STATES OF TRANSITION: A STUDY OF COFFEE CULTIVATION IN JAVA IN 19TH CENTURY

Coffee cultivation in Java is a mixture of several transitions in the existing scenario, both for native people and nature. This paper, which tries to bring together all these transitions or changes, is a holistic study of the coffee cultivation in Java. The approach is not chronological, but trying to see the system with pre-occupied notion of stagnation and transitions, with the divisions integrated by three grand themes- transition in ecological system, transition in the power and positions of the intermediate groups between Company and direct producers and finally the transitions in peasant life and condition. First, in the ecological system, new phenomenon came on the place of centuries-long interaction between the nature and peasantry; second, formation of new class to control the system, the gradual, trial-and –error construction of a more centrally controlled system that eventually became the basis for the colonial exploitation of Indonesian economy. Each of these themes has the same logic of focusing on the changes. By their interaction they give an overall picture of the unique character of coffee cultivation in Java.