Abstract
This chapter will show the many ways that Christian mission, Dutch colonial policy, and the postcolonial Indonesian state helped to redefine the Dayak community of East Kalimantan. This change is not surprising as Christian missions and colonial policies have often resulted in a redrawing of community boundaries. Whether or not converts experience psychological changes or engage in a rational reordering of beliefs, the decision to convert always entails a “new or reconceptualized social identity” .1 For many Southeast Asian minorities this social identity is an ethnicized one. Marginalized relative to a dominant ethnic Other, conversion becomes a way to maintain their boundaries and strengthen their identity as a unique cultural group.2
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Notes
Robert Hefner, “Introduction: World Building and the Rationality of Conversion”, in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, ed. Robert Hefner (Berkeley: University of California Bress, 1993), 17.
Robert Hefner, “Introduction: World Building and the Rationality of Conversion”, in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, ed. Robert Hefner (Berkeley: University of California Bress, 1993).
Cornelia Kanrmerer, “Customs and Christian Conversion among Akha Highlanders of Burma and Thailand.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(2) (1990): 277–291.
Charles Keyes, “Being Brot estant Christians in Southeast Asian Worlds.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(2) (1990): 280–292.
Rita Smith Kipp, Disassociated Identities: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in an Indonesian Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Bress, 1993).
Oscar Salemink, “The King of Fire and Vietnamese Ethnic Bolicy in the Central Highlands”, in Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia, ed. Don N. McCaskill and Ken Kampe (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1997).
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Edwin Zehner, “Thai Protestants and Local Supernaturalism: Changing Configurations.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(2) (1996): 293–319.
For Asia, see the following: Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 447–475
Lorraine Aragon, “Reorganizing the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(2) (1996): 350–373
Lorraine Aragon, Fields of the Lord: Animism, Christian Minorities, and State Development in Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000)
Janet Hoskins, “Entering the Bitter House: Spirit Worship and Conversion in West Sumba”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, ed. Rita Kipp Smith and Susan Rodgers (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987)
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Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under early Spanish Rule (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994)
Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)
Patrick Harries, “The Roots of Ethnicity: Discourse and the Politics of Language Construction in South-east Africa.” African Affairs 87(346) (1988): 25–52
Terence Ranger, “Missionaries, Migrants, and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe”, in The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, ed. Leroy Vail (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)
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Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 447–475.
Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000): 57.
Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 447–475.
Ibid. Lorraine Aragon, “Reorganizing the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27(2): 350–373.
Oscar Salemink, “Christian Conversions in Southeast Asian Uplands: A Comparative Perspective” (paper presented at the Casting Faiths conference, National University of Singapore, June 2005). Also see Robert Hefner, “Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age.” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 83–104
Robert Reed, “The Inglesia ni Cristo, 1914–2000: Prom Obscure Philippine Faith to Global Belief System.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde 157(3) (2001): 561–608
Susan E. Ackerman and Raymond L. M. Lee, Heaven in Transition: Non-Muslim Religious Innovation and Ethnic Identity in Malaysia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988).
Robert Hefner, “Of Faith and Commitment: Christian Conversion in Muslim Java”, in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, ed. Robert Hefner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993): 120.
Jerome Rousseau, Central Borneo: Identity and Social Life in a Stratified Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Tim Babcock, “Indigenous Ethnicity in Sarawak.” Sarawak Museum Journal 22(46) (1974): 191–202.
The Term “daya” or “Dayak” is thought to be derived from a Dayak language possibly meaning “upriver” or “interior” person. While in use before the arrival of the Dutch, it became more popular after the nineteenth century under their influence. Victor King, The Peoples of Borneo (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).
Rita Kipp Smith and Susan Rodgers, eds, Indonesian Religions in Transition (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987).
Ian Black, “The Lastposten: East Kalimantan and the Dutch in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” The Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 16 (1985): 281–291.
J. Thomas Lindblad, Between Dayak and Dutch: The Economic History of Southeast Kalimantan 1880–1942 (Providence: Fortis Publications, 1989).
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Rita Kipp Smith, The Early Years of a Dutch Colonial Mission: The Karo Field (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990).
Nicholas Tapp, “The Impact of Missionary Christianity upon Marginalized Ethnic Minorities: The Case of the Hmong.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 20(1) (1989): 70–95.
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Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, “Christianity and Colonialism in South Africa.” American Ethnologist 13(1) (1986): 1–22.
Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 447–475.
Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 447–475.
Rita Smith Kipp, Disassociated Identities: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in an Indonesian Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
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Mary Steedly, “Importance of Proper Names: Language and ‘National’ Identity in Colonial Karoland.” American Ethnologist 23(3) (1996): 449.
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© 2009 Jennifer Connolly
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Connolly, J. (2009). Christian Conversion and Ethnic Identity in East Kalimantan. In: DuBois, T.D. (eds) Casting Faiths. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235458_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235458_8
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