Van der Ploeg and Long (1994) argue that locality has the potential strength to play in the development sector that can contribute to sustainability rather than threaten global development. Even local development is seen to fit the needs of the local community rather than adopting Western or outsider approaches to develop the local community. Such a notion of local development has always interested me as a development practitioner in Indonesia and a woman who lives there. My professional and personal backgrounds allow me to understand the significance of locally-led development by distributing village funds1 to all villages in the country.
The village funds are intended to maintain cultural, spiritual and social values for sub-national development. Indonesia has a rich local knowledge that Millar (2014) describes as a strength of endogenous development, which allows the local community to control the development process within the area. To do so, a village head is selected in every village to lead the implementation of village development by using nationally funded village funds. This scheme is regulated through a Village Law.
Many scholars argue that endogenous development, such as Village Law, can be an alternative solution to development (Escobar, 2004; Vázquez-Barquero & Rodríguez- Cohard, 2016). However, based on my professional background in the Indonesian context, I argue that endogenous development can be problematic in ameliorating the lives of women and marginalised groups if the focus is only on economic growth without addressing underlying problems within the community.
To prove my argument, firstly, I reflect on my professional experience to examine the power struggle within the local community that is ignored in the practice of endogenous development. Secondly, I critically scrutinize the approach that perpetuates gender inequality while only focusing on local economic growth. Lastly, I conclude my argument by asserting that self-reliance can reinforce social struggle and gender inequality if the underlying problems are not addressed deliberately. As self-reliance theory is a concept within endogenous development, I will use the terms interchangeably in my writing.
The power dynamic in the practice of self–reliance
Endogenous development is seen as an alternative solution to development especially to improve the economic distribution, eradicate poverty and maintain sociocultural practices and knowledge in the community (Vázquez-Barquero & Alfonso-Gil, 2015). Some scholars claim that this approach is designed to shift the power from external donors, which have controlled the development, to emphasize ownership and local participation (Escobar, 2004; Holcombe, 2014; Millar, 2014; Van der Ploeg & Long, 1994). To a larger extent, local people are seen as agencies who possess distinctive knowledge and skills to develop their territory. Therefore, citizen participation becomes a key principle in the self-reliance approach, and citizens are expected to be involved actively in decision-making processes and encouraged to take leadership roles.
Many development practitioners and politicians perceive the concept of endogenous development as a radical decentralization approach that might be suitable for Indonesian contexts due to its diversity in terms of the economic, social and geographical situation. I believed in the discourse that self-reliance was the only approach that challenges globalization by strengthening the local knowledge of development. However, with the current implementation of Village Law in Indonesia and the dirty politics involved in the implementation, I argue that the approach reinforces power disparity within the local community as the most critical aspect has been overlooked in endogenous development practices.
Despite the focus on local ownership, endogenous development through Village Law homogenises the community’s backgrounds and potentially creates a power imbalance within the community. The source of this power struggle is based on gender, age, class, ethnicity, caste or other socio-economic status (Millar, 2014; Shucksmith, 2000; Vázquez-Barquero & Rodríguez-Cohard, 2016). It could be true that engaging with local participation during the process of development may address the issue of the power structure within the community (Vázquez-Barquero & Rodríguez-Cohard, 2016). Yet, focusing only on economic progress while ignoring intersectionality in the process can generate conflict in social development.
My professional experiences working with village funds can be the best example to illustrate my argument. Due to Village Law, village leaders have more authority to allocate village funds to develop the community. The law also stipulates the importance of community participation in the village’s planning and budgeting process (Saragi, 2021; Siswanto et al., 2017). In my practical observation, I found a lack of participation from marginalized groups such as women, people with disability and low-income communities in the villages during decision-making meetings. Very often, governments only conduct a one-time meeting to distribute information about specific issues, but the participation of the community is tokenism. The community did not know how to raise their concerns during the meeting. If they are able to speak up, their concerns do not necessarily affect the decision as it had already been made prior to the meeting. Therefore, most likely, the development programs continually do not meet the needs of the most vulnerable groups.
What is more, in the current situation where many village leaders came to Jakarta and claimed their support for one of the presidential candidates, their main agenda is not about the local community. Instead, they tried to make a deal with the candidate that in return for their support, the candidate could ensure the revision of Village Law, which would give village leaders an extension of their terms and additional budget allocation up to IDR 5 billion per village. What a politic!
This event is not new when it comes to Village Law and its leaders. There are many cases where village leaders do not care enough for their citizens and ignore the needs of marginalised groups. The village funds have been spent for infrastructure projects which are in low quality or even fake projects.
I questioned these phenomena in my head. How can the self-reliance approach that puts local knowledge in the front be so intricate regarding practical implementation? Is it because the village authorities are ignorant of the ethical implementation or because the community does not have sufficient power to participate? I always raised the same questions when I met cases in different villages without critiquing the concept.
Shucksmith (2000) claims that the discourse of self-reliance emphasizes the collective capacity building of the community within the territories, not on the individuals. The concept of self-reliance leans towards elites, and in the case of Indonesian villages, it refers to village officials and cultural and religious leaders. As a result, the development programs benefit those who have a close relationship with the elites. My professional experience allows me to witness power hierarchies in the community, and I recognise that the implementation of endogenous development reinforces socio-political disparity. Such disparity validates a power block that mutes the participation of vulnerable groups. In Indonesia’s villages, people from low-income families, women and people with disability are often invisible or muted in the village development meetings as they are considered to have no contribution to the economic and social development due to their inability.
Another issue related to the power structure within the village’s self-reliance development is the misuse of village funds by the existing power holders within the villages. With a prominent amount of annual village funds and a lack of good governance, the elites become more powerful and only develop programs that meet their interests (Siswanto et al., 2017). Although some guidelines have been developed to respond to the challenges of the concept (Millar, 2014), the problems persist at a practical level. Principally, it is because the notion of endogenous development through Village Law was formulated to empower the locals against the externals and did not necessarily empower those who are powerless within the locals.
Village Funds in practice: the failure to address gender inequality.
In line with the limitation in power dynamics within the self-reliance approach, the theory has inadequate notions to address the issue of gender justice, which potentially can amplify gender inequality. As discussed above, Village Law homogenizes the community and assumes that all members of the community have shared goals and priorities. In fact, women have different needs and priorities than men. Furthermore, it takes local values and practices collectively (Millar, 2014). While collective rights and shared cultural knowledge are the strengths of a country’s identity, most cultures are established on the basis of patriarchal values. Homogeneity assumption and patriarchal culture become barriers to achieving gender equality, resulting in women facing gender-based discrimination and exclusion in development.
The utilization of village funds in the previous section can also be the best example of understanding the critique of endogenous development theory. For instance, in my professional experience, I find many women do not have land rights in many villages in Indonesia and are required to ask for permission from their husbands or parents if they want to be involved in economic development programs. In the agriculture sector, for example, women have a responsibility to maintain the fields, but decisions about the lands lie with male relatives (Brown, 2003). Therefore, at a practical level of economic empowerment programs, women are excluded from the process to avoid family conflicts. As a result, many development programs are not friendly toward women.
Another example of how gender is pushed aside in the theory is related to domestic work in Indonesian traditional cultures. In rural areas, women have chances to work suitably with socially constructed female characters, such as in livestock and family care fields (Falah, 1996). Even in urban areas, women are expected to be responsible for domestic chores, which creates a double burden if they also work in the public domain. I personally have such experience in which I am socially expected to balance my domestic and public chores, while my husband is not. At this stage, I may have the capacity to deflect this argument. However, I am imagining women who do not have the same opportunity as I do. The social expectations and existing regulations will prevent women from liberating themselves. Therefore, although the number of women empowerment activities has increased significantly in the country, gender-related problems within the community, such as domestic violence, persist.
What is more, its seductiveness as an alternative solution to development contributes to the gender inequality within the concept. The self-reliance approach often produces an idea of over-romanticizing local knowledge in practice. This idea can lead to the assumption that traditional practices and local resources are essentially superior to other knowledge and overlook the limitations of weaknesses within the country. Briggs (2005) argues that we cannot assume that all local knowledge will accommodate the sustainable solution to development. He also points out that local knowledge and practices are dynamic and evolve over time. It means that focusing only on cultural knowledge without continuous learning and adaptation will hamper the development itself. In this sense, prioritizing men and using male perspectives due to traditions and cultural knowledge to improve economic growth will indeed reinforce gender inequality and eventually impede development. Meanwhile, such a patriarchal perspective has been ignored within the self-reliance theory.
In my own reflection, I find it interesting to understand the limitations of Village Law. It is apparent that the limitation of the regulation is not only about women’s exclusion in development but also the complexity of protecting local knowledge while challenging its norms at the same time. How can we be resilient if the local resources that we have prevent women from liberating? Should we preserve the local knowledge (and the regulation) that is limiting women? If economic growth becomes the ultimate goal to achieve, how can we solve the underlying problems? At this stage, for a second time, I believe endogenous development, through Village Law, focuses only on challenging the external actors without emphasizing those vulnerable within the community, including women.
Conclusion
If only men and elites dominate the decision-making processes, women and marginalised groups’ voices are undervalued, which leads to the development that only benefits those who are powerful and ignores the needs of vulnerable people. Eventually, without putting extra effort into power structures, gender inequality will have negative impacts on the sustainable development of the territory. It can prevent the local community from obtaining long-term success that will benefit all members of the community.
Eventually, local knowledge will continue to be used as a weapon to win the presidential candidate rather than to solve the underlying problems in the community.
1 Village Law was issued in 2014 and acknowledges the autonomy of villages, confirming that village governments have the right to prioritize and manage village-level development.
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