Cultural ecological responses to environmental change: Lessons from Javanese transmigrants in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

This paper discusses the process of Javanese cultural and environmental adaptation in transmigration settlements in Kalimantan, Indonesia, with the central focus on the key components of adaptive strategies. However, many studies found that instead of introducing Javanese agriculture to Kalimantan, settlers also adopted and adapted traditional agricultural techniques practised by the indigenous people. Three major phenomena affecting the transmigrants were the Javanese heritage they carried with them, the culture of the indigenous societies into which they moved, and the ecological characteristics of the environment into which they settled. A further dimension comprised external factors emerging from the development and modernisation of Kalimantan as part of Indonesia. Tension among these sets of factors determined the nature of the process of adaptation, and the main mechanisms through which it operated. (author's abstract)