From Global to Local Initiatives

Abstract

The paper aims to understand how the foreign idea of Credit Union can be accepted as a new economic opportunity among the Dayak ethnic groups in West Kalimantan. This idea came originally from Germany and reached the interior areas of West Kalimantan. Thanks to missionaries and to local activists for the spread of this idea. However, introducing such new ideas always take a process of adjustments before they will be embraced by the local community. Following Polanyi’s idea, CU needs to be socio-culturally embedded [1] to be adjusted to a local value, social norm, and culture system. The essential question is whether this sort of adjustment process is able to run in Dayak ethnic groups who have resisted through various