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Cited by 1,297Agriculture, Land Use, Rural DevelopmentAsian Studies and HistoryPacific and Southeast Asian Studies

Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia

Geertz, Clifford·1963·University of California Press eBooks
DOI 10.1525/9780520341821
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Abstract

Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia is one of the most famous of the early works of Clifford Geertz. It principal thesis is that many centuries of intensifying wet-rice cultivation in Indonesia had produced greater social complexity without significant technological or political change, a process Geertz terms "involution".Written for a US-funded project on the local developments and following the modernization theory of Walt Whitman Rostow, Geertz examines in this book the agricultural system in Indonesia and its two dominant forms of agriculture, swidden and sawah. In addition to researching its agricultural systems, the book turns to an examination of their historical development. Of particular note is Geertz's discussion of what he famously describes as the process of "agricultural involution" in Java, where both the external economic demands of the Dutch rulers and the internal pressures due to population growth led to intensification rather than change.

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  • Involution occurs once technology-driven productivity increases are exhausted, such that only net increases in labor or other costly inputs enable increases in production.

    ““Involution” occurs once technology-driven productivity increases are exhausted, such that only net increases in labor or other costly inputs enable increases in production (43).”

    From Used planet: a global history (2013) · cites this paper as [43]

  • Agricultural yields within the most densely populated and productive preindustrial land-use systems compared well with modern yields and were sustained in some regions for centuries to millennia, even though they also tended to require extreme inputs of labor and other socially unsustainable hardships.

    “Agricultural yields within the most densely populated and productive preindustrial land-use systems compared well with modern yields and were sustained in some regions for centuries to millennia, even though they also tended to require extreme inputs of labor and other socially unsustainable hardships (43–45, 92).”

    From Used planet: a global history (2013) · cites this paper as [43]

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Authors
Geertz, C.
Corresponding author
Geertz, Clifford
Venue
University of California Press eBooks
Publisher
University of California Press
Published
1963-12-31
DOI
10.1525/9780520341821
OpenAlex
W4246147691
Cited by
1,297
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 69 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 64 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 21 · 2012: 17
FWCI
83.18
Type
book
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
University of California Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Asian Studies and History
  • Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
Keywords
agricultural involution, Clifford Geertz, wet rice cultivation, swidden agriculture, agricultural intensification, social complexity, modernization theory, Rostow, Dutch colonialism, population growth, ecological change, Java, Indonesia

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