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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ethnic Tourism And The Renegotiation Of Tradition In Tana Toraja (Sulawesi, Indonesia), Kathleen M. Adams
Ethnic Tourism And The Renegotiation Of Tradition In Tana Toraja (Sulawesi, Indonesia), Kathleen M. Adams
Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article examines some of the political and symbolic issues inherent in the touristic renegotiation of Torajan ritual and history, chronicling the strategies whereby Torajans attempt to refashion outsider imagery to enhance their own personal standing and position in the Indonesian ethnic hierarchy. The author suggests that the Toraja case challenges the popular assumption that tourism promotion brings a complete loss of agency to indigenous peoples: Torajans not only engage in ingenious political strategies to enhance their group's image, but vigorously contest perceived threats to their identity and power. The author argues that such processes of self-conscious cultural reformulation do …
Club Dead, Not Club Med: Staging Death In Contemporary Tana Toraja (Indonesia), Kathleen M. Adams
Club Dead, Not Club Med: Staging Death In Contemporary Tana Toraja (Indonesia), Kathleen M. Adams
Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay is broadly concerned with this theme of discourse and religious practices among the Sa'dan Toraja people of upland Sulawesi. Specifically, I wish to explore some of the ways in which the Torajan mortuary complex of the 1980s and 1990s has been reconceptualized as Torajans' encounters with the wider world intensify. Outward migration (merantau) to urban centres in Indonesia, increased familiarity with the bureaucratic organization of the Indonesian government and the Church, the spread of television, and the ever-growing presence of tourists and anthropologists in Tana Toraja Regency have all fostered Torajans' rethinking of their "traditional" funeral rituals. In …