Is Participation Rooted in Colonialism? Agricultural Innovation Systems and Participation in the Netherlands Indies

Participation is connected to technology through the notion of innovation systems. To make the connection work, it is argued, the focus has to shift from a framing of participation in terms of democratic entitlement to a framing in terms of the settlement of issues (i.e. politics from below), The innovation system is an appropriate notion to see where issues are likely to lock on to processes of technological change. Drawing on material from colonial history (the Netherlands Indies) it is shown that much of the (seemingly) technical discussions about the organisation of research and extension, as well as concrete technical alternatives, were attempts to respond to growing economic uncertainty and social unrest among the rural population