Abstract
This chapter reviews contemporary debates in Bali concerning ‘adat’ (sima, krama, dresta in Balinese) institutions and practices. Particular attention is given to the dualistic model of local governance in the desa dinas/adat (official/adat villages), and to new legislation intended to redress the disempowerment of customary institutions under the New Order. The chapter examines the role of adat institutions and frameworks as sites for the production of ‘social capital’, and their relation to democratizing and globalizing processes. It also considers the shadow side of local empowerment in the exercise of extreme sanctions applied in sometimes intractable ‘adat cases’ (kasus adat) that have intensified in the post-New Order era. The study represents an effort to adapt a ‘thick descriptive’ ethnographic approach to the multi-sited contexts in which adat is embedded, taking account of NGO, academic, and government engagements with local adat communities (Geertz 1973; Marcus 1998). In attempting to present these issues as much as possible from a range of Balinese perspectives, and to leave their interpretation open to alternative readings, I quote extensively from the local Indonesian-language press and from recorded interviews and informal conversations.