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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Localizing Global dynamics through Labour: Class as a new regime of value in Bali, Indonesia.

Awarded: NOK 2.7 mill.

-The aim of the project has been to investigate the relation between rapid economic growth and the emergence of class as a new social logic in Bali, Indonesia. The main focus is on dynamics involved in new opportunities for work and new types of work, and the ways inclusion and exclusion in the new labor market contribute in the making of new social inequalities in Bali. In order to understand the changes going on in the Balinese society I argue for a focus on the intersection of gender, caste and class in the positioning of people in the labor market. It is also important to investigate what kind of resources and assets which now emerge as capital in the new economy. I have found that access to, or ownership of, land is one key for the Balinese to succeed in the new economy. Land, which used to be collectively owned by the villages or held as private property by large high cast landowners, is today increasingly owned by the Balinese as private property and the Balinese see land-sale as a means to survive in the new economy. Access to, and ownership of, land is organized through the patrilineal kinship system which means that only men inherit or own land in Bali. Thus, land and land sale has arguably an important gendered dimension which creates a greater mobility for men than women in the new economy where attractive land is sold at soaring prices. However, women can access and use the land of their male kin (husband, father, brothers) in order to create their own workplaces and be self-employed; and they run boarding houses, cafes and kiosks. The conversion of agricultural land and the massive selling of land has become a major political concern on regional and national level; what should the Balinese do when they become dispossessed from their own island? How will people make a livelihood when the return to agriculture is blocked by land sale and they are not able to get employment in the new economy? The growth of the informal sector of the economy has been rapid in Bali the last ten years. According to ILO figures, the informal economy employs the double amount of workers as the formal economy in Indonesia and in Bali over fifty percent of workers are employed here. This sector is dominated by unskilled workers and women are in majority here. Women often have a ?flexible? adaptation to this labor market for example through seasonal, time or piece rate work. Workers in this sector are seldom unionized and they commonly receive low wages and have little security with regards to health, contracts and future predictability of income. Low wages for women can to a degree be justified through the dominant notion of male-breadwinning and male household leadership. Women often do double work shifts; domestic as well as wage work and in Bali an extra shift is added with the collective ritual work prescribed through the village and Bali-Hindu ceremonial life. Over the last ten years the number of work migrants to this tiny island has increased in numbers and today they account for about ten percent of the total population of four million people. Bali receives about 2, 5 million international tourists yearly and the speed of tourism development is still moving at a rapid speed involving land conversions in a large scale. This situation has created a sense among the Balinese expressed through the notion of ?Ajeg Bali?; the Balinese feel marginalized on their own island by the threat from the outside in terms of tourism and work migrants, and they wish to take their island back. Simultaneously, the enormous growth in the tourism industry creates many new possibilities for the Balinese people ? not least the chance to clime the social ladder and improve their position in society even if one is of the lowest cast (sudra). Modern consumption in combination with new kinds of work has opened a space for low caste fishermen to participate in ritual life at the level of the high caste groups. Caste and class must therefore today be understood as two competing, and sometimes overlapping, social principles in Bali which are organizing social life and differences between people. On the other hand I observe that work migrants who arrive to the island, and villagers who do not own land, do not have the same assets for competing in the new economy and the ?new world of work?. On this point, differences between people emerge as very clear, differences which are directly linked to new types of work and access to or ownership of assets (land, skills). My work with the postdoc project this final last year has concentrated on class, dispossession and the issue of land in Bali and resulted in three articles which are submitted to international journals. I have also written an extended book review published in Social Analysis as well as participated and presented my research on four conferences. I have tutored four master students successfully through writing their master thesis as well as participated in seminar and reading groups.

This post.doc project aims to investigate the relationship between corporate-led economic growth and the emergence of class in Indonesia and beyond. The main interest is in the dynamics involved in new employment opportunities and how the processes of inc lusion or exclusion in the new labour market produce new social differences among a predominantly Hindu population in Bali. Despite the millions of jobs created globally through economic growth since the 1990's we also find a dramatic indrease in income i nequalities in many poor countries (ILO 2008). What are the dynamics of the globalized new world of work which produce inclusion or marginalization in employment and labourmarket? How are these procesess articulated in the particular locality of two fishe r villages in Bali, Indonesia? How does class, caste and gender intersect in the structuring of agents positionality in the larger social space of diffferences (cf. Bourdieu 1991), and what are the symbolocal struggles within the field of labour and emplo yment? How, and in what ways, do the revitalization of Hindu culture represent a counterdrive to tthe forces of globalization, migration and mass-tourism? These are central questions to be explored in this project.

Publications from Cristin

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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam