Thomas Reuter

Faith in the Future

Revitalization of religious and cultural traditions is taking place in nearly all contemporary Asian societies and beyond. Faith in the Future: Understanding the Revitalization of Religions and Cultural Traditions in Asia provides a comparative analysis of the key features and aspirations of revitalization movements and assesses their scope for shaping the future trajectories of societies in all parts of the world.

The Post-Modern Shift. Introduction

As in other parts of the world, a deep sense of displacement, insecurity and cultural crisis has been provoked in Southeast Asia by the capitalist transfor mation of local economies and the erosion of relatively secure traditional social and value systems in the wake of globalisation. New forms of religiosity have arisen in response to the challenges of a new and increasingly post-modern way of life. In this special issue we explore how the innovative features of new forms of religiosity reflect peoples changing personal and social needs under the condition of an increasingly urbanised and globalised life experience. Some of the defining socio-cultural features of the modern and, more so, the post-modern experience include a profound sense of social isolation or lack of community, a growing individualism and consumerism, heightened exposure to cultural difference through the electronic media and increased human mobility, together with an unprecedented degree of cultural and reli gious self-awareness at the level of local society. These factors can generate a perceived need for strengthening local traditions, while also seeking to adjust and adapt these traditions to the demands of greater global interdependence and a more self-conscious sense of identity. Peoples attitude towards local traditions, however, is not shaped by cultural factors alone. The revitalisations of local religious identities that are currently taking place in many parts of Southeast Asia are also pragmatic and strategic responses to a growing sense of disenfranchisement which stems from the misappropriation of local material resources and from assaults on local systems of moral and political authority by the nation-state or by multinational capitalism. In this special issue, the contributors, thus, seek to shed light on the revi talisation of local traditions and the emergence of new forms of religiosity while paying particular attention to the processes of social change in which these new forms of religiosity are embedded. In contemporary Southeast Asia, a sense of cultural crisis and fragmentation has been felt with particularly acuteness, generating demand for innovative or transformative ideas about a

Religion in the Age of Globalization: Emerging Trends, Indonesian Examples

Religion has been integral to human societies throughout the ages and continues to be so. As the world we live in changes, however, our experience of life changes with it. New forms of experience create demand for religions commensurate with contemporary life. Max Weber famously charted the commensurate features of modern life and modern religion in the early 20th century but the world and its political economy have changed again since. In this paper I discuss new popular forms of religiosity that reflect our contemporary experience of life in a late-modern context of economic globalisation and accelerated inter-cultural exchange. These trends (revitalisation, new age spirituality and fundamentalism) will be illustrated by reference to case material from my research in Bali and other parts of Indonesia over the last two decades, while emphasizing that similar trends can be observed worldwide.

Origin and Precedence: The construction and distribution of status in the highlands of Bali

What are the prospects for a universal theory of status? There is one major obstacle to all generalization attempts in the social sciences: the classes of phenomena they propose to exist and whose existence they seek to explain often show a very limited degree of cross-cultural validity. General theories of ‘status’ are no exception. The etymology of the word suggests something at a standstill, an image that is difficult to reconcile with the immense variability of status systems across different societies and in the same societies during different historical periods. Obviously, it is the most universal theories of status that also experience the greatest difficulty in accounting for the apparent lack of a universal status distribution pattern or a universal logical principle of status reckoning. However, it does not further the cause of social science simply to avoid the dilemma of generalization. Treating each individual status system as an utterly unique phenomenon is tacitly implying that it cannot be profitably compared to those of other societies. An explicit argument conceived in this spirit, however, would encounter the opposite problem: the status systems of widely separated societies in fact often show remarkable similarity.

Nature and the Self: Liberal Individualism Is the Problem, Not the Solution

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Surfing the Sixth Wave: A Hardboiled Technological Wonderland and the End of the World

This review article critically evaluates predictions about the near future of humanity put forward in The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource-Limited World, a book produced by Australian author James Bradfield Moody (Executive Director, Development, CSIRO) in collaboration with freelance science journalist Ms Bianca Nogrady. The book paints a picture of the future, starting from the observation that society today is on the brink of several major crises demanding comprehensive change. Each of these crises presents its own challenge but, according to the authors, they are all related and call for one basic response: we must drastically increase the resource efficiency of our lifestyles. The main limitation of this attempt at ‘prophesy’ is the authors’ poverty of understanding regarding the political and cultural drivers of social change, and hence their misplaced faith in technological innovation as a panacea for all that ails contemporary societies. Anthropology, I argue, can provide a more holistic account of the present moment in human history, and of what may lie in store for us.

Chapter One Religious and Cultural Revitalization: A Post-Modern Phenomenon?

New ways of practising and thinking about religion and tradition have emerged in response to the challenges of this new way of life and this chapter explore some of their innovative, post-modern features. The defining features of the late modern socio-cultural experience include a profound sense of social isolation or lack of community, growing individualism and consumerism, heightened exposure to cultural difference through increased mobility and electronic media, together with an unprecedented degree of cultural and religious self-awareness at the level of local society. Traditional elements of religion and culture are involved in an intensive dialogue with national and global power-knowledge formations, and are thus manifesting as a force for cultural and social innovation. This chapter presents csae studies, it emphasizes the local cultures and religions are undergoing a deep transformation and that, in many cases, cultural and religious boundaries are becoming more pronounced as a result.Keywords:cultural revitalization; post-modern phenomenon; religious; social innovation