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Abstract
This study looks at a socio-environmental conflict over a tourism megaproject in the Benoa Bay in Bali, Indonesia. This conflict is interesting because it crystallizes key questions about the future of the island. Intriguingly, all the conflicting groups of actors mobilize the same philosophy of Tri Hita Karana (THK), which can be translated as the “three causes of well-being” and which is said to guide the development policies of the island. Our objective is to investigate how THK relates to the conflict and to what extent some of its interpretations are growth-critical. Using political ecology as a theoretical lens and qualitative methods, we find that the conflicting groups do not oppose each other through different languages of valuation, but within them. Likewise, THK is only superficially “one” idiom of valuation. In reality, THK covers different visions of development, depending on the actors involved. We identify three broad ways of interpreting THK in this conflict: (i) a marketable way, (ii) an equity-oriented way, and (iii) a radical-integral way, which bears similarities with post-growth views. This article is a contribution to the emerging debates on post-growth thinking from the “global South” and to the radical critique of tourism industry in developing regions.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Walhi Bali, the Provincial Secretary of Bali, and the other research participants for their availability and for providing essential research materials. We would also like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Together with domestic arrivals, tourist inbounds reach more than 14.4 million in 2017. The contribution of tourism to the province’s economy is even higher when other businesses are included (e.g., travel and tour packages, transportation, spa and wellness, etc.).
2 The Balinese term for mutual agreement. In the Benoa Bay case, it refers to the union of customary villages in opposition of development project.
3 In 2010, Governor Pastika issued the Letter 570/1665/BPM about the Moratorium on Principal Licenses for Tourism Accommodation Enterprises following a report from the Ministry of Tourism that evidenced an oversupply of hotel rooms in South Bali.