Social and cultural anthropology Books

Book SynopsisAutant anthropologiques au sens large que proprement historiques ou linguistiques, les articles spécialisés de l'Encyclopédie berbère étudient les caractéristiques des populations berbères et leur originalité dans l'ensemble méditerranéen, islamique et africain.

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Book SynopsisAutant anthropologiques au sens large que proprement historiques ou linguistiques, les articles spécialisés de l'Encyclopédie berbère étudient les caractéristiques des populations berbères et leur originalité dans l'ensemble méditerranéen, islamique et africain.

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Book SynopsisAutant anthropologiques au sens large que proprement historiques ou linguistiques, les articles spécialisés de l'Encyclopédie berbère étudient les caractéristiques des populations berbères et leur originalité dans l'ensemble méditerranéen, islamique et africain.

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Book SynopsisAn investigation into the complex forces that shape Balinese identity. Over the past one hundred years, the Balinese have been challenged by colonial occupation, political turbulence, and, most recently, tourism. In response, they have come to rely on the idea of “Kebalian,” or Balinese-ness. Kebalian is likened to a tree whose roots are religion (agama), the trunk is tradition (adat), and the fruits, Balinese culture (budaya). To understand how this sense of Balinese-ness came to be, Michel Picard examines the dialogues that the Balinese have engaged in both among themselves and with outsiders by conducting over a hundred interviews with Balinese opinion leaders, officials, and religious reformers. A key throughline in the construction of Kebalian is what Picard identifies as a twofold process of “religionization” and “Hinduization.” This process began with the first years of the incorporation of Bali into the Dutch East Indies and became more urgent with Indonesia’s independence. Kebalian today encompasses the tension between those Balinese eager to defend their customary ritual practices and advocates of Hinduism who deny that such local traditions qualify as agama. Kebalian presents a fascinating picture of religious change, identities in motion, and culture. Scholars of religion, cultural change, and Southeast Asian area studies will find this to be a fascinating and important book.Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionThe discourse of KebalianThe question of HinduismThe process of 'religionization'Chapter 1: A 'Living Museum' of Indo-Javanese CivilizationThe 'Indianization' of BaliThe orientalist viewThe Dutch colonial encounter in BaliChapter 2: Making Sense of Colonial Modernity in Bali: The Debate Between Surya Kanta and Bali Adnjana (1920s)The formation of a Balinese intelligentsiaThe debate between Surya Kanta (1925–1927) and Bali Adnjana (1924–1930)The foundations of Kebalian: agama and adatAgama Hindu Bali versus agama Bali HinduThe aftermath of the debate between jaba and triwangsaChapter 3: From 'Living Museum' to 'Last Paradise': The Discovery of Balinese Culture (1930s)An orientalist view of Balinese culture: Bhawanagara (1930–1935)The Last ParadiseThe Island of Bare BreastsThe Island of ArtistsThe Island of Gods and DemonsA Lost Paradise?Chapter 4: Bali Darma Laksana: Between Orientalism and Nationalism (1936–1942)A social and cultural monthly journal: Djatajoe (1936–1941)The controversy about Bali and Christian missionsConversion and its outcomeBalinese queries about their religious identityBalinese versus Indonesian nationalismChapter 5: Towards Recognition of the Balinese Religion (1942–1958)Ketuhanan Yang Maha EsaIn search of a nameLooking to IndiaThe struggle for the recognition of agama Hindu BaliChapter 6: Parisada: From Agama Hindu Bali to Agama Hindu (1958–1998)Parisada Dharma Hindu BaliParisada Hindu DharmaThe New OrderParisada Hindu Dharma IndonesiaThe 'Hindu Revival'Chapter 7: Balinese Identity Under the Challenge of Tourism Cultural Tourism (Pariwisata Budaya)Cultural Tourism and touristic cultureTouristification and IndonesianizationTourism development and its discontents in the late New OrderCrisis and ReformasiThe revival of adat under the Regional Autonomy legislationThe Kuta bombing and its aftermathAjeg Bali and the politics of Balinese identityThe Benoa Bay reclamation project controversyChapter 8: Balinese Religion in the Age of ReformasiThe reform of Parisada Hindu Dharma IndonesiaThe schism within Parisada BaliBack to agama Hindu BaliAgama Hindu under siegeBali as the world center of Hinduism?ConclusionThe Predicament of Balinese IdentityBalinese and Indonesian OrganizationsGlossaryBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisIndonesia is home to diverse peoples who differ from one another in terms of physical appearance as well as social and cultural practices. The way such matters are understood is partly rooted in ideas developed by racial scientists working in the Netherlands Indies beginning in the late nineteenth century, who tried to develop systematic ways to define and identify distinctive races. Their work helped spread the idea that race had a scientific basis in anthropometry and craniology, and was central to people’s identity, but their encounters in the archipelago also challenged their ideas about race.In The Archipelago of Difference, Fenneke Sysling draws on published works and private papers to describe to way Dutch racial scientists tried to make sense of the human diversity in the Indonesian archipelago. The making of racial knowledge, it contends, cannot be explained solely in terms of internal European intellectual developments but it was ‘on the ground’, that ideas about race weremade and unmade with a set of knowledge strategies that did not always combine well. Sysling describes how skulls were assembled through the colonial infrastructure, how measuring sessions were resisted, what role photography and plaster casting played in racial science and shows how these aspects of science in practice wereentangled with the Dutch colonial Empire.Trade Review"Sysling’s meticulously researched, well written, and clearly argued book fits well with recent scholarship on the history of the ‘racial sciences’. As elsewhere, anthropologists in Southeast Asia amassed mountains of data but struggled to read much meaningful, let alone ‘useful’, out of it. With its many references to relatively unknown sources and archives, the book has a lot to offer historians of science, empire, and Southeast Asia alike." — H/Soz/Kult

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Book SynopsisThe book focuses on the historical trajectories of Savu, an island in the Nusa Tenggara Timur province, eastern Indonesia. It blends historical and anthropological methods, using oral tradition, ethnographicobservations, and archival collections. While Savu is a relatively small island, it has gained a wider regional importance. The text discusses the pre-colonial period up to the 16th century, based on the unusually strong and detailed genealogical tradition, and explains how the various domains emerged on the island. Next it is shown how the early-colonial encounters with the Portuguese and Dutch (VOC) changed the system of governance, how the colonial suzerains functioned as mediators, and how the Savunese provided decisive military support for the Dutch sphere in the Timor region. In the 19th century the Savunese embarked on minor colonial enterprises in Timor and Sumba, and were still largely autonomous vis-a?- vis the colonial state. Protestant missionaries gained foothold after 1870, though Christianization was a slow process. Colonial rule via a Dutchappointed raja was introduced in the early 20th century. The textfollows the fate of Savu during the struggle for independence and the postcolonial era, discussing the dilemmas of modernization and the resilience of the unique local culture.Trade Review"Geneviève Duggan’s intimate knowledge of the genealogies and the social structure of the Savu domains in eastern Indonesia, combined with Hans Hägerdal’s close reading of the contemporary VOC archival documents, has resulted in an impressive detailed study of Savu society and history from early times to the present." — Leonard Y. Andaya"Essential reading for all scholars studying Austronesian societies." — Journal of Asian Studies“This book will interest ethnographers and historians of Indonesian societies, and anyone concerned with social memory. It makes a valuable contribution to the comparative study of Austronesian societies, with its vivid portrait of a society whose culture so uniquely expresses certain shared Austronesian themes.” — The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

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Book SynopsisWith the shift to a market economy, Ho Chi Minh City became a magnet for migrants and experienced rapid growth. Migration provides labor for economic growth in Ho Chi Minh City, and remittances sent by migrants to rural communities help to limit urban-rural inequality. But rural-urban migration creates a heavy burden for the city's physical and social infrastructure. ""Urbanization, Migration, and Poverty in a Vietnamese Metropolis"" presents the results of a major interdisciplinary research project that gathered data on more than one thousand households in Ho Chi Minh City over a three-year period, and on migration flows at the urban destination and in four sending communities in different regions of Vietnam. The study shows that migration to Ho Chi Minh City has been shaped both by urban-rural inequality and by regionally diverse socio-cultural dynamics. It also demonstrates that despite official claims concerning poverty reduction in Ho Chi Minh City, urban poverty rose, particularly among migrants. The research findings indicate that microcredit and other poverty reduction programs had little impact on the socio-economic mobility of households, but that the well-being of many households improved as a result of growth-related economic opportunities as well as the effects of social networks and processes of household formation.

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Book SynopsisQuestioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia represents a contribution to a broader and ongoing project to examine the concept of modernity in the analysis of Indonesian and Malaysian economic, political, and cultural processes. Cultural, economic, and institutional transformation typically labelled ""modernising"" have been so pervasive in this region over an extended period of time that it is impossible to ignore their role in shaping the cultures, societies, economies, and polities of these countries. The region can be described as fully modern, but the essays in this collection show that Indonesian and Malaysian modernity are not merely derivative of a European/Western modernity because the pace and character of modernity are quite different in these settings. Written by scholars from both ""inside"" and ""outside"" the region, the case studies show how the process of conducting social research in Southeast Asia might be rethought on the basis of a revised understanding of modernity. Taken together, the essays in this volume pose questions of relevant theories of modernity not only in Indonesia and Malaysia but in general.

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