Contenu du sommaire : Indonesia

An anthropological literature dealing with conflict such as has afflicted Indonesia in recent years is beginning to emerge. The present article is one of a series dealing with different incidents and forms of conflict and violence in a region of eastern Indonesia. It furthers a discussion on contested claims for precedence. Such claims in Indonesia are often made by means of legends of origin. Descent groups claiming outside origin may, nevertheless, demand political power from those claiming to be autochthonous. The latter may or not concede those functions to others, but they commonly assert a mystical authority based on local origin. In Witihama, eastern Adonara, two branches of Lama Tokan clan dispute their relative status. One, which has long provided political leadership, claims to have originated in the Moluccas. The other, which attempts to preserve its mystical authority, deems itself to have originated at the top of the Boleng volcano, but its autochthonous origin is disputed by others. This particular dispute has parallels elsewhere. Unlike other incidents in the past, it seems both peaceable and permanent.

This paper categorizes Muslim beliefs and practices in postcolonial Indonesia — santri-abangan-priyayi, traditionalist-modernist, political-cultural, fundamentalist-liberal, great-little tradition, and global-local — and argues that, far from being fixed, they must be situated in context. Such a typology must consider contingency, diversity, and complexity, shaped by various factors. The terms santri and abangan are useful to identify fractions of the Muslim population in Java, but are not relevant in other islands. Santri, originally the students in religious schools (pesantren), now encompasses the wider category of the pious Muslims, whereas abangan refers to nominal Muslims. The two groups have a dynamic relationship, including its politicization in contemporary Indonesia. The traditionalist vs. modernist contrast, influenced by colonialism and the modernization theory, has prevailed, but Muslim groups often perceive their difference in non-fundamental religious matters, rather than in terms of tradition vs. modernity. The political vs. cultural Muslim contrast is between groups that stress politics and groups that do not, but many political Muslims are involved in cultural activities, as many may shift from political to cultural activism. The fundamentalist vs. liberal contrast, referring to the stricter vs. freer interpretation of Islam, emerged from Western and global circumstances, but such fundamentalism and liberalism have various meanings, including political. The contrast of the great vs. little tradition is also problematic if static situations, either “backward” or “civilized,” are implied. Finally, the contrast of local vs. global Islam reflects the impact of processes of globalization and localization, although it is also contingent.

This article explores the social, economic, legal and cultural organization of maritime expeditions in Buton (Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia) through the analysis of the kapiompu institution. A description of the negotiation of the kapiompu, the socially settled value of the ship, reveals the principles of the kapiompu institution and its consequences for the organization of the activity : 1. the borrowing of the ship by the crew and the sharing of risk on an equal basis between the crew and the ship owner ; 2. the crew's collective responsibility and, as a corollary, the deliberation of decisions and the sharing of profits on an equal basis between crew members ; and 3. the guarantee that kapiompu principles will be respected, through the presence of witnesses to the negotiation and, in case of conflict, the mediation of the customary council (sara). This analysis allows for an original approach of the local community, based on the socio-technical network taking shape around the ship. Thus, the kapiompu is an example of a cultural response to constraints related to the practice of a productive activity, as well as an illustration of the existence of legal pluralism within the Indonesian state.

This paper employs a biographical approach to explore the politics of region and identity in North Sulawesi—more specifically, Minahasa—during the middle decades of the twentieth century. A brief examination of the lives of three key political actors of this period, G.S.S.J. Ratulangie, A.E. Kawilarang, and A.Z.R. Wenas, serves to illuminate characteristic continuities in Minahasan political life from the late colonial times through the apparently radical changes of the Japanese occupation, the decolonization process, and the Permesta rebellion. It also reveals persisting continuities between Minahasa in the mid-twentieth century and Minahasa today. One such continuity lies in the steady aspiration among Minahasans for regional autonomy within an Indonesian national state. Another constant factor is a particular kind of political conservatism, based on pragmatism and morality, rather than custom and prejudice, which both informs and restrains the pursuit of regional interests.

In Indonesia, as in the other countries of insular Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan), the house, used either as a dwelling or for ceremonial occasions, is a focus of identity at both the ethnic and regional levels. As a building, the house is a focus of displays, both in museums (architectural features, sculptures, decorative patterns, house models) and for tourism, sometimes associated with the concept of the “living museum.” The idea of “representation” is defined along its various meanings, by analyzing the position of the units of meaning underlying the representational process, in a semiological perspective, following Barthes' approach—particularly, by comparing the concepts of index (reference), icon (likeness), and symbol (convention). The Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah), an architectural theme park built in 1975 in the suburbs of Jakarta under Pres-ident Suharto's New Order regime, constitutes a paradigmatic example. It inventorizes the country's built heritage in an all-encompassing representation of the national culture, in a set stressing the transition to what is viewed as “modernity.” The concept of “cultural diversity,” as displayed in the layout of cultural and regional identity markers developed at Taman Mini, is shown to sharply differ from its standard museographic rendering in Indonesia.

The paper focuses on borders and boundaries as practiced, perceived, changed, and enforced by different actors in the Apo Kayan region, an isolated plateau in the interior of Indonesian Borneo at the border with Sarawak (Malaysia). The paper proposes a longitudinal and multi-faceted description of “border” that takes into account the complexity of its historical, political, economic, and cognitive connotations in the context of practices and interactions across the border. The combined ethnohistorical and cognitive approach of this study makes it possible to unravel the contradictions that are inherent in the concept of “border.” On the one hand, the representation of a border is a fixed and rigid line that restricts and prevents. On the other hand, the border can be experienced and construed as an open and variable boundary, a division that can be negotiated, on the basis of prevalent economic, social, and cultural considerations.

The world's population is now ageing at a fast pace, and an increase in life expectancy by almost 25 years in the course of the 20th century has constituted a major disruption that governments in the South and social scientists alike have only started considering. Ageing is especially noteworthy in Asian countries, among others in Indonesia. The present article gives an overview of ageing in the Archipelago and a review of the few studies available to date, then it shows that migration is a family strategy, increasingly concerning women and often relying on the indispensable assistance of grandparents. Migration entails an extra load of work and responsibility for the elderly, who are already working hard and are largely autonomous. At an age when they could expect being taken care of by younger generations, they are the ones helping out their children and grandchildren. Through life histories, this article exposes the degree of satisfaction and dissatisfaction expressed by the ageing parents of migrants, thus contributing to grasp one of the social costs of migration, heretofore a poorly known one.

In 1978 two remarkable features of the economic and social organization of the fishing village of Patondu on the island of Madura were women's key role in the local fishing economy and their large measure of social autonomy. Fieldwork carried out in 2004 showed that, during the 26 years in-between, far-reaching technological and economic changes in fishery had taken place. Public facilities had become available to Patondu, which was now better connected to the outside world. Yet in 2004, the position of its women was still strong, if not stronger than before. To find an explanation, six cases of women active in fish trading and processing and in fishery finance were documented, survey findings checked for trends, and key informants interviewed. The pangambă' warrants special attention: A trader, entrepreneur, and banker, all in one, she plays a pivotal role in the fishing economy. Referred to in the literature as a “phenomenal group of women,” the pangambă' are the matrons in the matronage relationships structuring the local socio-economic networks. The analysis shows that the explanation for the strong position of women lies in the ecologically and culturally underpinned, gendered division of labor in Patondu society that provides women with ample space and opportunities to exercise agency in the economic and social spheres. Since daily life in Patondu is taken at “fish value” and it is the women who manipulate and determine this value, they control the local fishing economy to a large extent. Furthermore, the boundaries between the domestic and economic spheres are fluid, preventing women from being domestically confined and enabling them to play their role as matrons in the economic sphere. Research on women traders in the Javanese market system has yielded similar findings. Patondu society is not egalitarian and, although gender as a stratifying variable intersects with other variables and the gap between well-to-do and poor women has widened, the gender difference has remained all-pervasive and encompassing.

The recent publication by the Borneo Research Council of a collection of essays on death provides an opportunity to reassess the heritage of Robert Hertz, whose theory of the double obsequies relies heavily on the ethnography of the Ngaju and other Borneo peoples. The translation of Hertz's essay on the collective representation of death in the 1960s, prompting in particular Peter Metcalf's work on the Berawan, has consecrated the explanatory power of Hertz's model. With this new book, however, time seems to have come for the final celebration that marks the heirs' liberation from the deceased's spiritual influence. While still largely valid as a general theory of mourning, Hertz's paradigm of death as a reactive process proves inadequate to fully make sense of some lesser known or hitherto unpublished ethnographic materials that indicate a circulation of the components of the self taking place beyond the life-death opposition, or the direct influence of secondary burials on the rebirth of ancestors. This article deals with these criticisms from the standpoint of Hertz's essay itself, and highlights its ethnographic intuition and lack of theoretical dogmatism.