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South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons

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Full-Text Articles in South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies

Objects Of Desire: Photographs And Retrospective Narratives Of Fieldwork In Indonesia, Jennifer W. Nourse Jan 2011

Objects Of Desire: Photographs And Retrospective Narratives Of Fieldwork In Indonesia, Jennifer W. Nourse

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This discussion of my fieldwork, memory, and experience begins with a nod to Handler and Gable’s essay (this volume) in which they ask what anthropology can contribute to the study of social memory. I take Gable and Handler’s insights about the false dichotomy between memory and history (since, they argue, all history and memory are perspectival) and consider ways in which fieldwork photographs demonstrate the same point. I suggest that my photographs became the repositories for individual interpretations of a host of broader issues related to the nation-state and its agenda. This agenda was reflected in ways the photographs were …


Making Monotheism: Global Islam In Local Practice Among The Laujé Of Indonesia, Jennifer W. Nourse Jul 1994

Making Monotheism: Global Islam In Local Practice Among The Laujé Of Indonesia, Jennifer W. Nourse

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper explores the complex interaction between state-sanctioned Islam and local religious practice in Indonesia's periphery. In 1982 in the "county" of Tinombo, Central Sulawesi, immigrant Reform Muslims convinced the regional government to ban a spirit possession ritual performed by the indigenous Laufe people. Reformists claimed that Laujé spirit mediums were possessed by satanic spirits. Insulted by Reformists' claims that Laujé rites were pagan and they themselves were not Muslims, prominent Laujé went to officials in the government asking to rescind the ban. In their arguments, Laujé borrowed the rhetoric of Reform Islam. The ban was rescinded in 1984. Once …