ABSTRACT
Donors are cultivating working partnerships with select local actors and framing problems in technical terms. Li (2007b: 126) explains this process succinctly. Having selected an area of intervention such as Seko, one that is thought capable of improvement, this area must then be ‘bounded, mapped, characterized and documented’, coupled with the identification of local interests and relations, and the development of a narrative to legitimize intervention by offering solutions to local problems. It is evident that increasingly associational and network-oriented activists are eager to court international donors, promising to undertake comprehensive village consultations in rural Sulawesi. Public consultation and participation are pillars of democratization, and indicate that the broad revaluation of adat is occurring, although the consultation method is usually designed to generate specific conclusions about the need to protect local customs and traditions. As the case of Seko shall demonstrate, recognition as protection requires a regulatory mandate, beginning with the revision of older, redundant Perda concerning adat and replacing them with legislation that provides activists with a legitimate basis for political struggle. Political struggles and agitations for change represent unquantifiable and uncontrollable aspects of international donor interventions, the inevitable slippage that occurs during implementation stages.
