Week 1: Involution 101: Geertz's Rice Paddies

Where the term comes from — agricultural intensification that adds labour without adding yield — and why it outlived the paddies

22 February 2027

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Outline#

• Clifford Geertz’s 1963 Agricultural Involution: Javanese wet-rice farming absorbing more and more labour per hectare with no matching rise in output
• the difference between involution and its two look-alikes — growth (more labour, more output) and stagnation (no labour, no output)
• why a concept coined for rice paddies now gets reached for to describe group chats, group projects and grade curves
• reading before next week: Alexander Chayanov on peasant labour, for the case that predates the internet by a century