An institutional analysis of sasi laut in Maluku, Indonesia

The interview consisted of a standard list of inventory questions. We documented the different
types of sasi currently operating for both land and marine resource management. First, we
asked whether or not there was sasi of any kind, and then asked respondents to say whether
sasi rules applied to the village (sasi negeri), land (sasi darat), river or sea (sasi laut). The existence
of sasi ceremonies, written rules and sanctions, the level and consistency of activity over time,
reasons for the loss of sasi where it was no longer present, and types of other fisheries
management rules were also documented.

It was known from the literature that sasi may be characterized as church or adat sasi, according
to the dominant power in the institution. We asked respondents to tell us whether they
considered their sasi to be adat sasi, church sasi, mosque sasi or some other form of sasi (also
see Imron 1995). This question identifies the individuals who are seen as the authority figures:
traditional (adat) leaders, the minister (church), the imam (mosque) or other group (e.g.,
commercial harvesters). The various categories are not mutually exclusive. In theory, all of
the above categories of sasi could co-exist in a village. We quantified the frequency and
distribution of different sasi arrangements and determined whether the dominant power could
influence the attributes of the institution as well.

2.2.3 Analysis of inventory data

It was expected that the villages surveyed would not be homogeneous. Because of the role of
religious leaders in sasi, we wanted to test whether differences might be evident between
predominantly Christian and Muslim villages. Also, it was hypothesized that as villages grew
past a certain size, local management institutions might break down (Berkes and Folke 1998).
Finally, contextual variables could vary from island to island and this might have an impact on
the structure and functioning of the sasi institution. Therefore, to display the information, the
villages have been grouped by three different features: dominant religion, population size and
island. The limits of four population size classes were chosen in such a way that each of the
four groups would contain about a quarter of the villages sampled (Table 2.2).

Table 2.2. Villages included in the study broken down by island, religion and size of population.

A breakdown of the 63 villages included in the study by island, religion and population (Table
2.2) shows that two-thirds were predominantly Christian. Muslim villages tended to be larger
and half of these were located on Ambon Island. Roughly a quarter of the villages fell into
each of four size classes.

Methods 15

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