Changes in social capital of rice farmers: An antropological study for buginese farmers

Abstract

Local institutions that encourage self-organization to achieve shared goals are a characteristic of social capital. In Indonesia, social capital in farming communities is tudangsipulung or sitting one another in deciding various matters related to farming. However, tudangsipulung has been transformed. This study aims to determine the causes, processes, and consequences of social change in a tudangsipulung tradition. This research used a case study with a case unit in a village and collected data through in-depth interviews, field observations, and document reviews. The results showed that the cause of the change was an abandonment of traditional rituals in farming because farmers considered such rituals to delay activities and require cost to reduce the effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, there is also a shift in the position of actors, where the schedule of the planting, which indigenous knowledge possessed by traditional leaders previously determined, changed to the role of climatologists and officials from the government. The process of social change takes a long time and slowly, along with the social dynamics of the rice farming community, which makes tudangsipulung tradition a place to work together to achieve a shared goal for farmers. The process of social change has consequences for eliminating a need to give each other kindness and lack of trust among farmers.