Jinn and Hot Money: Morality and Cultural Risks in Bombana Gold Mining, Eastern Indonesia

This study discusses the notion of Jin and Hot money as moral emblems to predict morality and public health risk in Bombana, gold mining areas. The result of this study indicates that good jinn control people to prevent from negative behavior and thinking. It means that good jinn contributes the positive consequences for both individual and community. On the other hand, the bad jin brings negative consequences. In addition, the morality standard for hot money and bad jinn are associated with risks condition and their impacts for individual as well as community.

The Persistence of Civil Militias in Banten and Lampung, Indonesia

This study focuses on how civil militias in Banten and Lampung do their persistence in society. Civil militias play significant role in society not only as being intermediaries between civil societies themselves and the government, but also as a mediator between the different political levels of society: In addition, the existence of martial arts groups give contributions as initiation bases for the activist masses. This study on civil militias also shows how political parallel networks compete for power, beyond the parties and political chairs.

Pesantren, Madrasa and the Future of Islamic Education in Indonesia

This article delineates the development of pesantren and madrasa as a very significant part of Islamic education in Indonesia. In doing so, I explore three points related to the development. Firstly, there is an ancient tradition of accommodation in Indonesian Islamic education world. This is seen in the foundation myths that traditional pesantren use to understand their role in society. Secondly, there is a desire to modernize and to meet the modern needs of both students and society while maintaining firm roots in traditional Islamic education. It must be an on-going ‘evolutionary’ process. Thirdly, pesantren people have rejected the sharia state, the khilafa, the use of violence, and narrow understandings of what the nation should be. They have worked hard to distance themselves from others that seek to cloak themselves in their legitimacy. Therefore, I would argue that the pesantren and other forms of Islamic education will contribute to the future of Indonesia as a plural, peaceful and democratic society.

Sex Education in Pesantren: The Study of Kitab on Sex Manuals in Pesantren in Bandung, West Java

This paper examines the sexual agency exercised by married Muslim women in Bandung, Indonesia, in their marital relationships. Dominant discourses teach that women should obey their husbands, and most women believe that they should serve their husbands sexually whenever required. Sex is a taboo subject and women should not discuss sex or initiate sex. Their sexual desire is not acknowledged. However, in-depth interviews with 42 married women, and some husbands, found that a few exceptional women managed to challenge or negotiate around these dominant discourses. The paper examines their exercise of agency with regard to the initiation of sex, positions and practices that they prefer, their ability to say no to sex, ways to avoid having sex and their demand for mutual pleasure in sex.

One House Two Temples: The Ambivalence of Local Chinese Buddhism in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The Chinese community in Yogyakarta is used to culturallydivided into two groups: peranakan and totok. The peranakanwere Chinese with local roots. This group was usually influenced by local Javanese culture. Their language also oftenused Javanese language elements. Mosttotokwere Chinese immigrants and their immediate descendants who were less acculturated and more strongly oriented towards China. They spoke various Chinese dialects at home rather than speaking Indonesian. This paper observes these two Chinese communities in Yogyakarta, particularly with reference to the Gondoman district, one of the largest areas with Chinese ethnic population. I emphasize here that Gondomananklenteng is an ambivalence worship place. Klenteng and Buddha Prabhaviharaare two temples that having different rituals and different religious teachings. The Gondomananklentenghas been obligating klentengmembers to pray to the ancestor, whereas the same members havealso practiced Buddhism in the Buddha Prabhavihara, in the backside of the klenteng. The two templesrepresent two religions; klenteng indicates traditional religion that is practiced by their ancestors, while vihara is a worship place that implements some Buddhism obligations. This fact indicates an ambivalent worship place.

The Fabrication of Local Identity: Marginalization of the Indigenous Dayak Beverage in Central Kalimantan

Since the decentralization era that started in 1999, the need to search for local identity in various regions in Indonesia gradually emerged. Local elites have been pursuing some specific characteristics to legitimize their indigeneity and authenticity which are useful to strengthen their local power grip. The production of local identity (e.g., adat; tradition) was transformed into a key factor for the success of a local government in the transition of political and economic power in Indonesia (Bourchier, 2007; Erb, 2007). In that cultural production, a particular ethnic tradition was often fabricated into a binary dichotomy; “good” and “bad” to come up with a “true local identity.” Within this scheme, a tradition considered “bad” is rejected. Baram, a traditional Dayak beverage containing alcohol, faces this kind of rejection. Even though it is inherently a part of the Dayak culture, evidence of its existence is systematically deleted in the public domain such as museums, books, and public documents and other local publications. Baram is perceived as a form of bad habit and also is thought to be irrelevant to the contemporary Dayak identity that is struggling to eliminate the stereotype of being uncivilized. This paper argues that the marginalization of baram not only is a matter of politics but also is related to current social and cultural contestation in Central Kalimantan, Palangkaraya in particular. The analysis in this paper focuses on the relation of the Dayak as indigenous people of Central Kalimantan and migrants from other Kalimantan regions and outside of Kalimantan. The data were collected during my short ethnographic research in Palangkaraya and Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan in 2015. Baram is suspected of being a source of overconsumption of alcohol that triggers violence and criminal actions in both urban and rural communities. Such a formulation is common in the mass media to describe the negative effects of baram. The marginalization of baram continues and has escalated into a more serious matter as the local regime now labels it as illegal good. It is, thus, alienated in its own home.

Provisional Notes on How “Hilarious” Living Under Sharia Law (The Case of Aceh)

Drawing upon anthropological theory of resistance and testing its limits, I will present a closer observation on how dissenting voices to the state project of Sharia in contemporary Aceh look on the ground. Without thereby renouncing its violent effects, some ethnographic stories I recount in this writing will reveal how the implementation of Sharia in contemporary Aceh has created inherently amusing situations and how it has occasionally become a humor producing machine.

When the World Came to Banten

This paper aims to demonstrate that pluralism has always been part and parcel of ordinary human lives in Indonesia, and that is was the normmas far back as the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries when Muslim power was at its height in Java and the rest of the archipelago, long before themadvent of European colonial-capitalism and long before the decline ofmMuslim political-economic power. It hopes to provide a counterfactual argument that shows that cosmopolitanism and pluralism were indeed part of daily political-economic life then, and that Indonesian Muslims were in fact able to live in such a cosmopolitan environment where pluralism was not regarded as a threat or a reason for mass-scale moral panic. The opposite was the case that when Muslim economic-political power was at its height in Java, Javanese Muslims were at their most accommodating and welcoming towards foreigners of diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. In order to highlight such pluralism evidence, our reference will be the work of the writer Johann Theodorus de Bry, whose work Icones Indiae Orientalis was published in 1601.Keywords: Pluralism, Cosmopolitanism, Banten, Theodorus de Bry, Seventeenth Century

Wetu Telu in Bayan Lombok: Dialectic of Islam and Local Culture

Islam reached Lombok Island in the sixteenth century, approximately in 1545, which was brought by SunanGiri, the son of SunanPrapen, one of the prominent Islamic preachers known as Wali Songo, through an expedition from Java. Prior to its arrival in the Island, according to some historians, the indigenous Sasak (the indigenous people of Lombok) embraced a traditional belief known as Boda. Historically, since its establishment, Islam has perpetually been expanding despite facing some distinct and contradictory values of local tradition and culture, which leads to a kind of dialectical process and turns in what is known as local Islam such as Islam WetuTelu in Bayan, West Lombok. This article is aimed at revealing the historical root of religious identity of Sasak community. The historical sketch of its religious identity produces a combination of traditional, cultural and religious values of the comers with those of the indigenous people in the past, WetuTelu religion. Present Muslims in Lombok assume that the existence of traditional Islam is due to an incomplete process of Islamization in the Island.

Preserving Traditional Islamic Thought and Practice: The Codified SūrahYāsīn and Taḥlīl Texts in Indonesia

This paper tries to construct the role of the codified SūrahYāsīn and Taḥlīl texts in Indonesia.The present paper also attempts to investigate the sequential aspects of the transmission of sūrahYāsīn from the single sūrah until it is compiled with taḥlīl texts and become widely used among traditionalist Muslims in Indonesia. The paper provides the faḍā’il al-a‘māl based on some muslim scholars. Some important questions will be dealt here, namely: why does sūrah Yāsīn has a special position? How was sūrahYāsīn and taḥlīl texts compiled in Indonesia? In this paper, I argue that the sūrahYāsīn compiled with taḥlīl texts is sort of textual forms which preserve the traditional Islamic thought and practices in Indonesia.