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... Relations1 Roxana Waterson (National University of Singapore) Abstrak ... Each time this happens, the tale gains renewed resonance and power, so that for all the unresolvable ques-tions that surround its historical status, it can be... more
... Relations1 Roxana Waterson (National University of Singapore) Abstrak ... Each time this happens, the tale gains renewed resonance and power, so that for all the unresolvable ques-tions that surround its historical status, it can be seen to live in the present. ...
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As research with children has burgeoned over the past three decades, methodology and ethics have become increasingly important subjects of discussion and debate. Researchers, particularly in the social sciences, are concerned to ensure... more
As research with children has burgeoned over the past three decades, methodology and ethics have become increasingly important subjects of discussion and debate. Researchers, particularly in the social sciences, are concerned to ensure not only that the methods used in research with children are robust but that the underpinning principles are ethical and treat children with respect. Judith Ennew was one of the most significant contributors to the development of rights-based research with children, pioneering the concept of ‘the right to be properly researched’. This chapter traces Judith’s contribution to research with children over almost four decades, exploring the theoretical perspectives that shaped her approach to methodology and ethics and discussing in detail the practical application of her approach.
Research Interests: Art and Multidisciplinary
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Page 1. Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 29, No. 83, 2001 ISSN 1363-9811 print/ISSN 1469-8382 online/01/830005-46 © 2001 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World DOI: 10.1080/1363981012004798 8 A TORAJA PILGRIMAGE: THE LIFE OF FRITZ... more
Page 1. Indonesia and the Malay World, Vol. 29, No. 83, 2001 ISSN 1363-9811 print/ISSN 1469-8382 online/01/830005-46 © 2001 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World DOI: 10.1080/1363981012004798 8 A TORAJA PILGRIMAGE: THE LIFE OF FRITZ BASIANG ...
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Research Interests:
... The living house: An anthropology of architecture in South-East Asia. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Waterson, Roxana. PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press (Singapore and New York). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1990. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN... more
... The living house: An anthropology of architecture in South-East Asia. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Waterson, Roxana. PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press (Singapore and New York). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1990. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 019588941X ). ...
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Research Interests:
This book, the product of anthropological fieldwork over a thirty-year period, provides a deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition to modernity over the course of the twentieth century. The... more
This book, the product of anthropological fieldwork over a thirty-year period, provides a deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition to modernity over the course of the twentieth century. The analysis, firstly, sets Toraja society in the context of the Austronesian world, tracing some widely shared themes of culture, kinship and cosmology. Secondly, the author evokes a historical context within which she examines Toraja social memory and the uses of the past, as a source of social identity, a resource for claims of precedence, or a template for action in the present. Toraja are famous for the dramatic architecture of their 'tongkonan' or houses of origin; here the house is shown to be the true focus of the bilateral kinship system, making this an emblematic example of the type of social organisation that Claude Levi-Strauss termed a 'house society'. The structure and ethos of the indigenous religion, 'Aluk to Dolo' or Way of the Ancestors, with its complex cycle of rituals, is clearly presented, while the author traces the continuing decline of this religion in the face of accelerating conversion to Christianity. The book concludes with an analysis of the ceremonial economy associated with mortuary ritual, whose continued inflation, even as rites are performed in Christianized forms, puts increasingly severe strains on household economies. Toraja ethnic identity is shown to have emerged over the course of the past century as an active response to far-reaching political and social changes, from Dutch colonial takeover in 1905, through the struggle for Indonesian Independence and the Soeharto era of 'Development', to the effervescent mood of 'Reformation' following Soeharto's fall from power in 1998, and entry into the 21st century. In tracing these transformations, the book charts the story of one society's journey into modernity.
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Research Interests:
The human propensity to address the unseen is a profound anthropological and linguistic puzzle. Ethnographers of ‘prayer’ in Southeast Asia have proposed that invocations are opposed as a form of utterance to other genres such as... more
The human propensity to address the unseen is a profound anthropological and linguistic puzzle. Ethnographers of ‘prayer’ in Southeast Asia have proposed that invocations are opposed as a form of utterance to other genres such as narration. This paper challenges that assumption with the analysis of some Toraja examples having a more declarative and instrumental quality. It also expands on Schefold’s observations (2001) about ‘flows of blessing’ as a characteristically Austronesian concept. Above all, the intensely poetic qualities of Toraja invocations suggest the possibility of a deeper link between prayer and poetry, as linguistic genres intended to move the hearer.
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... They are standards to be achieved – which it has to be said no state party has yet done. No government was excluded from the drafting or adoption process, nor pressurised to ratify. ... 200422. Hastadewi, Y., Salam, AQ, Nugroho, PA,... more
... They are standards to be achieved – which it has to be said no state party has yet done. No government was excluded from the drafting or adoption process, nor pressurised to ratify. ... 200422. Hastadewi, Y., Salam, AQ, Nugroho, PA, Cholilah, U., Isnaini, W. and Riyani, YA 2004. ...
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... On further investigation, I find at least on other Torajan who shares his opinion, since K.Kadang, in his book UkiranRumah Toraja (Toraja House Carvings), also describes the pa'katik ... Freeman, D., 1960, ??A Note on... more
... On further investigation, I find at least on other Torajan who shares his opinion, since K.Kadang, in his book UkiranRumah Toraja (Toraja House Carvings), also describes the pa'katik ... Freeman, D., 1960, ??A Note on the Gawai Kenyalang, or Hornbill Ritual of the Iban of Sara-. 72. ...
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This paper addresses the poetics of prayer, or utterances addressed to the unseen, from the point of view of how humans have evolved to have a dialogical, intersubjective sense of self. The poetic force of ritual invocations, as well as... more
This paper addresses the poetics of prayer, or utterances addressed to the unseen, from the point of view of how humans have evolved to have a dialogical, intersubjective sense of self. The poetic force of ritual invocations, as well as poesis in the sense of creative activity, are analysed in the context of Toraja invocations. The author addresses some particular puzzles associated with Toraja modes of invoking blessing, which sometimes take the form of statements rather than requests, and in which the blessing itself seems to be summoned directly. The theme of 'flows' of blessing, characteristic of many SE Asian societies, is linked to the flow of words in ritual performance, but some new ideas are proposed as to the sources of such blessing, which here may contain historical memories of long-distance trade.
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The Sa'dan Toraja of highland South Sualwesi, Indonesia, provide an example of a bilateral kinship system in which kin terms and ideology tend to be used inclusively. The boundaries of kinship groupings are hard to discern except at key... more
The Sa'dan Toraja of highland South Sualwesi, Indonesia, provide an example of a bilateral kinship system in which kin terms and ideology tend to be used inclusively. The boundaries of kinship groupings are hard to discern except at key moments, such as when quarrels arise.The paper examines disputes over rights in origin-houses, graves and land, which sharply reveal how house membership is defined, and how kinship actually functions for Toraja as a set of ideas by means of which they shape their social world.
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This paper made an original contribution to the study of Indonesian kinship systems by proposing that the functioning of SE Asian cognatic systems, whose apparent amorphousness or lack of bounded groups had puzzled earlier researchers,... more
This paper made an original contribution to the study of Indonesian kinship systems by proposing that the functioning of SE Asian cognatic systems, whose apparent amorphousness or lack of bounded groups had puzzled earlier researchers, can be better understood when the house is taken as the focus of the system. Kinship among the Sa'dan Toraja of highland South Sulawesi is examined in detail, as a classic example of what C. Levi-Strauss called 'house societies'. The author subsequently pursued this theme comparatively in her book The Living House: An Anthropology of Architecture in SE Asia (1990).
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This chapter, part of the volume Expressions of Austronesian Thought and Emotions, ed. James Fox (Canberra, ANU Press 2018), contributes to the anthropology of emotions with a critical discussion of the concept of empathy and its cultural... more
This chapter, part of the volume Expressions of Austronesian Thought and Emotions, ed. James Fox (Canberra, ANU Press 2018), contributes to the anthropology of emotions with a critical discussion of the concept of empathy and its cultural expressions. It also contributes to the anthropology of childhoods, since the study set out to examine how Toraja children learn about rituals. 451 schoolchildren shared their perspectives with the author, writing overwhelmingly abut mortuary rites, with their competitive and inflationary buffalo sacrifices. A major theme to emerge was how they had learned the social necessity to share grief through participation in the rituals. Funerals create endebtedness, a source of anxiety for many; children also wrote about this and how their own educations may be jeopardized by the siphoning of family funds into funeral expenditure. The chapter shows how rituals provide a crucial arena for the tacit absorption of a society's ethos.
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The authors examine key case studies from the tumultuous twentieth-century history of Southeast Asia, analysing the workings of social memory in postcolonial societies. We show how deeply processes of remembering, misremembering or... more
The authors examine key case studies from the tumultuous twentieth-century history of Southeast Asia, analysing the workings of social memory in postcolonial societies. We show how deeply processes of remembering, misremembering or forgetting the past are intertwined with modern political developments. Memory can be thought of as trace (that is, as evidence, whether held in the mind or in material forms), as event (re-telling as a performative and potentially transformative act in itself), and as trajectory (the potential for transmission and endurance through time, strongly dependent on the conditions facilitating or obstructing the 'events' of re-telling).
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The chapter explores the usefulness of Levi-Strauss' concept of the 'house society' in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, with the consideration of many comparative examples.
Ma'pakorong is a Toraja ritual in honour of the goddess of pox, Puang Ruru'. She is invited into the village and entertained with music, cockfighting and food offerings, before being escorted away and requested not to return for seven... more
Ma'pakorong is a Toraja ritual in honour of the goddess of pox, Puang Ruru'. She is invited into the village and entertained with music, cockfighting and food offerings, before being escorted away and requested not to return for seven years. Ludic and sacrificial elements are inextricably interwoven in the rite, and these apparently contradictory themes are analysed in relation to recent theoretical writings and to the Toraja ritual corpus as a whole, drawing parallels with ritual contests in some other Indonesian societies. Besides dealing with illness, conceived as categorical disorder and excessive 'heat', the rite is ultimately concerned with the enhancement of fertility, and emphasises community benefits instead of the intense status competition which predominates in Toraja mortuary rites.
The paper examines the potential usefulness of Levi-Strauss' concept of 'house society' for an understanding of Indonesian kinship systems. A range of examples involving widely differing social structures is considered, from the most... more
The paper examines the potential usefulness of Levi-Strauss' concept of 'house society' for an understanding of Indonesian kinship systems. A range of examples involving widely differing social structures is considered, from the most egalitarian to the highly hierarchical. The Japanese 'ie' is considered as the Asian example most comparable to the 'houses' of feudal Europe, proposed by Levi-Strauss as an instance of the 'house society'.
The article presents the life story of a remarkable Toraja individual who lived almost the entire twentieth century, as recorded in encounters with the anthropologist. Fritz Basiang was one of the first Toraja to attend school in the... more
The article presents the life story of a remarkable Toraja individual who lived almost the entire twentieth century, as recorded in encounters with the anthropologist. Fritz Basiang was one of the first Toraja to attend school in the early days of Dutch colonialism in the Sulawesi highlands. He trained as a nurse, and spent three years in Germany (1930-32) with his mentor, a German doctor. Like millions of other ordinary, yet extraordinary individuals, his life reflects the tumultuous political and social changes of the C20th in Indonesia, to which in his own way he also contributed. The article discusses the value of life stories in anthropology and more broadly as a means of understanding the interface between personal experience and history.
Over the course of the twentieth century, documentary film became an increasingly important vehicle of social memory and testimony. But theatre also has been made the vehicle of testimony, in sometimes surprising ways. And some theatre... more
Over the course of the twentieth century, documentary film became an increasingly important vehicle of social memory and testimony. But theatre also has been made the vehicle of testimony, in sometimes surprising ways. And some theatre performances venture into mixed media, for instance by incorporating projected video as an element of the performance. This paper examines the notion of testimony, paying particular attention to its performative aspects. It is proposed that the performative element makes it difficult at times to draw a clear line between testimony on film, and its deployment in the context of drama. Case studies will be discussed of some recent theatre productions in Southeast Asia that have drawn upon actual testimony of past events, or even include direct acts of testifying by the victims of a traumatic event. These performances oblige us to confront questions about narrative, documentary ‘truth’, and imagination in the two different, yet overlapping, media of film and theatre. Their potentially transformative effects for both participants and viewers will also be examined.
This article examines the meanings of particular woodcarving motifs used as ornament on aristocratic origin houses of the Sa'dan Toraja people of highland South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their place within Toraja cosmological ideas is... more
This article examines the meanings of particular woodcarving motifs used as ornament on aristocratic origin houses of the Sa'dan Toraja people of highland South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their place within Toraja cosmological ideas is explained, and comparisons drawn with similar themes in other Austronesian or Southeast Asian societies.
This chapter looks at how life histories have featured in anthropology, and asks how we could be making more consistent and creative use of them. Many 'ordinary', non-famous people have led extraordinary lives, living through dramatic... more
This chapter looks at how life histories have featured in anthropology, and asks how we could be making more consistent and creative use of them. Many 'ordinary', non-famous people have led extraordinary lives, living through dramatic social and political transformations. Anthropologists in the field have unique opportunities to record the lives of those who become our friends and acquaintances, but the very particularities of these narratives can make them seem difficult to analyse. The author proposes that historical consciousness - the individual's awareness of living in a particular place and time, making a life in the face of particular constraints and opportunities - provides a powerful framework for analysis, and vividly brings to life the interface between historical events and personal experience. The stories in this book have been produced in the dialogical encounter between a narrator and an anthropologist, and the contributions in this volume break new ground in their profound consideration of the nuances involved in this process, and the many possible audiences that such personal narratives may be designed to reach. The author argues that life stories are a fertile but still undervalued resource for a more multivocal anthropology that can do justice to personal experience.
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This chapter provides a wide-ranging overview of developments and ideas in the field of social memory since the 1990s, and discusses how they may be applied in Southeast Asian societies. It seeks to build bridges between psychological and... more
This chapter provides a wide-ranging overview of developments and ideas in the field of social memory since the 1990s, and discusses how they may be applied in Southeast Asian societies. It seeks to build bridges between psychological and sociological theories of memory, and examines the tensions between popular and oral memory processes and written history or state narratives; traumatic events; and the elision or suppression of memories by the powerful. Insights from writers about the Holocaust offer concepts that can be used to think about some traumatic events in Southeast Asia and their effects on social memory.
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This book, the product of anthropological fieldwork over a thirty-year period, provides a deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition to modernity over the course of the twentieth century. The analysis,... more
This book, the product of anthropological fieldwork over a thirty-year period, provides a deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition to modernity over the course of the twentieth century. The analysis, firstly, sets Toraja society in the context of the Austronesian world, tracing some widely shared themes of culture, kinship and cosmology. Secondly, the author evokes a historical context within which she examines Toraja social memory and the uses of the past, as a source of social identity, a resource for claims of precedence, or a template for action in the present. Toraja are famous for the dramatic architecture of their 'tongkonan' or houses of origin; here the house is shown to be the true focus of the bilateral kinship system, making this an emblematic example of the type of social organisation that Claude Levi-Strauss termed a 'house society'. The structure and ethos of the indigenous religion, 'Aluk to Dolo' or Way of the Ancestors, with its complex cycle of rituals, is clearly presented, while the author traces the continuing decline of this religion in the face of accelerating conversion to Christianity. The book concludes with an analysis of the ceremonial economy associated with mortuary ritual, whose continued inflation, even as rites are performed in Christianized forms, puts increasingly severe strains on household economies. Toraja ethnic identity is shown to have emerged over the course of the past century as an active response to far-reaching political and social changes, from Dutch colonial takeover in 1905, through the struggle for Indonesian Independence and the Soeharto era of 'Development', to the effervescent mood of 'Reformation' following Soeharto's fall from power in 1998, and entry into the 21st century. In tracing these transformations, the book charts the story of one society's journey into modernity.