Sub-Project MC 9.3 Bali

Project Leader: Lea Stepan

On the island of Bali, springs and rivers are not only essential for the wet rice economy, they are also venerated as cosmological manifestation of divine presence. The flow of water guarantees the macrocosmic connection between the holy mountains and the sea as well as the microcosmic flow of life within the human body. Thus, water engineering in Bali’s traditional irrigation system is not merely an agricultural technology but it is also related to a system of water temples. Irrigation has therefore been described as a culturally embedded technology involving cosmological knowledge as well as distributed responsibilities and social cooperation among economically competing farmers (Lansing). However, agricultural modernization (the green revolution) and mass tourism have led to dramatic changes in this ‘waterscape,’ including pollution and water shortages. As a result the socio-economic, environmental and cosmological knowledge of Bali is confronted with challenges that lie beyond the traditional Balinese epistemology and ontology of ‘holy water’.
This sub-project investigated the response of Balinese rice farmers in the district of Tabanan to perceived environmental changes; especially how new ecological and socio-economic challenges affect the local practices of “holy water”. These negotiations are sometimes driven by basic social or economic necessities, at other times they reflect ambivalent conceptualizations that veil the scale of environmental degradation. The results ultimately raise the question: to what extent is the conceptual framework of a local cosmology useful for the critical evaluation of present-day environmental problems. This question emerges with special relevance to the broader picture of environmental impacts by Global Climate Change and the effects of incorporation into global chains of exchange. This further raises critical questions for concepts of environmental ethics in human-water-relationships.