[Anthropgrad] Seminars Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd November

[nelia.hyndman-rizik at anu.edu.au]

Hi all,

 


We have two seminars this week.  


On Thursday 22nd, Nov. at 3pm in the Milgate Room, Rikardo Shedden will be
presenting his pre-fieldwork seminar entitled: 


 

"Processes of Religious Change in a Highland Kalinga Community" - 

 

The fieldwork I propose to undertake in a highland Kalinga village in
northern Luzon, Philippines will focus on indigenous religious conceptions,
historically understood by past scholars (Dozier: 1966; De

Raedt: 1989, 1993, 1996) as synchronic and distinct, but which I suggest can
more accurately be conceived of as continually changing and differently
blended, indigenous with Christian. There is also a strong likelihood that
these mixed religious forms integrate with various secular spheres of
activity, contesting notions that religious practices and beliefs are
distinct domains separate from people's daily lives.

 

By looking at a location where so many ritual situations exist, each with a
strong likelihood for syncretic blending, I propose to investigate how
synthesis of this kind informs the religious coherence of this community,
while concomitantly refracting into social, political and economic domains.
With this research I hope to present a contemporary understanding of
integrative religious processes in Kalinga country, while also contributing
to a larger discourse on the anthropology of religious syncretism in the
Philippines, and more broadly across Southeast Asia.

 

 

On Friday the 23rd of November at 3pm in the Milgate Rm, AD Hope, Catherine
Smith will present her pre-fieldwork seminar entitled:

 

"Women in post conflict Aceh: 

subjectivity, emotion and political sensibility"

 

 

 

Abstract:  This thesis seeks to provide ethnographic perspectives on women's
experiences of the recently resolved conflict in Aceh.  It begins with the
recognition that Acehnese people are often represented in relation to
nostalgic but militarised nationalist identity narratives which highlight
the Acehnese, and especially Acehnese women, as pious, brave and tenacious,
yet stubborn, hot-tempered and bellicose.  These nationalist narratives
formed a central dimension of the recently resolved conflict (1975-2005)
between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian State as each sought
to demonstrate their claim to legitimate sovereignty over Aceh.  The
resolution of the conflict presents the opportunity to carry out ethnography
to problematise this representation of Acehnese identity and to ask if and
how women have engaged with these nationalist identity narratives.

 

Taking a perspective influenced by Butler, this thesis sees subjectivity as
a product of the continual enactment and resignification of regulatory norms
through a specific historical and political context.  In the case of Aceh,
this context is assumed to include the regulatory norms of the Indonesian
and global political landscapes in addition to norms considered specifically
'Acehnese'.  I also take up those writings which argue that emotion, as a
form of knowledge, plays a central role in the construction of meaningful
subjectivity.  Through ethnography and women's life histories I aim to
discuss some of the ways through which women have constructed their
subjectivities and political sensibilities through the course of the
conflict, and in doing so to interrupt the dominant representation of
Acehnese people as militant citizens of somewhere.

 

See you there

 

Nelia Hyndman-Rizik

PhD Candidate

School of Archaeology and Anthropology

ANU

nelia.n at bigpond.com

nelia.hyndman-rizik at anu.edu.au

 

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