position in the setting as a sort of frustrating truth speaker with no alliances but no real enemies either. this has allowed her to keep close contact with both farmers who squat on national park land as government officials and NGO personnel. The collected interviews and observations alongside government and world bank plans combined to make this book and I would say it is a must read for anyone interested in Indonesia and rural development programmes. It is thought provoking and frustrating at times to read (I do believe she spent a bit to much time at various sub themes making the book a bit to difficult to digest) but the aftermath leaves you with a surprising amount of confidence that this can be salvaged, truly the will to improve is stubborn.
The will to improve is a detailed study on how the villagers of Northern Sulawesi (Indonesia) have underwent the development plans devised to improve them and how their lives as actors have been shaped by the experience. Tania Murray Li spent equal amount of time on the big picture (colonial and first years of independence, Suharto New order and the last 20 years of neoliberal world bank plans) as she does on the very local ( the struggles of farmers to keep their farmland and the efforts of various groups of experts and governments trying to determine what the best use of the farmland should be). The big picture and detailed local setting interact very well and both kind of chapters help each other to better understand the dynamics of what was going on and how it mattered for those involved. It is quite sobering to read contemporary conservation ngo experts dismiss stubborn squatting farmers as vagabonds, warily familiar to frustrated colonial and new order administrators all of whom wanted to resettle the farmers from land they assumed was their by custom right to land they deemed more suited. Suited better according to whom? That is the main question Murray Li asks when discussing these ethical/rational/sustainable resettlement plans.....
Murray Li never gave the impression that she took a side in the various debates unless it is the side that rejects wishfull thinking. For this is a book dripping with hopes disguised as rational assessments by all parties, be it local farmers who expect to get land lost to them for generations or a fair share in the wealth of society, conservation agencies who want to teach farmers the importance of a national park without any real benefit for them and most of all the wish full thinking of experts out looking for the communities on which they built their ambitious plans. It was quite shocking to discover how from colonial times onward to this day, the same kind of ideals are projected on the hill people of north Sulawesi. Sure the emphasis and objectives changed, but in the end Communities are assumed to be natural homogeneous groups ready to be molded to the needs of the plans made in far away bureaus. The liking Murray Li has for James Scott is quite understandably. Yet Murray Li goes beyond James Scott by going in great lengths to analyse the local people's conflicts and contradicting aspirations, the dream to plant lucrative cacao plants by the farmers or selling their land to migrating new villages; were as much a potent force of dynamic and source of drama in this setting as was the will to mold the communities and region by various experts and governing powers.
But despite the tragicomic vibe, the book does state that development or trying to improve people's lives are a bad or inherently impossible attempt. On the contrary if anything the book proves how strongly people can be affected by development plans, only often not along the lines planned by those who came up with the plans. This is a book that forces experts to reevaluate themselves and their supposed objective technical approaches and ask themselves whether trying to improve peoples lives can and should be reduced to a technical dilemma. Whether nervously avoiding any political dimension and the reality of governing (or worse sticking to a fictional beneficial state where in reality it is a violent one) has any positive effect or if communities social conditions in the regions they work do not match their premade plans and refusing to significantly alter those plan accordingly, is in any way improving anyone's lives or worse making it more conflict ridden.
This book is the result of years of study and field work for Murray Li was a consultant in the region and takes a rather peculiar position in the setting as a sort of frustrating truth speaker with no alliances but no real enemies either. this has allowed her to keep close contact with both farmers who squat on national park land as government officials and NGO personnel. The collected interviews and observations alongside government and world bank plans combined to make this book and I would say it is a must read for anyone interested in Indonesia and rural development programmes. It is thought provoking and frustrating at times to read (I do believe she spent a bit to much time at various sub themes making the book a bit to difficult to digest) but the aftermath leaves you with a surprising amount of confidence that this can be salvaged, truly the will to improve is stubborn.
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