Bamboo Crafts Development Projects in Indonesia: Who to Develop? What is to be Developed?
Abstracts in English and Bahasa Indonesia
Bamboo Crafts Development Projects in Indonesia: Who to Develop? What is to be Developed?
The crafts development project model has played a crucial role in developing Indonesian socio-economic situations at the communal, regional and national levels. The top-down development project model adopted by the government has caused an overlap of development systems among agencies trying to reach the grassroots levels for the past three decades. Yet, the attempt to “develop” craft industries inevitably conflicts with preserving producers’ work and customs. This article unveils subject-object relations in a traditional bamboo cottage industry in Cikiray Hamlets, West Java, where the ecological factors around the hamlets shape the daily and seasonal routines of the craftspeople involved in commodifying their crafts. Moreover, this article attempts to understand the existing lack of crafts development ideas in Indonesia by exploring the power hierarchy among the craftspeople and the situation beyond the hamlets as well as considering what overlooked factors prevent the development of local crafts industries. The unsettled situation of crafts development discourse presented in this article depicts the current struggle to preserve traditions and systems in crafts producers’ environment. The dialogue of craft thus involves deeper consideration and is not limited to only the development of economic factors.
Proyek Pengembangan Kerajinan di Indonesia: Siapa yang Dimajukan? Hal Apa yang Perlu Dikembangkan?
Proyek pengembangan kerajinan tangan (craft) mengambil peran penting dalam proses kemajuan situasi sosial ekonomi Indonesia di level lokal (komunitas), regional, dan nasional. Dalam kurun waktu tiga dekade terakhir, terjadi sistem gagasan top-down yang tumpang tindih diterapkan oleh pemerintah dengan agensi lain di program crafts development project untuk menjangkau pengrajin di level akar rumput (grassroot levels). Hanya saja, upaya untuk mengembangkan industri kerajinan tangan (craft), seringkali bertentangan dengan upaya pelestarian cara kerja dan tradisi pengrajin. Artikel ini mengungkapkan diskusi terkait hubungan subjek-objek di industri kerajinan bambu Dusun Cikiray, Jawa Barat, dimana faktor-faktor ekologi sekitar memengaruhi rutinitas sehari-hari dan musiman yang dilakukan oleh pengrajin dalam melakukan aktivitas komodifikasi kerajinan lokal. Selain itu, artikel ini berupaya untuk memahami kekurangan dari gagasan pengembangan kerajinan di Indonesia dengan meneliti hubungan hirarki kuasa (power) di daerah lokal pengrajin dan juga diluar desa kerajinan, begitu juga dengan mempertimbangkan faktor-faktor yang diabaikan selama proyek pengembangan industri kerajinan. Situasi yang penuh ketidakpastian dalam diskursus pengembangan kerajinan lokal yang tersaji dalam artikel ini menggambarkan pergulatan yang terjadi dewasa ini dalam upaya melestarikan tradisi dan sistem lokal di lingkungan para pengrajin. Dialog mengenai kerajinan dimaksudkan untuk menjawab pemikiran yang lebih dalam untuk gagasan development kerajinan lokal yang tidak terbatas di faktor kemajuan ekonomi saja.
Citation: Rahardiani, Amira. “Bamboo Crafts Development Projects in Indonesia: Who to Develop? What is to be Developed?” The Jugaad Project, 5 April 2022, www.thejugaadproject.pub/bamboo-crafts-indonesia [date of access]
Introduction
Community development is an important topic in many sectors of national, regional, and local discourse in Indonesia. Many stakeholders, from government officials and non-government agencies to local intermediaries, are commonly in charge of ‘development projects’. The crafts-based development projects have been long established in Indonesia, although it has become a game of socio-political dilemma, since the idea of the ‘creative economy’ has been growing recently. The concept of crafts-based development projects varies at different levels, however, and overlaps across development parties result in misconceptions about the projects among the craftspeople who are targeted by them.
The regional government in West Java has expanded crafts-based development projects for local craftspeople since the 1990s. Although research in sociology and anthropology in the West has acknowledged the obstructions and evolution of development works, however, ethnographic studies are seen as unimportant aspects on crafts-based development projects in Indonesia[i]. Drawing from ethnographic data, this article explores intricacies of production of bamboo craft industry and its significance in West java.
Keeping with the ongoing trend of the markets, the regional and local governments of West Java see transforming traditional crafts into hybrid or modified products (Larasati, 1999; Nugraha, 2005) as a solution to improving the economic situation of local crafts industries. The development of these industries has a similar pattern to the one Bendix (1967) identified, that the fundamental transformation of development is to shift ‘traditional’ forms to ‘modern’ ones rather than to partake in an economic phenomenon. Logically, to develop economic situation, the strategy should concern economic trends rather than intruding on the ‘traditional’ or cultural sphere of one’s society. However, not all the crafts industries in West Java flow easily with the modernization of bamboo crafts. After certain half-baked[ii] crafts development projects, many local crafts industries have returned to their long-existing markets, producing items such as daily utensils and woven bamboo baskets for packaging. The dichotomy between top-down movements and the targets of development projects leads to tension, since government officials typically approach the ‘new’ development without negotiating the long-persistent activities of the targeted villages or industry. As a result, decades of crafts development projects remain in a stagnant state rather than making any progress.
West Java’s crafts and handicrafts sectors have made significant contributions to the process of developing the socio-economic state of Indonesia. Most producers are involved with the local market chains and business owners from outside the production areas, but the industry’s processes are all fulfilled by West Java’s craftspeople. However, these craftspeople see a very minimal amount of profit compared to their businesses partners, who sell the products to their markets in big cities. The skilled craftspeople are placed at the very bottom of the economic chain in the bamboo crafts industry, while their knowledge is situated at the top.
The long connections of bamboo material, West Java people, and related collective behaviours such as farming and daily utensil making have been rooting in the historical background of this area. The Galunggung Mountain eruptions in the 19th and the 20th centuries have transformed the soil in West Java into more fertile so that they have abundant natural materials including bamboo. Since then, the southeast of West Java such as Tasikmalaya and Garut regencies have been famous for their craftsmanship activities.[iii] Following the changes in the socio-economic situations, the craftspeople expanded their skills in fulfilling their everyday needs into the commodification of objects which shape their environment into bamboo cottage industries until nowadays. This article therefore, brings the unstudied bamboo cottage industry, Cikiray hamlets in Tasikmalaya Regency as a case study of everyday object making behaviours as quotidian events in an entire village which is currently difficult to find in West Java. 30 craftspeople were recently involved in a bamboo crafts development project from the local government (July, 2020) yet, what was approached in the project was not sustained and appeared as the ‘fresh air’ for the craftspeople in the hamlets, since the modernization of bamboo products is far from their routines in making crafts.
Ecological Factors and People are Interwoven
Cikiray One in the north (kaler) and Cikiray Two in the south (kidul) of Salawu sub-district have a significant place in the bamboo daily utensils industry in West Java. The products from Cikiray are distributed to neighbouring villages and the central market in Tasikmalaya City, where entrepreneurs in the market sell the products to consumers all around Indonesia. Responding to the material around them, the local inhabitants have developed relationships with bamboo since antiquity, and the masters have turned to producing daily utensils from it as their main livelihood. Skills related to producing and farming bamboo are handed down from parents to their children, such that it is common in this society to consider these skills an intangible part of their heritage.
Figure 1 Access to the Cikiray One and Cikiray Two hamlets respectively through Salawu-Cikiray Alley from the main street, Garut-Tasikmalaya. Photos by author.
Among the 5,239 people living in Salawu village over a total area of 234,99 ha., only Cikiray One and Cikiray Two actively produce bamboo products, with more than 90% of the total inhabitants (1,302 people) being daily utensils producers. In one week, a family can produce 20–60 bamboo daily utensils, counted as 1–3 kodi,[iv] with the average expenditure per family is 600,000 IDR per week.[v] There is only a narrow asphalt alley—Salawu Cikiray Alley—allowing access to both hamlets. The alley is surrounded by small bamboo forests and agricultural lands. It takes 20 minutes to reach Cikiray One from the main street, Garut-Tasikmalaya, and around 30 minutes to reach the centre of Cikiray Two by motorcycle or ojeg.[vi]Local people usually walk or drive their motorcycles to go around the village or to commute outside it. The road allows one car at a time—typically the business pickup trucks are used to deliver and collect the bamboo products.
Figure 2 Producing daily utensils made of bamboo, the main occupation of the Cikiray hamlets’ inhabitants (upper image); the use of craftspeople’s own products in their kitchens (lowerimage). Photos by author.
Bamboo production has long been interwoven into Cikiray inhabitants’ daily lives. Amid their crafts-producing activities, Cikiray inhabitants are often busy with agriculture in the paddy fields (the rainfed rice field, named sawah guludug in local terms), especially during farming and harvesting periods that happen once or twice a year depending on the annual rainfall. During the peak week of farming or harvesting period, craftspeople take the opportunity to perform seasonal labour in the paddy fields owned by landowners from outside the hamlets. In between these seasonal labour activities (gacong), craftspeople keep processing bamboo crafts, slicing or weaving bamboo while safeguarding the rice yields from the roosters or drying and collecting the dried bamboo slices on their breaks. Craftspeople do not own paddy fields; they potentially receive one-tenth of the rice as their daily wages. Some of them own small patches of agricultural land around their houses which they use to plant vegetables for their everyday meals, such as cassava, potatoes, and some green vegetables. They do not sell these agricultural products; they only rely upon their bamboo-producing activities for their main income.
Figure 3 Agricultural activities in the paddy fields of Cikiray One. Photo by author.
People adjust both their bamboo production routines and agricultural activities to the usum halodo (dry season) and the usum ngijih/usum hujan(rainy season). In the dry season, they have more time to dry the sliced bamboo than in the rainy season, and thus the latter may lead to obstacles in producing daily utensils. Even so, the bamboo quality is best in the rainy season. The patterns in their routines are the focal point through which one can understand the characteristics of the community and their crafts. Cikiray craftspeople start their days early in the morning by engaging in cooking, cleaning, and weaving in their houses. When the sun rises, people start production activities in front of their houses and engage in communal activities among relatives and neighbours. By highlighting these aspects of their everyday routines, this article captures the inseparable relationship between the production and household activities of the craftspeople.
Figure 4 Daily utensils producers engaging in crafting and farming activities in the harvesting week. Safeguarding the rice yields (upper); gathering for lunch after collecting the dried bamboo slices in between gacong activities (below). Photos by author.
In the Cikiray hamlets, the most trusted way to spread information is through verbal communication. Notably, the older generations do not own phones. They relate with family members and neighbours around their houses. This lack of phone ownership does not affect the marketing of their bamboo products, since they sell them by walking or peddling to other villages nearby (ngampung) or by sending them directly to the market in Tasikmalaya City (Pasar Cikurubuk) every week or two. Other groups of people may have business connections with collectors or middlemen in the hamlets, so the craftspeople do not go outside of the village to sell their products at the risk of selling them at a lower price.
Understanding the Hamlets’ Patterns: Types of Bamboo Products, Existing Skills and Techniques
To create daily bamboo utensils and crafts, craftspeople in Cikiray hamlets start from the very beginning of the process, even harvesting or buying bamboo trees and cutting them into shorter lengths. People in the city or outside of the hamlets are unfamiliar with the process needed to make woven products, and bamboo craftspeople must possess the strength to shoulder the harvested bamboo trees as well as mastery of weaving techniques. It takes some time to finally achieve the finished products, yet the market price of bamboo utensils is not equal to the effort required to create them (the price of each daily utensil is around 3,000-20,000 IDR/0.21-1.42 USD). The craftspeople in the Cikiray hamlets tend to live and work with their nuclear families in one house. Each house has a particular work system. They may share the work between husband and wife (without help from their children), cooperate between parents and children, or involve all the extended family members. There is also variety in the kinds of products produced. Only some households are masters that are able to produce such high-skilled products as a rice container (boboko), fish sieve (ayakan complong), and square-based container (tolombong). Other products, such as rice steamer (aseupan), peasant hat (dudukuy), big flat tray (nyiru), food sieves (ayakan), cooking fan (hihid) are categorised as medium-skilled products, while small flat tray(cecempeh) and huge flat tray (tampir) are considered low-skilled products.
Figure 5 Ten types of bamboo daily utensils made by the Cikiray hamlets (left to right, first to third row): boboko, ayakan complong, tolombong, aseupan, dudukuy, nyiru, ayakan, hihid, cecempeh, and tampir. Photos by author.
The classification of high- to low-skilled products takes into account the levels of difficulty and the production times required for each piece. Woven bamboo daily utensils in the Cikiray hamlets have a basic pattern—square-base diagonal (see Figure 6). Another type of product, the ayakan complong (fish sieve), is woven with a certain distance between each strip. The type of framing used with a woven bamboo surface is called a wengku in Sundanese. Below are pictures of the patterns found in the Cikiray hamlets’ daily utensil production process, derived from the weaving technique classification book by Mulyadi (2009).[vii] The book was referred to during fieldwork in West Java when tracing skills and weaving techniques.
Figure 6 Top to bottom: Square-base diagonal pattern weaving technique; post-strengthened rim (framing; wengku in Sundanese). Source: Mulyadi (2009)
To involve the craftspeople from these traditional bamboo cottage villages in development projects is challenging. Their long-established cycles have been preserved and are deeply related to their routines. For the sake of sustainable improvement of the socio-cultural and economic aspects of the crafts industries the values of people in each target area should be assessed before, during, and after implementing development projects. Otherwise, they may disappear through the process of negotiation between the new and the old in the crafting villages.
Governmentalities in Various Spheres of West Java Bamboo Crafts Industries
The rigidness by which a region’s economy is developed for the benefit of the Indonesian nation leads to a crafts development project that has repeatedly neglected the socio-cultural factors and grassroots reality of the craftspeople. The government decided in one year to implement a cash infusion into the industry instead of elevating the socio-economic status of people in such a way that it was meaningful and sustainable after the project ended. As a result, craftspeople see the idea of a crafts development project as an intrusion rather than an incentive for positive change.
To explore the concept of power, this article relies on ‘governmentality’ and Warnier’s idea of ‘embodiment’ (2001; 2006; 2007; 2009; 2011; 2021), both rooted in Foucauldian ‘power systems,’ as a means to parse out the power relationship between the craftspeople and the outer bamboo cottage industry (local, regional, national governments; local communities; academic institutions; other related parties). Governmentalities in crafting societies are formed through the power held by one craftsperson because of their activity in their family sphere, which is also related to other subjects outside of their houses and shaped into one power system in either the traditional or industrialised cottage industry. The relationship between materials and the techniques of the body is shaped through the process of ‘making’ (Rosselin-Barielle, 2017 in Mohan & Douny, 2021) or through the incorporation of materialities into the body through a reciprocal process (Ingold, 2013). A subject identifies and is shaped by their power through an act of processing materials—in this case, bamboo—that engages the neuro-systems of their bodies or actions and is mediated by the object (bamboo products) that they produce. That is, objects and bodies are constantly engaged with one another to produce and enact power of various kinds—biological, political, social, economic, etc.
In the case of traditional cottage industries in places such as the Cikiray hamlets, the father will have power over his family and will lead the custom of producing bamboo daily utensils in his household. The family members in the house customarily follow the making style of the father—or grandfather, if they live with their extended family. All the family members will then be involved in the production systems, following the father’s preference for selling the bamboo products to the middlemen inside or outside the hamlets or selling them directly to the consumers (by shoulder on a carrying pole or individually at local markets). The family’s preference for selling their products is interwoven with their state of power in society. Given the play of power or governmentalities, the higher their skills, the more unwilling they are to sell their products to middlemen. The markets and the middlemen are invested in the capital system and do not consider the quality of each product, caring more about numbers. Thus, middle-skilled families will work with the middlemen and stay in this system for a long time. Below are differing expressions recorded from both high-skilled craftspeople and low- and medium-skilled workers, serving as a summary of the situation in the Cikiray hamlets:
High-skilled: “We prefer to sell using the shoulder carrying pole [ngampung] … [because] the satisfaction comes from the chance to sell our handworks right to buyers’ hands, so that [we can] keep the quality of our products best [it also suits our values and goes along with our daily routines].”
Low- and medium-skilled: “I think it is simple for us to follow the demands from the middlemen, since we do not need to go anywhere, we can take care of our kids (as producing bamboo requires pausing our care and becoming distracted) and we do not mind the low price the middlemen set for us, since we take a profit already.”
The transcript highlights that craftspeoples’ preferences are related to the embodied abilities they use in producing bamboo products, which manifest in the governmentalities of the bamboo cottage industries. The materiality of power in craftspeoples’ everyday lives is shaped by what Mauss (1973) termed the ‘techniques of the body’ developed through lifetime apprenticeships. Craftspeople use their hands, with their skin as the receptor, to adjust their motions alongside ‘sensori-motor’ algorithms that result in the level of skills required to make bamboo crafts. Through the bodily schemes that people establish through their routines, they subconsciously construct what Warnier (2006, p. 187) called ‘sensori-affectivo-motor conducts geared to material culture.’
This factor can be seen at play when we observe that high-skilled daily utensil makers are mainly middle-aged and older in traditional cottage industries. As people connect social status in the village to their skills in making crafts, older generations politically plan to ‘build’ an economy for the family’s future by finding someone with particular skills that match their own before they get married. Interestingly, psycho-motoric abilities are considered as part of one’s process of finding a partner since bamboo-crafting abilities are attractive, linked as they are to power structures in the society. Given that bamboo production skills are fundamental for their political and economic status in society, they imagine themselves building a family and sharing their knowledge about making bamboo throughout their lives after they get married.
With modernity, the existing systems of traditional cottage industries are degrading. Inevitably, craftspeoples’ children obtain higher levels of education today than their parents, which subsequently affects the regeneration of the hamlets. Most youths first consider earning high school degrees and working as laborers in the cities, while people who have tried to work in the cities return to their hamlets and settle down to continue bamboo producing routines. It is important, particularly for women in the Cikiray society, to have basic weaving skills required to make bamboo daily utensils before they continue junior high school, as there is nothing to do with these degrees in the craft-making world. Their skills are considered equivalent to their livelihood; thus, the society also determines the maturity and value of women based on their bamboo production abilities—that is, their participation in local governmentalities. Mastery of weaving techniques does not define maturity of men. If they choose to settle down and have a family in the cottage industry, they do the parts of the tasks that require strength, such as delivering bamboo from the forest, framing, and selling the products.
Looking at Warnier’s (2006; 2007) idea of the Cameroonian king and his body as a material container, the bamboo craftsmaker’s body can be transcribed as a sensori-affectivo-motor scheme connected to other subjects and objects around it. In the sense of the governmentality of making daily utensils, craftmakers gain power both in their family structure as well as in their society through a long apprenticeship system. In the bamboo-making world, training in the skills and techniques of making crafts requires a lifetime of experience that combines presence of mind and habits of bodily movement.
When we seek to understand how a subject situates themselves in a society, it is important to consider Foucault’s technologies of the subject. This concept clarifies the way a subject governs himself/herself, taking himself/herself as an object of his/her own actions, and is thus subjected to a ‘sovereignty’ or subjectifying governmentality (Warnier, 2009). In this regard, the connections between bodily conduct and material culture are a lens through which to identify how a political party (e.g. a stakeholder or policymaker) makes a space for power in society. Politics means power, and power rests on the capacity to act upon oneself and others. The market could be taken as an apt metaphor for any political organisation in which individuals deal in power transactions—kinship in non-state societies, space, resources, conflicts, cooperation, and coercion (Warnier, 2021). In this particular sense, in the crafts-producing world, a craftsperson (as one bodily system; embodiment) exerts effort under the system of sovereignty through bodily conduct, movements, gestures, senses, and bodily expression of emotion—part of the bodily experience of crafting—which results in the woven bamboo products that they embody.
In the traditional bamboo cottage industry, the husband and wife show their power to other subjects in the hamlets by working in front of their houses, weaving, cutting, or piling up the finished products. The higher the pile of finished bamboo products, the more other subjects (their neighbours) praise them. The next day when the neighbours pass by their house and the piles of bamboo products are gone, they understand that the husband and wife succeeded in selling their works. Working from one morning until the next shows that their products are in high demand. Even the music that they use to keep them awake is heard by the neighbours and relates to the way they display their power in society, consciously and subconsciously. Whether a visual of a pile of artefacts or the sound of music these instances act as ‘openings’ (Tisseron, 1999; 2000; and Anzieu, 1985, in Warnier 2006) that are significant in symbolising power: that is, the passing-through space between the body and the factors outside. Following Warnier’s (2006) proposal about containment, the container of a crafts people’s house protects the intangible factors of producing crafts inside of the family, and in the Cikiray craftspeople case, the front of their house becomes the ‘opening’ through which they show power among other craftspeople.
Moving from the power systems of a small sphere of the bamboo cottage industry to the more complex ones outside brings us to the way material culture is entangled with the power structure of the bamboo industry in West Java. The development projects that, in name, focus on improving the economic level of one area are likely based on the ideas of urban people who are city minded and take little time to get to know the culture of the targeted project arena. By presenting the case of the Cikiray cottage industry, this article urges such projects to see the ethnographic approach as crucial to the process of developing the bamboo crafts industry by respecting their existing customs and avoiding neglecting and removing the persistent values that craftspeople have woven into their everyday lives.
By discussing the process of producing each bamboo daily utensil, including their variations from one to another, we can understand that very particular differences in technique have practical implications related to the function of the product. Considering the tangible place of the bamboo utensils as objects of study, mastering skills in bamboo production matters when defining one’s status in a craft producing society. The more craftspeople master techniques—moving from low-to high-skilled products—the more others respect them. Due to the demand from the contemporary markets, commodification trends in the bamboo industries urge the craftspeople to take roles in the social capital sphere through making activities. And as a consequence of the commodification process, the knowledge used for production transforms the production processes into a livelihood rather than simply fulfilling their everyday needs for farming and kitchen tools. The relationship between the demand from neighbouring villages and local markets in consumption spaces—subjects in the trading process—and the craftspeople in the production sphere of the villages manifests into one inseparable system.
The long-persistent customs and traditions, both tangible and intangible, in the bamboo producers’ villages are preserved alongside modern values. This preservation is crucial for sustaining cultural values and performing everyday activities in crafting villages. Otherwise, behaviours such as producing daily utensils from bamboo will gradually disappear from villages as current trends of modernity and industrialisation take us further from tradition. Furthermore, in the process of global change and development movements from outside the village, people in a crafts-producing area should be aware of the identity and value of their crafts, allowing them to counteract the very same development projects that are intended ironically to prevent craft-producing skills from disappearing in the first place.
References
Bendix, R. (1967). Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered. Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered, 292-346.
Cernea, M. M. (1985). Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development. Washington DC: World Bank, Oxford University Press.
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture. London and New York: Routledge.
Larasati, D. (1999). A Bamboo Building Design Decision Support Tool. Eindhoven: University Press Facilities, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Mauss, M. (1973) Techniques of the Body. Economy and Society, 2:1, 70-88.
Mohan, U., & Douny, L. (2021). The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion. London and New York: Routledge.
Mulyadi, D. (2007). Pelatihan Teknis dan Diversifikasi Produk. Bandung: Direktorat Industri Kerajinan Ditjen Industri Kecil dan Menengah Departemen Perindustrian Republik Indonesia.
Mulyadi, D. (2009). Pelatihan Teknis dan Diversifikasi Produk. Bandung: Direktorat Industri Kerajinan Ditjen Industri Kecil danMenengah Departemen Perindustrian Republik Indonesia.
Nugraha, A. (2005). Transforming Tradition: A Method for Maintaining Tradition in a Craft and Design Context. Eespo: Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, 2012.
Warnier, J.-P. (2001). A Praxeological Approach to Subjectivation in a Material World. Journal of Material Culture, 6, 5-24.
Warnier, J.-P. (2006). Inside and Outside: Surfaces and Containers. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuechler, M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer, Handbook of Material Culture (pp. 186-195). London: Sage.
Warnier, J.-P. (2007). The Pot-King: The Body and Technologies of Power. Leiden: Brill.
Warnier, J.-P. (2009). Technology as efficacious action of objects ... and subjects. Journal of Material Culture, 14 (4), 459-470.
Warnier, J.-P. (2011). Bodily/Material Culture and the Fighter’s Subjectivity. Journal of Material Culture, 16 (4), 359-375.
Warnier, J.-P. (2021). Politics Matters: Matiére à Politique. In U. Mohan, & L. Douny, The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion (pp. 107-120). London and New York: Routledge.
Further Resources
Official Website of Dinas Koperasi, Usaha Kecil dan Menengah, dan Tenaga Kerja Kabupaten Tasikmalaya (the Department of Tasikmalaya Regency Cooperation, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Labor).
Instagram, Dinas Koperasi, Usaha Kecil dan Menengah, dan Tenaga Kerja Kabupaten Tasikmalaya.
Instagram, URGTSK Community Bamboo Dept.
Endnotes
[i] It was once encouraged in the national IKKON development project from Bekraf (Creative Economy Agency), in which anthropologists also took part. The dissolution of Bekraf in 2019 has been a setback for the transition of crafts industries in Indonesia and the ethnographic approach has not reappeared elsewhere and has been overlooked in the regional and local crafts development projects.
[ii] I use the term ‘half-baked development projects’ to describe Cernea’s (1985) idea of the development works for which public criticism was at its peak, addressing the money and time wasted on so-called development programs in the 1980s and 1990s. The criticism developed along with the expansion of works from anthropologists and sociologists on the development projects. Many development works are also recorded in the book Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development.
[iii] The Report of the History of Tasikmalaya Regency Government from Time to Time (2014), Tasikmalaya Government.
[iv] Kodi: a unit for 20 pieces of products. It is usually used for bamboo products.
[v] Based on the interview with the head of the Cikiray Two Hamlet, November 2020.
[vi] Ojég: motorcycle for the conveyance of passengers (from ongkosngajégang in Sundanese)
[vii] Details of the patterns and weaving edges.Mulyadi (2009), Pelatihan Teknik Desain dan Diversifikasi Produk [Technical Training and Product Diversification (for woven products)]; Mulyadi (2009), Dasar Perancangan Produk Anyaman [Total Design Technique for Woven Products]. In collaboration with the Department of Small, Micro, and Medium Enterprises of Indonesia.
