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Beispiele z.B. Goddess ]        

Jhala	Heider
Stephen Lansing, anthropologist; Andre Singer, filmmaker	Filmmaker: Andre Singer Anthropologist: J. Stephen Lansing
Distributor: Documentary Educational Resources
Format: video only (rental or purchase), color, 58 minutes, 1992
Genre: contemporary ethnographic film; film about ethnography Key Words: Bali, Irrigation, Development, Cyborg Anthropology, Fieldwork
Summary:
For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Toward the end of each rainy season, the farmers send representatives to Ulun Danu Batur, the temple at the top of the mountain to offer ducks, pigs, coins, and coconuts in thanks for the water that sustains their terraced fields. Outsiders have long considered the rituals of Agama Tirtha, “the religion of holy water”, an interesting but impractical way to grow crops. Development companies have spent millions trying to improve on the ancient system. With the help of an ingenious computer program, anthropologist stephen Lansing and ecologist James Kremer have shown that the Balinese rice growers have been practicing state-of-the-art resource management. Besides placating the goddess, it turns out, the island's ancient rituals serve to coordinate the irrigation and planting schedules of hundreds of scattered villages. And as a new computer model makes clear, the result is one of the most stable and efficient farming systems on the planet. Andre Singer and Stephen Lansing have made an innovative film about the water temples, the dams, and the development of the computer program at the University of Southern California. In the film, we see the government officials call on the priests and recognize the importance of their role. We also see the power play as each group wants to control the use of the computer.	The Film, with its combined visuals and sounds, lets Balinese speak for themselves, giving us a richer picture of Bali than any words can. The Goddess and the computer tells about Stephen Lansing’s Cultural anthropological research on the irrigation system of Bali. After World War II, great efforts were made to develop new strains of rice to Help feed the growing populations of Asia. This was called the Green?Revolution, and it promised to solve some real problems. But somehow, as the Film says, “miracle rice has started to produce miracle pests.” The Film and Lansing’s 1991 book are about his attempt to understand what had happened. This Film is a splendid demonstration of holism. Bureaucrats and scholars in Bali had long concidered that Balinese temples were “religion” and Balinese rice irrigation was “economics”, and the two were unrelated. Stephen Lansing walked the rise fields and listened to talk in the temples and made the connection, which he has described both in the film and in print. The film is also an excellent introduction to the ways in which one cultural anthropologist used anthropological concepts to study a real-world problem and how he then attempted to solve it. Here are some Balinese words that you will hear in the film. These translations will help you to understand the film. Subak: the irrigation cooperative, a local group of farmers who are concerned with one section of the irrigation canals. Agama Tirta: Literally, “religion of holy water.” What the Balinese call their own local version of Hinduism. Pura Dewi Danu Batur: the temple of the Dewi Danu, the goddess of the crater lake. Jero Gde: the young man who is high prist of the temple.
Reasons for its Usefulness	Setup Questions
In terms of its subject matter, water resource management, The Goddess and the Computer is a unique film. As one might expect, the film depicts and describes both the structure and workings of the “traditional” Balinese irrigation system. However, unlike structural-functionalists who might have treated this system as closed and static, Lansing and Singer focus upon the deleterious impact of exogenous forces – namely those unleashed by development agents in the form of the Green Revolution – upon the water temples and rice crops. In addressing the subject of change within culture, Lansing and Singer demonstrate that it is a negotiated process, and, as such, not inevitable. In fact, the film testifies to the important role that Lansing, himself, played in the conflict between water temple priests and farmers, on the one hand, and development and government officials, on the other, thereby making the point that practitioners of anthropology are often in the situations where they have a significant influence over the course of events. While the film does not directly address the ethics and responsibilities of applied anthropology, it certainly raises these as issues for the audience.	The short clip of the film (9:30 minutes) gives the basic parameters of both problems and solution. The entire film (53 minutes) follows the human interactions as they play out, demonstrating vividly that far from being simply a technical agricultural problem, the problem was cultural, and eventually had human personality implications (particularly the turf wars between priests and bureaucrats). First, think about each of the general ethnographic film questions listed in the introduction. Then answer the following specific questions.
Questions Before Screening:	Short Clip Questions
How would you define “traditional” culture? How would you define “westernized” culture? To what extent do these terms have validity? What is the role of technology in society? What is international development and who are its agents?	In what ways is Lansing's research holistic? How did the holistic approach make a difference? What disciplines does it draw on? What sort of ecological system is described? How have the people adapted to the environment? How have they adapted the environment to their needs? Because the terraced fields do produce rice, we call them rice fields, but this term is much too simple, and because of its simplification, it is misleading and draws our attention away from the other organisms that thrive in the same space. What does the film mean by the natural ecological community? Does Stephen Lansing learn anything that the government does not know? Does he learn anything that the Balinese farmers and priests do not know? Why is timing the rice planting and harvesting cycles so important? What do the Green Revolution farm experts fail to see? How is the Balinese irrigation system unusual? What does it mean to say that Balinese priests are not purely religious? How old is this intensive irrigation system in Bali?
Questions After Screening:	Additional Questions Pertaining to the whole film
How would you compare the relationship between religion and science in “traditional” Balinese society to that in “westernized” society Discuss some of the differences between the emic and etic understanding of “traditional” Balinese water resource management. Give several examples of cultural diffusion as they appeared in this film What do you feel should be the anthropologist's role with respect to what he/she is studying? Documentarian? Activist? Mediator? etc. Based upon this film, to what extent do you think international development is a successful /failed enterprise? Who benefits from development projects?	Why is there a struggle over who gets the computers? How could the temple priests benefit from using computers? How does a village create a new subak? What is the purpose of the duck augury (at 37 minutes)? In the demonstration of the computer program at the temple, who wears double sarongs and who doesn't? Why? When the two irrigation office officials join the scholars and Priests for the computer demonstration in the temple, the camera catches some fascinating but subtle nonverbal communication, especially in the faces, how much of this can you interpret? Why is Balinese Hinduism called “Agama Tirta”? Why is there a struggle over who gets the computers? How could the temple priests benefit from using computers?
Films Related by Geographical or Subject Area: Trance and Dance in Bali, by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson; Bathing Babies, by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson Awards: Reviews: Associated Reading: