Making a Living between Crises and Ceremonies in Tana Toraja

The Practice of Everyday Life of a South Sulawesi Highland Community in Indonesia

Jong, Edwin B.P. de

The practice of everyday life in Tana Toraja (South Sulawesi, Indonesia) is structured by a series of public events, of which funerals are the most important. Even after Indonesia was hit by an economic crisis in the late 1990s, thousands of extravagant funeral ceremonies, requiring huge expenditures, were still organized each year. To understand the paradoxes and complexities of Torajan livelihoods.
Edwin de Jong develops an approach that goes beyond existing economically biased p... more

A Few Poorly Organized Men

Interreligious Violence in Poso, Indonesia

McRae, Dave

Despite no prior history of recent unrest, Poso, from 1998-2007, became the site of the most protracted inter-religious conflict in postauthoritarian Indonesia, as well as one of the most important theatres of operations for the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network. Nine years of violent conflict between Christians and Muslims in Poso elevated a previously little known district in eastern Indonesia to national and global prominence. Drawing on a decade of research, for the most part c... more

Commodities and Colonialism

The Story of Big Sugar in Indonesia, 1880-1942

Knight, G. Roger

Sugar yesterday was what oil is today: a commodity of immense global importance whose tentacles reached deep into politics, society and economy. Indonesia’s colonial-era sugar industry is largely forgotten today, except by a small number of regional specialists writing for a specialist audience. During the period 1880-1942 covered by this book, however, the then Netherlands Indies was one of the world’s very greatest producer-exporters of the commodity. How it contrived to do s... more

Lachen, huilen, bevrijden

De weerspiegeling van de Surinaamse samenleving in het werk van het Doe-theater, 1970-1983

Ockhorst, Annika

Met medewerking van Thea Doelwijt

Met de cabaret-musical Land te koop nemen Thea Doelwijt en Henk Tjon het Surinaamse en Nederlandse publiek in 1973 mee op ontdekkingsreis door Suriname. Na het succes van deze voorstellingenreeks richt het duo een vast gezelschap op: het Doe-theater. In de tien jaar die volgen groeit dit theatergezelschap uit tot een begrip in Suriname. Het Doe-theater streeft een professionele ... more

Beyond Empire and Nation

The Decolonization of African and Asian societies, 1930s-1970s

Bogaerts, Els and Remco Raben

The decolonization of countries in Asia and Africa is one of the momentous events in the twentieth century. But did the shift to independence indeed affect the lives of the people in such a dramatic way as the political events suggest? The authors in this volume look beyond the political interpretations of decolonization and address the issue of social and economic reorientations which were necessitated or caused by the end of colonial rule. The book covers three major issues: public secur... more

Governing New Guinea

An oral history of Papuan administrators, 1950-1990

Visser, Leontine

This is the first time that indigenous Papuan administrators share with an international public their experiences governing their country. These administrators were the brokers of development. After graduating from the School for Indigenous Administrators (OSIBA) they served in the Dutch administration until 1962. The period 1962-1969 stands out as turbulent and dangerous, and for many curtailed their professional careers. These administrators’ having been in active service until the... more

Islam and the making of the nation

Kartosuwiryo and political Islam in 20th century Indonesia

Formichi, Chiara

Recently Kartsowiryo and the Darul Islam have become heroic symbols of the Islamist struggle. The author looks beyond the popular dichotomy between rebel and martyr and unveils a politician whose legacy has been shaping the role of Islam in Indonesian politics for over fifty years. She thereby offers an alternative view of Soekarno as the leader of the republic and his antagonism with the Islamic state.
In a blend of archival sources, printed material, and oral accounts, the author ... more

Nuaulu religious practices

The frequency and reproduction of rituals in a Moluccan society

Ellen, Roy

How religious practices are reproduced has become a major theoretical issue. This work examines data on Nuaulu ritual performances collected over a 30 year period, comparing different categories of event in terms of frequency and periodicity. It seeks to identify the influencing factors and the consequences for continuity.

Such an approach enables a focus on related issues: variation in performance, how rituals change in relation to material and social conditions, the connections b... more

Regime change and ethnic politics in Indonesia

Dayak politics of West Kalimantan

Tanasaldy, Taufiq

When the Indonesian New Order regime fell in 1998, regional politics with strong ethnic content emerged across the country. In West Kalimantan the predominant feature was particularly that of the Dayaks. This surge, however, was not unprecedented. After centuries of occupying a subordinate place in the political and social hierarchy under the nominal rule of the Malay sultanates, Dayaks became involved in an enthusiastic political emancipation movement from 1945.
The Dayaks secured ... more

Contemporary Indonesian film

Spirits of Reform and ghosts from the past

Heeren, Katinka van

This highly informative book explores the world of Post-Soeharto Indonesian audio-visual media in the exiting era of Reform. From a multidisciplinary approach it considers a wide variety of issues such as mainstream and alternative film practices, ceremonial and independent film festivals, film piracy, history and horror, documentary, television
soaps, and Islamic films, as well as censorship from the state and street. Through the perspective of discourses on, and practices of film ... more

Musical worlds in Yogyakarta

Richter, Max M.

Musical worlds in Yogyakarta is an ethnographic account of a vibrant Indonesian city during the turbulent early post-Soeharto years. The book examines musical performance in public contexts ranging from the street and neighbourhood through to commercial venues and state environments
such as Yogyakarta’s regional parliament, its military institutions, universities and the Sultan’s palace. It focuses on the musical tastes and practices of street workers, artists, students ... more

Verzamelaars en volksopvoeders

Musea in Suriname 1863-2012

Reeser, Pepijn

Sinds 150 jaar wordt Surinaams erfgoed bewaard en getoond in musea. Die werden opgericht en geleid door mensen waarvan de achtergrond uiteenliep van planter tot onderwijzer en van wetenschapper tot politieagent. Pepijn Reeser beschrijft hoe en op basis van welke ideeën deze musea tot stand kwamen en hoe ze zich verhielden tot ontwikkelingen in Suriname en Nederland. Steeds weer bleek de behoefte aan eenheid in zowel het koloniale als onafhankelijke Suriname de motor achter vrijwel all... more

At the edges of states

Dynamics of state formation in the Indonesian borderlands

Eilenberg, Michael

Set in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, this study explores the shifting relationships between border communities and the state along the political border with East Malaysia.
The book rests on the premise that remote border regions offer an exciting study arena that can tell us important things about how marginal citizens relate to their nation-state.
The basic assumption is that central state authority in the Indonesian borderlands has never been absolute, but waxes and w... more

Lords of the land, lords of the sea

Conflict and adaptation in early colonial Timor, 1600-1800

Hägerdal, Hans

European traders and soldiers established a foothold on Timor in the course of the
seventeenth century, motivated by the quest for the commercially vital sandalwood and the intense competition between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Lords of the land, lords of the sea focuses on two centuries of contacts between the indigenous polities on Timor and the early colonials, and covers the period 1600-1800. In contrast w... more

Cleanliness and culture

Indonesian histories

Dijk, Kees van and Jean Gelman Taylor (eds)

Recent years have shown an increase in interest in the study of cleanliness from
a historical and sociological perspective. Many of such studies on bathing and
washing, on keeping the body and the streets clean, and on fi lth and the combat
of dirt, focus on Europe.

In Cleanliness and culture attention shifts to the tropics, to Indonesia,
in colonial times as well as in the present. Subjects range from the use... more

Heirs to world culture

Being Indonesian 1950-1965

Edited by Lindsay, Jennifer and Maya H.T. Liem

This volume brings together new scholarship by Indonesian and non-Indonesian scholars on Indonesia’s cultural history from 1950-1965. During the new nation’s first decade and a half, Indonesia’s links with the world and its sense of nationhood were vigorously negotiated on the cultural front.
Indonesia used cultural networks of the time, including those of the Cold War, to
announce itself on the world stage. International links, post-colon... more

Healers on the colonial market

Native doctors and midwives in the Dutch East Indies

Hesselink, Liesbeth

Healers on the colonial market is one of the few studies on the Dutch East Indies from a postcolonial perspective. It provides an enthralling addition to research on both the history of the Dutch East Indies and the history of colonial medicine. This book will be of interest to historians, historians of science and medicine, and anthropologists.
 
How successful were the two medical training programmes established in Jakarta by the colon... more

Tropenstijl

Amusement en verstrooiing in de (post)koloniale pers

Termorshuizen, Gerard (red.)

Met een voorwoord van Thom Hoffman

Ontspanning en vermaak onder de Europeanen in de Nederlandse overzeese gebiedsdelen waren beperkt. De persorganen die in Indië, Suriname, Curaçao alsook in Zuid-Afrika verschenen trachtten deze lacune zoveel mogelijk op te vullen. Journalistieke verstrooiing legde zoveel gewicht in de schaal dat de concurrentiepositie van een krant of tijdschrift in hoge mate werd bepaald door de amusementswaarde ervan.... more

From Lanka Eastwards

The Ramayana in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia

Andrea Acri, Helen Creese, Arlo Griffiths (eds)

The Kakawin Ramayana, arguably the oldest Old Javanese epic text in Indic metres (circa 9th century AD), holds a unique position in the literary heritage of Indonesia. The poem has retained a remarkable vitality through the centuries in the Archipelago, inspiring many forms of artistic expression not only in the domain of literature but also in the visual and performing arts, from the reliefs of the majestic Central Javanese temples to modern puppet-show performances.
Displaying a ... more

A dictionary of Indonesian abbreviations

Free to download, not for sale

Parsidi, Agata and Roger Tol (eds.)

Any reader and speaker of Indonesian experiences the enormous amount of abbreviations and acronyms. They are everywhere: in newspapers, journals, books, on billboards, cars, street signs, flags, in text messages, you name it. Indonesian abbreviations are not only written down and read, but are also part and parcel of the spoken language, in particular slang and youth language. A popular hobby of many Indonesians is to invent (usually funny) abbreviations on the spot, or to create new meani... more