Boundaries Within the Flow: The Shape of Life in Southeast Asian Cosmologies
Type
Double PanelPart 1
Session 3Wed 13:30–15:00 Room 1.501
Part 2
Session 4Wed 15:30–17:00 Room 1.501
Conveners
- Guido Sprenger Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
- Monica Janowski School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Discussant
- James Fox Australian National University
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Add to CalendarPapers (Part 1)
- Grasping Life: Vital Flows and Fragility of Being in a Healing Ritual of the Luangan in Indonesian Borneo Isabell Herrmans University of Helsinki
This paper uses an ethnographic case study to illustrate how Luangan shamans in Indonesian Borneo seek to channel the flow of life and life energies (souls and spirits), and how this precarious pursuit may misfire. The paper examines this process as it eventuated in a healing ritual performed in June 2017, wherein the shamans set out in search of a woman’s soul when she fell seriously ill. By situating the shamanic effort of regulating flows and boundaries within the particularity of individual human lives and a particular event, the paper aims to bring cosmology down to earth, so to speak, to highlight the uncertainty and unboundedness of real-life events, in which the quest of manipulating spiritual flows and boundaries is embedded. The case illustrates the shamans’ varied efforts and techniques to regain and contain a fundamentally evasive soul, and their efforts to reach out to various spirits through diverse courses of negotiation. Along with the stakes involved, the concentration of spirits during the event, and the fervent potency of blood-anointed ritual objects (stones, tiger teeth, a headhunt skull), created a situation of affective density which overwhelmed some ritual participants who became possessed by spirits, drinking blood from a chicken and the pigs sacrificed, causing a tumult which injured one of the shamans and scared many participants. The attempt to channel and contain the flow of life energies thus in a sense “backlashed,” reverting into excess. A central argument in the paper, inspired by João Biehl and Peter Locke, is that the regulation of flows and boundaries entails a volatile condition, which reflects the “unfinishedness” of human subjects and lifeworlds, their quality of being in a state of continuous becoming.
- On the Productivity of Separation in Timor-Leste Judith Bovensiepen University of Kent
Much of the literature on exchange in Southeast Asia focuses on how exchange produces relations and alliances amongst exchanging parties. Examining exchange practices between life-giving and life-taking entities in Timor-Leste, this paper suggests, by contrasts, that acts of exchange produce boundaries and detachment. Taking a cue from Marylin Strathern’s (1996: 527) argument that “gifts quite crucially sever and detach people from people”, it shows that separation (the cutting of flow) is a constituent part of the ways in which entities come into being and how relations between them can be productive. This is particularly pertinent in contexts where an implicit assumption is one of continuity between the living and the dead and where human and non-human worlds are not clearly distinguished from one another.
- The Sentience of Water: Beliefs in Dragons in Sarawak Monica Janowski School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
In Sarawak there are widespread beliefs in watery spirits, among Chinese, Malays and tribal peoples. These are closely associated with snakes and, among tribal peoples, conflated with the Chinese lung or dragon. These beings are believed to be extremely powerful and are sometimes conflated with the Great Spirit of the forest/cosmos.
I explore some of these beliefs; and I argue, further, that they are an expression of beliefs about the nature of the flow of life force and power through the cosmos. These watery spirits are, I suggest, equivalent to sentient water. As such, they both express the broader sentience of nature and provide a window into the process whereby sentience is believed to come into being in the form of individual spirits.
Papers (Part 2)
- The Village Ecology of Personhood Guido Sprenger University of Heidelberg
In upland Southeast Asia, villages are not just communities of people but ecological systems that also encompass animals, plants and spirits/numinals. As such, they are related to an environment containing other such systems that integrate different beings into different types of relationships. One crucial aspect of the village ecology of the Rmeet of upland Laos is the way they enable relationships between the various entities by assigning them different degrees and aspects of personhood. Spirits are prominent among such non-human persons, but so are animals and plants. Such determinations of personhood are not necessarily stable, and this articulates in relationship to the environment of the system – for instance, to government discourses on development and superstition. This article aims at demonstrating how such an ecology of personhood works as a fluctuating system that is constantly expanding and contracting. In all these movements, however, the maintenance of a boundary between village and environment is of crucial importance. The maintenance of personhood, especially human personhood, depends on the maintenance of a boundary of sorts. Inspired by both Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems and Eduardo Kohn’s semiotic approach, this example helps to examine the question what kind of interaction encompasses humans and non-humans while at the same time maintaining a boundary between village and wilderness.
- Unbounded Flows, Life, Death and Destruction in a Malaysian Rainforest Ivan Tacey University of Exeter
Unbounded Flows: Life, Death and Destruction in a Malaysian Rainforest
This paper discusses how environmental degradation affects flows of life energies among the Batek, a post-foraging group of Peninsular Malaysia. Flows of life and potency are regulated by Bateks through strict dietary and sensorial codes, prohibitions on conduct and behaviour, and avoidance of certain places and peoples (human and non-human). Just as Bateks are mutually constituted with the non-human beings they share their forest world with, their subjectivities and practices are also shaped through relations and connections with other persons from within and exterior to the forest. In the contemporary period, Batek experiences of the outside world have been marked by traumatic experiences resulting from their sociopolitical marginalization and the destruction of vast swathes of their formerly-forested landscapes which has pushed entire lineages of species towards extinction. For Bateks these changes have resulted in a marked increase in dangerous, predatory nonhumans exacting revenge on human communities and causing calamitous events (tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and violent storms) within and beyond Malaysia. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks from multispecies ethnographies, the ethics of care and new animism, the paper presents case-studies from different Batek communities to discuss how experiences of environmental degradation have led to the restructuring of potent flows of life-forces, the augmentation of sensorial boundaries between the forest and the outside world, increased nonhuman violence and overwhelming feelings of loss. Anxieties about widespread anthropogenic changes cut across what have been labelled animistic and naturalistic ontologies. The paper highlights the need for a politically and ethically informed anthropology of animism which moves beyond rigidly demarcated and abstract cosmological, epistemological and ontological approaches.
Show Paper Abstracts
Abstract
In Southeast Asian cosmologies and ontologies, life, potency and power are conceived of as a flow; indeed the entire cosmos is arguably regarded as being made up of, or as being a field of flow for, life and power. The cosmic flow is, however, not amorphous; it is (as it were) heterogenized, made up of distinct entities. These entities exist by virtue of the fact that they have boundaries. In the context of a profoundly animistic ontology and cosmology in the region – including among peoples who now belong to monotheistic world religions – all of these entities are regarded as being alive; what flows through them is life itself, which coheres and coalesces in certain places in the flow. Each entity is regarded as possessing or being inhabited by a spirit. Enspirited entities include human and animal bodies, plants, mountains, stones, houses, states.
The boundaries around living entities are not fixed; they may grow larger or smaller, and they may die. The flow of life and power and the boundaries between entities making up the flow of life is believed to be susceptible to management and manipulation – and humans aim to achieve this. The direction of flow, and in particular its concentration in certain entities – individual humans, human-made objects such as jars or swords, naturally occurring entities such as stones or mountains – is the focus of much ritual practice. Boundaries between entities are also the subject of much ritual, aimed at both maintaining and manipulating them – boundaries of the body, when spirit mediumship or spirit-induced illness occurs; those of houses, villages and cities, which may be managed through rituals of purification, fertilization and protection; even those of the state. Ways of managing boundaries and the flows of life include walls, gates, tattoos and numerous others.
This panel invites papers that explore the dynamics of the relationship between flow and boundaries, both necessary features of life and potency. We welcome papers examining ideas as well as practices, apparent contradictions, the tensions between authoritative and marginalized cosmological perspectives, and the uncertainties arising through the question of when to act to encourage flow and when to maintain boundaries.
Keywords
In upland Southeast Asia, villages are not just communities of people but ecological systems that also encompass animals, plants and spirits/numinals. As such, they are related to an environment containing other such systems that integrate different beings into different types of relationships. One crucial aspect of the village ecology of the Rmeet of upland Laos is the way they enable relationships between the various entities by assigning them different degrees and aspects of personhood. Spirits are prominent among such non-human persons, but so are animals and plants. Such determinations of personhood are not necessarily stable, and this articulates in relationship to the environment of the system – for instance, to government discourses on development and superstition. This article aims at demonstrating how such an ecology of personhood works as a fluctuating system that is constantly expanding and contracting. In all these movements, however, the maintenance of a boundary between village and environment is of crucial importance. The maintenance of personhood, especially human personhood, depends on the maintenance of a boundary of sorts. Inspired by both Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic systems and Eduardo Kohn’s semiotic approach, this example helps to examine the question what kind of interaction encompasses humans and non-humans while at the same time maintaining a boundary between village and wilderness.
Unbounded Flows: Life, Death and Destruction in a Malaysian Rainforest
This paper discusses how environmental degradation affects flows of life energies among the Batek, a post-foraging group of Peninsular Malaysia. Flows of life and potency are regulated by Bateks through strict dietary and sensorial codes, prohibitions on conduct and behaviour, and avoidance of certain places and peoples (human and non-human). Just as Bateks are mutually constituted with the non-human beings they share their forest world with, their subjectivities and practices are also shaped through relations and connections with other persons from within and exterior to the forest. In the contemporary period, Batek experiences of the outside world have been marked by traumatic experiences resulting from their sociopolitical marginalization and the destruction of vast swathes of their formerly-forested landscapes which has pushed entire lineages of species towards extinction. For Bateks these changes have resulted in a marked increase in dangerous, predatory nonhumans exacting revenge on human communities and causing calamitous events (tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and violent storms) within and beyond Malaysia. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks from multispecies ethnographies, the ethics of care and new animism, the paper presents case-studies from different Batek communities to discuss how experiences of environmental degradation have led to the restructuring of potent flows of life-forces, the augmentation of sensorial boundaries between the forest and the outside world, increased nonhuman violence and overwhelming feelings of loss. Anxieties about widespread anthropogenic changes cut across what have been labelled animistic and naturalistic ontologies. The paper highlights the need for a politically and ethically informed anthropology of animism which moves beyond rigidly demarcated and abstract cosmological, epistemological and ontological approaches.
In Southeast Asian cosmologies and ontologies, life, potency and power are conceived of as a flow; indeed the entire cosmos is arguably regarded as being made up of, or as being a field of flow for, life and power. The cosmic flow is, however, not amorphous; it is (as it were) heterogenized, made up of distinct entities. These entities exist by virtue of the fact that they have boundaries. In the context of a profoundly animistic ontology and cosmology in the region – including among peoples who now belong to monotheistic world religions – all of these entities are regarded as being alive; what flows through them is life itself, which coheres and coalesces in certain places in the flow. Each entity is regarded as possessing or being inhabited by a spirit. Enspirited entities include human and animal bodies, plants, mountains, stones, houses, states.
The boundaries around living entities are not fixed; they may grow larger or smaller, and they may die. The flow of life and power and the boundaries between entities making up the flow of life is believed to be susceptible to management and manipulation – and humans aim to achieve this. The direction of flow, and in particular its concentration in certain entities – individual humans, human-made objects such as jars or swords, naturally occurring entities such as stones or mountains – is the focus of much ritual practice. Boundaries between entities are also the subject of much ritual, aimed at both maintaining and manipulating them – boundaries of the body, when spirit mediumship or spirit-induced illness occurs; those of houses, villages and cities, which may be managed through rituals of purification, fertilization and protection; even those of the state. Ways of managing boundaries and the flows of life include walls, gates, tattoos and numerous others.
This panel invites papers that explore the dynamics of the relationship between flow and boundaries, both necessary features of life and potency. We welcome papers examining ideas as well as practices, apparent contradictions, the tensions between authoritative and marginalized cosmological perspectives, and the uncertainties arising through the question of when to act to encourage flow and when to maintain boundaries.