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Javanism as text or praxis
Anthropological Forum, vol. 6, no. 2, 1990, pp. 237-255.
Paul Stange, Asian Studies, Murdoch University
My focus here is especially on the basis of Woodward's recent and significant reinterpretation of Javanese Islam. In his book, Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta (1989), he has clearly made a useful contribution through synthesising secondary sources. Because his work is informed by a mature grasp of Islam he brings an advance, as appreciation of the complexities of local Islam has been lacking from much of the English language work on Javanese religion. He is right to present Javanism, the term most used for the syncretic local religion, as a variant of rather than an aberration from Islam in general.
However Woodward's presentation is undermined, if viewed as primary scholarship, by reliance on secondary sources and a limited ethnographic foundation. These constraints result in a view which is overly shaped by the perspective of the Yogya court (kraton). Consequently while he has opened up an important and previously underrated perspective on the complex world of Java, important everywhere in the same way that a Vatican version of Catholicism is, his study is also nevertheless more specific and partial than it pretends to be.
It is worth approaching Woodward's reassessment of Javanese religion as an opening to wider consideration of theory and method in the study of religion, as the conjunction between ethnographic and textual approaches which he attempts is indeed timely and important. At the same time students, or for that matter protagonists in religious debate, frequently argue at cross purposes when their enterprises differ at base. Such confusions often arise very often in both scholarship on and public discussion about religion. Certainly within debates about the nature of Javanese religion a great deal turns on variant fundamental assumptions about what does or can constitute 'religion', and by extension on how to approach it.
Recently there has been increasing prominence within cultural studies to exploration based on texts. The new emphasis contrasts with earlier philological models of textual study. In it the term 'text' is enlarged to refer to cultural practices in general. According to this view quite varied expressions, including body language and other tacit dispositions of power, can be best decoded as semiotic systems. While there have been great gains through these developments, a foundational gift of anthropology may be at risk through them. Anthropology has unquestionably contributed to the enlargement of general understanding of humanity and, specifically through emphasis on social practices, to general senses of what constitutes 'religion'.
The boundaries which had defined that domain of human enterprise were linked to specific communities of faith, in the Western context specifically to Christian experiences of and imagination of what could constitute religion. Ethnography expanded that sphere through space and time. In addition ethnography situated faith in lived practices within varied communities. Classical and theological studies appeared to imply that religion was a matter of doctrine and philosophy embedded in texts or of faith as a private experience. Anthropology can claim substantial credit for the degree to which we now understand religion as, like politics, a multidimensional domain of human experience.
At this juncture it is especially worthwhile focussing on the counterpoint implied in attempts to bring text and practice, as well as textual and ethnographic approaches, together in the study of religion. In Woodward's work the term 'praxis' is emphasised in the outset (p 4) and conclusion (pp 245-251) to a worthy attempt to bring textual and ethnographic methods together. In attempting to draw from the strengths of classical literary approaches and, simultaneously, ethnographic analysis, Woodward argues with some justice that he is arriving at a different, and relatively new (if mainly for the English speaking world) perspective on the essential nature of Javanese religion. In effect Woodward presents, as though it is a discovery contrary to Geertz (1976), the realisation that the Javanese 'really are' Muslim after all.
Interpretations of Javanese religion
The term 'Javanism' (kejawen) refers at once to the geographical zone centring on the courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta and the cultural style of those within it who prioritise their ethnic traditions. Javanists generally have spiritual commitments conditioned by a cultural gestalt while others within the same language family, and no less Javanese, hold their institutional religious beliefs as a more exclusive frame of reference. Despite recent and pervasive social changes traditional spiritual culture nevertheless continues to exercise a powerful influence throughout the heartlands of Java.
Many people remain committed to rituals, influenced by courts and engaged with the philosophy of the Indian derived wayang mythology. All of that is part of a cultural style which continues to define the spiritual orientation of perhaps half of the island's population, which altogether approaches one hundred million. Influences from historically conditioning forces are obvious and acknowledged, most immediately in the fact that most Javanists are also professing Muslims. Thus debates about the nature of local religion, both within Java as a political and social issue and among students of it, usually centre on effort to specify how traditional socio-cultural practices relate to the Islamic faith.
Almost every observer, however they position themselves in relation to whether the Javanese are 'truly' Muslim, would agree readily that Javanism is aptly termed mystical. Within it there is general acceptance, consonant with traditional Islam in any event, that religious life contains both an external domain of doctrines, rituals and social affiliations (alam lahiriyah) and an internal spiritual sphere (alam batiniyah), within which people experience and realise the truths contained in religion. The prominence given to this distinction, between esoteric and exoteric spheres, is linked to a widespread adherence to a relativistic conviction, rooted in Indic culture, that beneath variations in symbolism there remains a single, albeit ineffable, essence which is accessible through practices of consciousness development.
This tradition of beliefs, previously usually termed 'kebatinan' and now more often called 'kepercayaan', is consistently presented by its adherents as being rooted in the prehistoric origins of their culture. In the terms of those who adhere to this tradition, a single ageless wisdom extends from ancestral animism through interactions with Indian, Islamic and modern eras into the present. This perceived continuity with ancient roots is generally emphasised precisely in order to affirm the autonomy of Javanese spirituality from the conditioning influences, arriving from outside, which have attempted to claim possession of the hearts of the Javanese. In spiritual terms Islam has the strongest counterclaim, as it has been the dominant formal religion for most people on the island since the seventeenth century.
Contrasts between textual, especially philological works in the Dutch tradition, and ethnographic study are quite dramatic in scholarly assessments of Javanese religion. Rasser's (1982) work, first published in Dutch during the 1920s and 1930s, approached Javanese religion through structuralist analysis of mythology and led naturally to emphasis on deep Indic influences and the persistence of animism. This tradition of scholarship is more recently embodied in Hadiwijono's (1967) exclusively textual and implicitly theological exploration. His approach resulted reflexively in an emphasis on the continuing relevance of elements of underlying Hindu philosophy. Textually based works are most starkly counterpointed by Geertz's (1976) Weberian styled classic, first published in 1960. In it he drew from descriptive ethnography of Pare, the town he studied in East Java, and hardly even noted either the literate tradition of the Javanese or the wealth of Dutch scholarship on it.
I will not attempt even a partial stocktaking of the many subsequent studies of Javanese religion, but comments on a few other significant studies will help set a stage for my reflections on Woodward's new work. Implicitly a review of what has been written is already available, even if only as embedded within the lengthy chapter on religion in Koentjaraningrat's authoritative book, Javanese Culture(1985). Like Kartodirdjo's (1972) work, Koentjaraningrat's is informed by and spiced with description which benefits from native sensibility. However both of them mainly worked with written material, ironically usually Western in origin. Though each has carried out field research they do not attempt the blend of ethnography and textual study we are moving toward. Such choices and constraints condition any work in all fields and become problems only when they are implicitly denied. Here my aim is mainly to draw attention to how focus, sources and methodology influence interpretation.
Mulder's (1978) ethnography of Yogyanese religion touched only lightly on formal religion because his concentration centred on the resonances of mystical religion in daily life. In following the style of Geertz's ethnography he also found little need to consult texts. Keeler's (1987) ethnography of wayang, the famous Javanese shadow drama, sidestepped both the urban links and psychological resonances of that art form, imitating Geertz in failing to acknowledge the literary wealth of Java or of scholarship on it.
As a counterpoint, De Jong's (1973) exploration of mystical philosophy continues the philological tradition, exploring texts of the Pangestu movement. Nakamura's monograph (1983), which foreshadowed Woodward's perspective on local Islam in some respects, at least combined elements of textual and ethnographic method. But of recent studies the best in this respect is Hefner's (1985) work on the Tenggerese, as he finely blended ethnography and history, text and practice, while focussing on a community just beyond the margins of the Javanist cultural zone.
Geertz's work, referring in this instance mainly to his representation of the abangan, santri and priyayi elements in Java (1976), still overshadows other studies of Javanese religion. Notwithstanding critiques of his ethnography, including very important points registered by Koentjaraningrat (1963), Bachtiar (1973), Hooykaas (1976), Brakel (1976) and Shankman (1984), no other study has had remotely comparable impact. The gestalt he established has moulded interpretation for three decades, several generations have been introduced to the field through it and almost every serious work still addresses his framing at length. Even scholars who object fundamentally to his framework and conclusions have been forced to debate on his ground.
During the past decade Koentjaraningrat's formulation of the ways in which the major strands of Javanese religion relate (1985), one which stresses distinction between Islam and Javanism, has become increasingly predominant. But even he was repeatedly at pains to refute Geertz. Woodward's work pushes beyond Koentjaraningrat through the fact that he prioritising Islam as the overridding gestalt within Javanese religion. While I do not intend to exhaustively discuss Geertz's framework, several comments about it are essential in order to put his work into perspective in this context. This is relevant prior to exploring Woodward's (1989) book at length, because the latter is centrally and continually concerned with revising Geertz's reading of Javanism.
Limitations in Geertz's study, including, for instance, a failure to register the logic of spirit beliefs as Javanese hold them, are important. I have the same interest others do in revising Geertz on many such points, many of them far from being trivial. However in this context the critical issues have to do with overall conceptualisation of Javanese religious life. More especially they centre on how he presented and others register the relationship between Islam and other aspects of local religion.
In Woodward's opening reference to Geertz he stressed that Geertz "...divides Javanese society into three primary groups... that the vast majority of Javanese are only nominal Muslims..." (1989 p 2). Given the centrality of this point to Woodward's endeavour he does not represent Geertz's position adequately. Geertz said in his introduction that
...any simple unitary view is certain to be inadequate...and conflict in values lie concealed behind the simple statement that Java is more than 90 per cent Moslem. If I have chosen, consequently, to accent the religious diversity in contemporary Java -- or more particularly in one given town-village complex in contemporary Java -- my intention has not been to deny the underlying religious unity of its people... but to bring home the reality of the complexity, depth, and richness of their spiritual life. (1976 p 7)
Throughout the book it is quite clear in the fine print of analysis that abangan, santri and priyayi all consider themselves Muslim; variation, as expressed in Geertz's typology, relates to what that means and how it is effected in social life. In conclusion Geertz emphasised values which crosscut the three subtypes (pp 355-381) and it is apparent there that these types refer primarily to cultural orientations rather than to rigidly fixed social categories.
Nevertheless by now all serious students would follow Hodgson, as Woodward sets out to (1989 pp 1-3), in recognising limitations in Geertz's understanding of Islam. In his 1960 book Geertz clearly lacked the sophistication of Drewes (1955) understanding of Islam; Tambiah's later (1970) capacity to envision similar diversity as components within one system; or Gilsenan's (1983) capacity to conceptualise Islam as a set of discursive practices. Nevertheless he is commonly misread and debates about Geertz's framework are misplaced in at least two respects.
The overwhelming impression among readers appears to be that according to Geertz only the santri are 'really Muslim', that abangan correlates so strongly with 'animistic peasants' and priyayi with 'Indic court derived elites' that neither are recognisably Muslim. While his implicit Weberian model leans heavily in that direction and reification does occur I believe this impression is generated more by the strength of the visual division of the book into three sections than by the analysis in the text. There (as on pp 127-130) these are presented as variants within one system even if different groups interpreted and practiced Islam in contrasting or competing ways.
Secondly, commentaries often treat the book as a general statement about Java 'now'. In doing so they appear to be caught by the impression generated through the title, failing as a result to situate the work adequately in time and place. Woodward's debate with Geertz, for example, takes no account of changes in the three decades between their fieldwork -- there is no doubt that those have been substantial. Nor does Woodward take account of contrasts between Yogya and Pare. In this he follows others who sometimes present or read ethnography as though it is globalised general description instead of situating it precisely -- as it must be and as historians more normally would. Incidentally, at this distance in time we also easily forget the service Geertz's study provided in context of its advent. For Indonesianists, for the moment putting aside the concerns of anthropology, it facilitated interface between various social and cultural studies in a way previous studies had not, opening understandings previously obscure within philological scholasticism.
Notable features of Geertz's analysis are clearly dated. At the simplest level Geertz was actually reporting about the town of Pare during 1953 and 1954, just after the revolution and before the 1955 elections. As a later study (1965) of his did clarify, the historical circumstances and peculiar, especially polarised, characteristics of his Brantas valley locality strongly conditioned the society he described. These features or time and place are naturally reflected in analysis. If he is responsible for misimpression, in this as above, he is nevertheless quite clear about the context and limits of his study in the fine print of his text.
In retrospect the overwhelming clarity of Geertz's analysis became one of its major problems: categories of analysis are so clearly presented that modulations and qualifications are implicitly obscured. He can be, and has been, rightly 'accused' of conceptualising and writing with such extraordinary clarity that readers are seduced into oversimplifying. But can we blame authors for the misuses their work may be put to?
Woodward's reassessment of Javanese religion
Having touched on the established interpretations of Javanese religion we can consider Woodward's reinterpretation of Javanese Islam more fully. The central thrust of his argument is clearly spelled out. He states in the introduction that his aim is to answer a question framed by Marshall Hodgson, the noted Chicago Islamicist. Hodgson essentially inverted Geertz and querried how it could be that Java became so thoroughly Islamicised. Woodward holds that:
...Islam is the predominant force in the religious beliefs and rites of central Javanese, and that it shapes the character of social interaction and daily life in all segments of Javanese society... Islam has penetrated so quickly and so deeply into the fabric of Javanese culture because it was embraced by the royal courts as the basis for a theocratic state. Sufism (mystical Islam) forms the core of the state cult and the theory of kingship, which... is the primary model of popular religion. Religious discord is based not on the differential acceptance of Islam by Javanese of various social positions, but on the age-old Islamic question of how to balance the legalistic and mystical dimensions of the tradition. (1989 p 3)
He explains that he had arrived in the field with conviction that Indic religions were a powerful undercurrent of Javanese practices which he could expose. Four days after arrival and failing, after "days" of effort, to see suitable evidence of Hindu elements in the garebeg malud festival, a celebration commemorating Muhammad's birth and death (was this the place to look?), he "put away" his collection of books on Indology in favour of everything he could find on Islam. As he puts it he was convinced to do so by a neighbor, a prominent Muhammadiyah member who became one of his "most trusted informants", who "confided" as fact that court rituals and kejawen beliefs generally were essentially Islamic, albeit impure (p 3). I will return to this admirably frank admission of a flawed method in concluding assessment, but will first introduce the book to provide an outline of its overall contours.
Woodward considers definition of and approaches to religion in the introduction. He establishes the objectives already referred to, draws on works by Ricklefs to introduce the history of Yogyakarta and then provides a sense of Yogya as a research site before opening up his reflections on theory. His discussion of theory refers mainly to Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim and then, for the Southeast Asian context, to Lehman, Schulte Nordholt and Wessing. Building on these essentially intellectualist and structuralist foundations he follows Wessing and refers to his own approach as "axiomatic structuralism" (p 27).
Though he notes the reservations others have registered about the limits of structuralism and nods to Foucault, when indicating that his objective is to chart how the cultural grammar of classical Islam reformed Javanese culture (p 30), a preference for formalist and textual modes of analysis is apparent. Though he had invoked Ortner and praxis in opening, his avowed methodology is anchored in Tylor and Durkheim, in intellectualism and structuralism rather than in Malinowski's ethnography, Weber's sociology, or Bourdieu's theory of practice. As will become apparent this formalism constrained his analysis of discursive practices.
Woodward says that his second chapter compares ethnographic and textual approaches and aims to work toward the conclusion that:
... the polemical nature of... the debate between mystics and proponents of Islamic reform obscures the underlying unity of Javanese religious thought... only the conjoint use of textual and ethnographic materials allows us to... arrive at an understanding of the fundamental questions at issue... (p 51).
However only three paragraphs in the chapter touch the relevance of ethnography, even then only by suggesting the obvious -- that interviews can show how the range of cultural knowledge is used (pp 48-9). The remaining twenty-one pages deal with mythic history and symbolic interpretation of it.
His textual sources are strictly secondary, as he does note and as is the case throughout the book. Santoso's Indonesian translation of the Javanese Babad Tanah Jawi comes the closest to being a primary text, unless we also include Brongtodiningrat (1975), who I will refer to later. Some important points are made in this chapter. Woodward successfully establishes the central role of meditation in Javanese epistemology (p 34), Javanese emphasis on the legitimising importance of myth (p 36) and, via Sperber's theory of "passive memory", that indigenous histories embody clearly specified and engrained constraints. Later (p 100) he makes his most critical point, about local uses of mythic history, though even there he does not fully register the significance of the spiritual lineages which are at issue within them.
As a summary contribution to interpretation of myth Woodwards comments are important. However the chapter touches neither primary texts nor ethnography and this is cause for some concern, as he claims to do both. If there is any dialogue with ethnography it is only implicitly, through dialogue with the unmentioned shadow of Geertz: the actual achievement of the chapter is to establish why ethnographers should consider even secondary texts more than Geertz did. That this may indeed have been Woodward's tacit objective becomes evident later, in the conclusion to his book, where he notes that
...study of cultural traditions that are not derived from social reality or lived experience may...offer insight into the axiomatic principles of cultural knowledge and interpretive strategies used by actors in the construction of meaning in daily life...it is essential that anthropologists take them into account...because they are a source of information and inspiration for native actors. (p 249)
It becomes apparent increasingly that Woodward's emphasis is on argument that insights from secondary textual sources can provide critical insights into practice. This is so and his clarification that it is is the real virtue of his work.
At the same time readers would have been more correctly alerted to both his thesis and method had he said so in these terms. His invocations of praxis and references to ethnography are misleading, they establish the wrong grounds for evaluation of the contribution made. The book is not a counterpointing of textual and ethnographic approaches to Javanist Islam; it is instead a useful synthesis of grounded secondary sources moderately spiced with ethnographic observation.
In a third chapter, on Islamic traditions, we are introduced to the historical context of Java's Islamisation through cogent summary of recent research results complied by others. Then Woodward considers the tensions between mysticism and orthodoxy within international Islam. He refutes the claims of legalistic orthodoxy to defining what can constitute an Islamic discourse and suggests that:
Roman legal principles or Neoplatonism becomes Islamic if interpeted in terms of a system of symbolic knowledge derived from Quranic or other Islamic principles. The same, it will be argued, is true of the Hindu elements of Javanese Islam. In an attempt to explain the history and development of the various branches of the Islamic tradition, we should look not for a pristine notion of orthodoxy, from which subsequent traditions deviate but for principles of interpretation that underlie both the unity and diversity of the tradition. (p 63)
This builds well on his theoretical comments and more clearly establishes the probing mode of analysis he uses as a basis for general argument. The third chapter moves on to explore how Islamic, especially Sufi, concepts became localised in Javanese notions of piety, through Mataram state ideology relating to theories of microcosm and macrocosm parallelism. With Woodward's theoretical strategy in mind I will briefly outline the substantive territory covered through the rest of the book before returning to assessment of his argument.
The fourth, fifth and sixth chapters are the core of the book. "Sufism and Normative Piety Among Traditional Santri" introduces the pesantren tradition of local Islamic schools and the textually based learning prioritised within it; the philosophical basis of distinction between orthodox and heterodox; the archetypal stories of the wali , the warrior saints who, according to myth, pioneered Javanese Islam, and the shifts from nineteenth century tarekat, the brotherhoods of Sufism, to contemporary pesantren styles of Islam. While drawing heavily on the fine scholarship of Johns, Drewes, Kumar and Dhofier, Woodward makes excellent use of these secondary source, but only occasionally spices his text with anecdotes from his own field experience.
The fifth chapter, "Royal and Village Religion: the Social Interpretation of Sufism", touches myths of kingship, rites of passage, ideas of revelation (wahyu) and power (kasekten), and beliefs relating to death and pilgrimage. It then moves to consideration of the structure and goals of the mystical path, trying in conclusion to tie that to social practices. The sixth chapter is shorter, cohesive and particularly powerful -- though perhaps its limitations, which I will return to, relate to its cohesion. Focussing on the structure of the kraton, in its extended context, and based almost entirely on Brongtodiningrat's (1975) English language pamphlet describing the kraton, Woodward outlines the Sufi reading of its design as a model of the spiritual path and for its embodiment in social life.
The seventh and concluding chapters consider Hindu elements still apparently present in Javanese religion. It argues that within the gestalt provided by Sufi Islam they represent the heresy of attributing power to other than God (shirk). The conclusion returns to review of Islamisation and then discussion of structure, history and praxis. It is incidental here, but the fourth and fifth chapters range through too many issues to cover comfortably. Many individually excellent points are made in them, but integration of argument is at risk and the chapter structure of the book could definitely have been improved. However I will not linger on organisation or presentation, as I want to focus on the nature of argument and quality of evidence.
It should be clear, notwithstanding my objections with respect to detail and framing, that this study deserves close inspection as an important work of synthesis offering a vital perspective. My aim is not to dismiss, but to qualify and contextualise so that we can absorb the kernel of value while minimizing distortion. I will concentrate first on particular points of issue, then conclude with a general assessment.
On several counts there are excesses and these indicate limits in both ethnographic foundation and philosophical understanding. Woodward goes beyond the margins of the strategy he has outlined, and much too far, when he says that
Even mystics who use the term nirvana... use it to refer to the Sufi notion of gnosis. I did not meet a single Javanese mystic, even among those who claim to be Buddhist, who accepted the Buddhist doctine of anatta.... The goal of Javanese mysticism is always union with an omnipotent and omnipresent God. (p 71)
Appeal to his own authority on this count was injudicious because it serves mainly to alert us to the limits of his knowledge of local mystical practices. Due to its extended intrinsic interest this point would be worth exploring at length, but as that it not necessary here I will simply note one counter example from my own fieldwork.
During my research in Surakarta during the early seventies I focussed on recent Javanese meditation practices and one of my teachers was Sudarno Ong, a Buddhist Sumarah guide (pamong). Incidentally Sudarno once commented that he was an incarnation of Empu Bharada, a powerful sage who features in Balinese and Javanese tales of the division of Java. Sudarno understood absolutely, and explicitly professed, a Krishnamurti styled distaste for both theism and philosophical dualism, remaining rigorously monistic (Stange 1990).
The philosophical question is profoundly relevant to consideration of the extent to which Javanese are Islamic and in this case an unsupported assertion about a critical issue is simply wrong. At least Woodward should have acknowledged the complexities implied in the monistic phrasing of the highest state as it is understood even within classical Sufism, as is well clarified by Bousfield (1983). He does go on to refer to the archetype provided by al-Hallaj and should have explored the issue of monism and dualism further. Neither does he appear to consider the significance of pressures which arise through context, as in Indonesian public discourses today no purely monistic positions are allowable, due to the dominance of dualistic versions of Islam within the bureaucracy (Stange 1986).
Several of Woodward's repeated statements, like the one above, are at once critical to his position and aimed to discount argument that there are substantial Indic residues in Java. In several cases bald faced and misleading statements are amazing. He acknowledges frequent popular reference to karma, but goes on to state that it is only ever used in relation to a law of retribution. He says that "... the notion of rebirth is absent from even the most radical formulations of Javanese mysticism" (p 258). In the least he should have addressed the counterarguments contained within some of the sources he already quotes. Hadiwijono, for example, maintained as a central feature of this thesis that all contemporary schools adhere to belief in reincarnation (1967 p 249). Sudarno, already mentioned above, provides a counter-illustration and I have know many Yogyanese mystics and healers (dukun) from diverse contexts who maintain ideas of reincarnation. We must conclude either that Woodward only actually talked to a few mystics, perhaps relying too much on his Muhammadiyah informant, or that he ignored both readily available written works and important circles of mystics who hold counter positions. The only other possibility is that he did not understand the notion of reincarnation sufficiently to put the question properly.
Following in this vein and more generally, Woodward shows a worrying tendency to argue one sidedly and by negation. This raises concerns about the way his judgements are formed. He considers counter-positions most when attempting to represent Hindu elements as aspects within an Islamic field. Despite claims to having seriously explored Indic philosophies and religion we may reserve judgement about his credentials. To claim, as he does, that we can disagregate wayang and Hinduism raises severe questions about what he thinks Hinduism is. He says that, "Even the philosophy of the Javanese wayang (shadow play), which is loosely based on the great Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, did not seem particularly 'Indic'." (p 3) If he considers the wayang only 'loosely' tied to the epics, a statement he does not sufficiently explain in any event, then what would 'a tight connection' be; if they did not seem Indic, then what would? His statement is quite silly and this is unfortunate.
When this same position is amplified later, in showing intersections between wayang and Sufism and introducing ways in which Islam has attempted to encorporate its iconography and symbolism (pp 218-225), the argument is unbalanced. What he does present, relating to understanding of the gods (dewata) for example, draws from eccentric Muslim interpretations which have little currency. Some of them would be widely viewed as wrong by both orthodox and heterodox Javanese. Given the complexity of competing interpretations such globalising is inappropriate. A reference to the way babad geneologies, in Javanese histories, subsume wayang (p 221) properly indicates the function of myth as a tool to establish the spiritual lineage of Javanese rulers (cf p 100). But even in this instance this is to speak of a specific claim, one the rulers themselves assert, and not to judge the weight of implicit messages to Javanese publics. It begins to appear that we are presented with a polemic on behalf of an orthodoxy rather than a balanced assessment.
Several other points illustrate the same one-sided nature of argumentation. Woodward uncritically adopts the argument of Brongtodiningrat's kraton published pamphlet, well founded though it may be. All of his concentration, in his outlining of the structure and cosmological symbolism of the kraton, is on what the structure means from the viewpoint of this one specific Sufi vision. We are left with little doubt that the architects in question were self consciously employing the map implied. As scholars we should note that the same layout and iconography resonates powerfully with earlier Tantric Hindu sites such as Sukuh or Ceto, on Mount Lawu. Those parallels, well documented in secondary literature, provide every reason to at least consider probing continuities, but Woodward never begins to entertain such obvious counterarguments. In a similar vein, is it enough to say that the Yogya monolith (tugu) represents an Islamic notion of union (p 179) and neither note nor speak to the clear resonances of such symbols, resonances already much noted in the literature, with Siva lingga cults or the megalithic?
The uncovering of esoteric Islamic readings of such symbols may be a significant service in itself, but it is not a basis for academic judgement that the implicit grammar of Javanese spirituality is Islamic. Ironically it could be noted that precisely the same type of evidence and mode of argument was used by Zaehner to exactly the opposite effect. He argued on the basis of similar parallels that Sufism as a whole derived fundamental inspiration from India (1969). We must read Woodward's construction of argument as at once bounded and self serving.
At a general level there is considerable irony in how Woodward positions himself in relation to Geertz. He is on safe ground when he outlines how Sufi conceptualisations converged with Mataram state ideology. He makes excellent points when he touches how the notion of correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm translates into distinct communities of spiritual practice (pp 76-77). But when he notes that the ruler (sultan), Islamic teachers (kyai) and mystics have variant readings of what constitutes the bridge linking planes, he seems ironically unconscious of the resonance between his phrasing and Geertz's typology. I read Geertz as suggesting the same sort of variation, in perspective on what constitutes Islam, Woodward is himself outlining. Throughout Woodward's book there are references to divergence between santri and kejawen reactions which are only a shade away from the kind of distinctions Geertz made. Mention of tension between santri and kejawen occurs (p 142), but the most detailed ethnographic evidence of the book is unfortunately buried in a lengthy endnote (p 264). It deals with "a major controversy" over use of loudspeakers at the mosque in his neighborhood, a conflict between Muhammadiyah and kejawen adherents. Why would such evidence of divergence be subordinated to endnotes?
Despite the strength of these reservations, Woodward's book remains a substantial service to students of Java. By providing an excellent summary of otherwise scattered secondary sources they become more accessible, and students will benefit. At the same time he has genuinely reconfigured the gestalt we hold that information in, through the degree to which he has been able to bring this well grounded secondary material on international Islam into view.
But this is not the balance of ethnography and textual analysis it claims to be; on both counts it is several steps removed from primary work. Ethnography enters in mainly as invocation or rhetorical ploy, never as sustained analysis of local sites of religious practices. Woodward may have been in Yogya over a year (p ix) but the evidence used in the book could have been accumulated in several months. In published essays he has done better. The strength of his ethnographic capacity is clearer in his paper on healing (1985) than in the book; his essay on the slametan , the communal meal, (1988) is far superior to the book, whether in detail of textual explication, in quality of reference to social practices or in the construction of argument.
On his own account (p 3) of the way analysis proceeded, already alluded to, we must see Woodward's study as one eyed. After a very early change in direction he appears to have proceeded with the exclusive aim of substantiating his line of thought rather than testing his theory against the evidence. Without considering the common ground mystical systems engage he appears satisfied to conclude that "Java is Islamic". His strategy is essentially only to show correspondence between Javanese and Sufi notions. While applauding this accomplishment, we must reject the claim that it presents a balanced assessment of Javanese religion grounded in textual and ethnographic spheres. It does neither fully and in the structure of argument it is quite partial.
Woodward fails to achieve his central stated objective. He does not actually employ either indigenous texts or ethnographic perspective to establish a sound basis for assessing the nature of Javanese religiosity. His service lies in another direction and enough has been said on that score. In practice he employed a limiting textual orthodoxy as his criteria for determining the nature of Javanese religion. Having set down his measure he collated sympathetic evidence and dismissed contrary suggestions without proper consideration. The assembly of secondary texts results in a perspective which is important, but essentially presents the slant of Yogya kraton orthodoxy on Javanist Islam. In his book Woodward never properly entertained local Islam as praxis.
Religion as praxis
Having considered a variety of approaches to Java we can return again to the question of how to establish a sound basis for conceptualising religion in general. Woodward's book and the preceding discussion open the door to such reflection, once we leave aside limitations in execution, through clarification of the significance of differing approaches. Underlying problems of interpreting local systems such as the Javanese, whether as academic debate or local political issue, is the basic question of primary definitions of religion.
In this context underlying definitions clearly condition reading of whether and in what way Javanese are Islamic. This is after all the root of the critique by Hodgson of Geertz's work, which Woodward refers to (1989 p 1). In debates within Java, the actual issue is just as often implictly one of how religion is defined and that has implications for what sources are mobilised as evidence in argument. Conclusions about whether the Javanese are 'genuine Muslim' usually rest on definitions, either of religion or of Islam, and it is worth returning to reconsider definitions so as to sidestep what may otherwise be pursuit of non-issues.
In 1964 Benda's influential review (1982), of Feith's book on Indonesia during the 1950s, he brought out a famous 'non-question' of Indonesian studies. He noted that Feith's enterprise was guided by assumptions about democracy and development, common throughout postwar scholarship, which framed the ending of Parliamentary government as 'decline'. Benda argued that it was irrelevant to question why democracy 'failed', that the trajectory of Indonesian history did not have to match presumptions about global progress as embedded within Western visions of the time. Bearing in mind that even useful contributions may err in some respect by addressing non-issues, it is worth again considering definition of religion as praxis.
The notion of praxis became prominent in the 1970s but is rooted in early ethnography. Ortner's (1984) recent emphasis merely marks recall of the most crucial gift anthropology has made to general understandings of religion. Even quick mention of the contributions by some of the enshrined superheroes of the field can highlight the extent to which this is true. From Malinowski onward recognition of the importance of praxis is embedded implicitly and pervasively in the anthropology of religion. Dialectical gestalts situated religion in its social field: Malinowski understood ritual and magic in functional relation to social exchange; Radcliffe-Brown's focussed on integrative interactions between structures; Harris argued that the sacredness of cows for Hindus related to their economic significance.
Holistic and functional perspectives also provide an underlying framework and contribute much that is distinctive about anthropological approaches. The anthropology of complex societies brought increasing concern with conflict and change: Gluckman foregrounded dispute in traditional societies; Redfield saw the folk traditions of peasant ritual magic as interacting with textually defined philosophies of literate high cultures; and Weber drew attention to interactions between inner orientations, defined by religious ethos, and socio-economic actions. The holistic aspect of anthropological theorising is specifically critical to the study of religion because it indicates the necessity of relating to it not only as idea/text, but also as economy/polity and, not least, experience, however awkward that may be to theorise.
In building on such footings the most significant recent definitions of religion draw attention not to a particular structure of experience, thought or action, but to the nature of the linkage between them. Bellah (1970) spoke of religion as "... a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence." In his influential essay on "Religion as a Cultural System" Geertz (1966 p 4) defined religion painstakingly, Elsewhere he has been at once more off-handed and elegant, referring to religion, to the same effect, as:
... the conviction that the values one holds are grounded in the inherent structure of reality, that between the way one ought to live and the way things really are there is an unbreakable inner connection. (1971 p 97)
The greatest virtue of these definitions is that they stress the tightness of the connection between inner experience, belief systems and actions. They suggest that if the system is one in which people experience inner conviction that their beliefs, and the actions prescribed by them, are rooted in self-evident reality, then the system is essentially religious. In this way of constructing definitions emphasis is thus placed on the nature of the dialectical interplay which links levels , not on the content of particular levels. This is where praxis lies.
The advantages of this definition should still be self-evident. As it is 'content free' it allow us to easily see how institutions such as football, or ostensibly secular ideologies such as Marxism, may function in religious terms. Most religions will include explicitly 'religious' statements which do indeed shape privately held views of the world, statements such as the five pillars of Islam. But practiced or lived religion always differs from formalised beliefs and there is no a priori reason for prioritising explicitly avowed standards in deciding what constitutes membership in a particular system.
In fact in recent explorations of culture phrases such as 'coherence systems' and 'implicit meanings' signal efforts to expose underlying world views. There is generally agreement that the most important elements of belief are precisely those which may be implicit, hidden or taken for granted. Thus in Bourdieu's theory of practice, which has obvious resonance here, there is continual effort to uncover unstated elements of world view which are at once critical to actions in the world and distinct from the beliefs we may consciously subscribe to (Miller & Branson 1987).
Anthropology places religion in the context of social life and definitions of religion within it do not coincide with those specific religions prioritise. So we can expect that any universal theory of what constitutes religion must necessarily be at odds with definitions maintained within specific fields of religious life, including those held by any self-conscious orthdoxy. Each religious system, like every culture, effectively defines a universe of meaning in its own terms. The circularity of such religious logic, or as in Godel's theorum even of all matematical logic, ensures that in the end each system is only intelligible to itself. On this basis in each religious system meaning and significance cannot be apprehended or judged by standards foreign to it.
The ethnoscience attempt to avoid imposing European thought, implicit in terms such as social, cultural, economic, political, on other cultures led students like Rosaldo to organise descriptions (1980) on the basis of conceptions central within the society they represented. Symbolic anthropology then moved toward focus on 'praxis', on the interactive relationship between symbolic systems and experience within both the internal, psychological, and external, sociological, domains. This has shifted attention from formal institutions and conceptions to practices and discourses internalised implicitly.
When the Dutch social historian Van Leur commented that "...the sheen of the world religions was a thin and flaking glaze..." overlying indigenous faiths his conclusion grew from awareness that many local practices in Indonesia had no relation to the central tenets of Islam. On that basis it seemed to him that 'conversions' had been nominal, or at least in the end they had been diluted through syncretism with pre-existing systems. Woodward's debate with Geertz is framed by similar undercurrents, as Geertz certainly drew on established images of the Javanese.
This view was given force by the scriptural version of religion which Geertz (1971) himself recognised as essentially a modern phenomenon facilitated by the print revolution, one which defined religion textually. The visible persistence of animistic and Hindu beliefs has often seemed to mean that the Javanese are not fundamentally Muslim, that only purists deserve the label. Similarly early studies of Theravada dealt with doctrinal Buddhism and animistic magic as separate traditions interacting in opposition until Tambiah (1970) presented them as components within a single system, as practices involving a complex range of cultural ideas common in one context.
If we follow the trend of recent anthropology, seeing religion as multidimensional and many-faced, as having different local meanings and manifestations, we are clearly departing from what the orthodoxy of particular local religions would accept. When Snouck Hurgronje revolutionised understandings of Islam, by approaching it through practices in Mecca and Indonesia a century ago, he exemplified a combination of textual and ethnographic sophistication few have matched since. But sustained ethnographic exploration has only become common in the past several decades.
Whatever the realities of practice among those who call themselves Muslim, every teacher of the religion has a clear definition which would want to exclude, from the category of 'believer', many others whose practices which go by that name. Similarly many Indonesian Muslims still take exception to the way in which Western scholars have interpreted Islam (Sumardi 1982). There is always a tension, and it will often be severe, between the way outsiders or an academic discipline such as anthropology define religion and the internal perspective of those who are being described.
In the ethnography of Islamic societies the most important recent advances are suggested in Gilsenan's Recognizing Islam (1983). His view is extremely perceptive and clearly conditioned by sensitivity to both lived religion and knowledge of textual orthodoxy. He establishes a characterisation of the diversity of practices which go under the name Islam by suggesting that:
... Islam will be discussed not as a single, rigidly bounded set of structures determining or interacting with other total structures but rather as a word that identifies varying relations of practice, representation, symbol, concept, and worldview within the same society and between different societies. (1983 p 19)
Such a view of religious systems, rooted in a sense of praxis, is a long way from the assumptions that Muslims themselves, or for that matter the followers of any other religion, can adopt comfortably. The insights he provides into Islam within the Arabic world, as a network of social practices and inner orientation, make explicit in a way that doctrinally, institutional or ritually based definitions fail to, how Islam as a religion shapes and penetrates social and personal spaces.
A sensitivity to praxis is especially critical as a concept in dealing with Javanism (kejawen) because in that sphere social patterns and cultural images are explicitly understood as making sense only through the ways they are interiorised. Certainly in local terms analysis of articulated structures or intertextual defined meanings is never sufficient basis for either understanding or explanation. Comprehension of the significance and nature of the wayang mythology, ancestral spirit beliefs, local meditation practices, millenarian imagery or possession cults, all fundamental elements of Javanism which I have dealt with in other works, only comes after contextualising them through what individuals experience in the microcosm (jagad cilik), that is to say within the inner realms of religious life which constitute the practical domain for individuals.
In studies of Java philology, anthropology, history and textual analysis have each established distinct angles of emphasis. Differences in interpretive conclusion are fundamentally, and not incidentally, tied to approaches arising from such differences of perspective. Every interpretation extends from specific approaches, materials, questions, times and sites explored and none should pretend that it can operate in isolation. Methodologies often correlate with contrasting conclusions about the relationship between Islam and Javanism. If ethnographers have too often acted as though texts are irrelevant to considerations they analyze through everyday social interactions; conversely philologists have often focussed so exclusively on written words that they ignore practice.
While these approaches cross fertilize and intersect increasingly they rarely meet in the balance which makes for the synergetic synthesis which we must aim to attain. Social practices are not embodied ideas, they are the life contexts from which we construct abstraction. It is thus simple truism to emphasise that praxis is critical to understanding the structures we analytically isolate as cultural or social. Structures are always implicitly in process and meanings are located only through the ways in which they are experientially reproduced. Such recognition should fundamentally condition all academic understandings of religion. Every interpretation must take account of this no matter how they may vary according to the operations of their underlying methodologies.
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Anthropological Forum, vol. 6, no. 3, 1992, pp. 364-370.
MULTIVALENT ETHNOGRAPHIES: A RESPONSE TO WOODWARD
Paul Stange, Asian Studies, Murdoch University
I welcome the opportunity to engage the comments Dr Woodward has made while contrasting our works (1991) in a constructive response to my critique (1990b) of his book Islam in Java. He invites dialogue rather than reaction, but an extended essay would still be required to treat all the fine points of difference. Generally his clarifications would have strengthened the book but provide no grounds for revision of my critique as it stands and he repeats, rather than correcting, the key error of its logic. I too see complementarity through the pluralism of ethnography but, seconding his caution that we can also be wrong (p38), believe he should admit errors in logic and stress by the very criteria he here applies to me.
Beyond pluralism Woodward hints usefully at distinctions of what I call valency, related to praxis, which merit stronger highlighting. He is right that my notion of praxis remains undertheorised (Woodward l991 p15-6), but I made synthetic use of anthropological senses of it to argue its utility, neither claiming full formulation nor presenting it as the defense of my work he reads it as (p26). My critique of the book rests on its stated aims and not my agenda. Woodward slides invidiously from my ambivalence about semiotics to implication that I am skeptical about, resist and ignore textual analysis (p27). This is wrong on every count and seriously misrepresents my critique. I take him to task for presenting worthy, if logically flawed, secondary synthesis as though it combines ethnography and primary textual analysis. While astute and sympathetic in noting our difference of focus, he reads my essays against his aim to characterise Javanism rather than their discrete and constrained purposes. The same weaknesses evident in his reading of Javanism appear in representation of my work.
Our debate about the nature of Javanese religion is not just an academic exercise, Woodward's book and article (1988-89) will affect the politics of religion in Indonesia. Notwithstanding his purpose it is not incidental that the thesis and logic of his argument, to the effect that Javanists already belong to Islam, mirror those modernists (Hamka 1971; Rasjidi 1967) and the Ministry of Religion (Kertorahardjo 1972) employ to constrain heterodoxy and spiritual freedom (see Stange 1986). In this case clinging to flawed logic (Stange 1990b pp 238-40) extends error and empowers regulating agencies which will deploy his works as authoritative. If I am sensitive to the political implications of our debate it is because, writing in Surakarta and having just attended a Sumarah conference in Yogyakarta, I notice conformity with Islamic discourses running tandem with emphasis on uncritical faith and suppression of direct independent consciousness.
Implicitly he holds that early structures are irrelevant to analysis whenever they have been subsumed into later ones--this is wrong in elementary logical terms. His article maintains that selametan ritual is essentially Islamic rather than animistic because elements, not least its name, are drawn from and the ritual is sanctioned within that religion. Encorporation of spirit beliefs and communal rituals, first in Arabia and later in Java, does not mean those modes of spirituality are Islamic any more than Arabic loan words make Javanese a Semitic language. His book applies this logic to the wayang and the kraton. Now he acknowledges earlier Tantric predispositions and in the same breath extends his logic to suggestion that Ibn al Arabi's Sufism is the most likely source of Javanese monism and tolerance (1991 pp14-5).
His response to my dissatisfaction with his readings of the wayang and kraton are beside the point. The effect of my statement on the roots of the wayang, which he alludes to (p29), is diametrically opposed to his. I am not "suspicious...that wayang is interpreted in terms of Islamic concepts" (p30) nor is it an issue that the Indic roots of the kraton are mentioned in his fine print (p29). My target on each count is to refute the thrust of his thesis that they can be read as Islamic in consequence. Similar points could be made in relation to our readings of Javanist spirit beliefs, reincarnation and monism.
Woodward employs my logic mainly when professing interest in connections between Sapta Darma theory and kundalini yoga (pp4-5) and while suggesting I do not partake of it. But his reference to me is out of context. My essay (1977) aimed only to open recent mystical readings of wayang, not to treat its history or characterise Javanism as he implies. His profession of interest is especially ironic, as this is precisely the connection I take him to task for dismissing lightly and consistently. Our difference does not lie in contrast between ethnographic and historical concerns but in his emphasis on one tradition to the exclusion of others I consider along with it.
While writing this response I attended a Hindu selametan of villagers from Pengging inside the outer walls of the Surakarta kraton. I cannot see the offerings or invocations of Siva as Islamic nor read this Hinduism as less linked to roots because, like Islamic competitors, it appears in revived form. Is commemoration of a death according to the Indic Saka calendar, merging Islamic lunar months into a frame marked also by indigenous market days, Islamic?. Candi Sukuh, a Tantric temple I visited that day, is not merely an artifact because tourists and the Department of Archaeology so view it. Local villagers still search for spirit help to fore-knowledge of lottery numbers there (Islamic practice?) and the Buddhist meditation teacher I visited it with prays and guides movement meditation on it. Javanism is simply not the pervasively Muslim phenomenon Woodward presents it as.
Woodward's reading (p23) of the relative significance of the practices we focus on is unfair and perhaps based on a misapprehension about ethnography. When I do speak of Javanism I mean the same wider field he refers to; I neither conflate Javanism with modern sects nor base reading of it only on them. He knows the census is manipulated to highlight Islamic profession and suppress apparent membership in sects, as this was of crucial concern to his informant Sri Pawenang in the lead up to the 1980 census when he was in Yogya. As a window to wider process I use Sumarah (1984) in exactly the way Keeler (1987) uses his Klaten village or Geertz (1976) his town of Pare, the relevance of insights from each has little to do with statistics. Insofar as Woodward casts a wider net it is through extensive use of secondary sources, but guiding perspectives remain problematic. While endorsing pluralism I do not accept the implication that his slant on Javanism, any more than Siegel's (1986) on Solo, is more comprehensive or real than mine.
As Woodward's essay extensively characterises and critiques my work I am sorry he uses only fragments of it, many comments are misdirected in consequence. The essays he refers to have limited targets he does not bring into view and his complaints relate to the fact I do not pursue his issues, not to gaps in argument. Our concerns do diverge in ways Woodward pinpoints well, but his thrust indicates that our explorations converge, in approach to religion (even Islam) and readings of Javanism, much more than he suspects. Parallels would have registered more clearly had he referred to my thesis (1980a), which he knew of, and other pertinent, if less accessible, articles (1979; 1986; 1989; 1990a; forthcoming a). Woodward's conclusion that I am exclusively ethnographic in method is understandable because he refers only to three anthropological essays (1977; 1984; 1990b) and one (1975) which reads as oral history. But this makes his reading of my work partial in the same way as his representation of Javanism and my complaint is the same. Flawed framing undercuts the real value of insightful contribution: while entertaining evidence from only one perspective he affirms conclusions which go beyond it.
I am not engaged only in ethnographic explanation (p6), focussed only on heretical mystics nor a-historical in interpreting Javanism vis-a-vis Islam (pp11-3). The issues I pursue do reflect training in anthropology, but my degrees are in comparative history, my teaching centres on cultural history and this is reflected in writing (Stange 1980a; forthcoming b). I employ historical and philological works and my approach is phenomenological (1980a pp 7-20; 1980b). My research rests on three years of fieldwork, but both local primary texts and organisational archives (1980a, pp 429-38) are also more critical to my analysis than to Woodward's. Religious studies is often more congenial to me than anthropology or history and I share Woodward's debt to Eliade, if drawing from him most in teaching on Asian mysticism and construing Indonesian religious history as an exploration of transformations in access to the real. Nevertheless, though conscious of resonances linking my stress on the experiential to Schleiermacher and Otto (pp19-22), I have not capitalised on those conjunctions and Woodward's instruction is welcome. My definition of religion (1990b) is based on Geertz's and does not preclude comparative study, as Woodward suggests (p21) any more than his. Even if the philosophy and history of religion have theorised experience, I still hold that anthropology has contributed most to reading of religion as social praxis.
Though certainly concerned with it, it is incorrect to read my project as confined to exegesis of experiential mystical perspective. As a micro-history of one movement my thesis is a historical analogue to village studies in ethnography. I focus on recent transformations in meditation practice in relation to their context and am guarded in generalising, characterising Javanism generally only by way of introduction. I pursue the connections Woodward (pp11-2,15) imagines I have ignored linking Sumarah to Sufism, especially the Nakshabandiyah, (Stange 1980a pp 24-98) and do explore its relationship with Javanist movements generally (pp 307-34). In an essay on the politics of mysticism (1986) and a paper on 'The Inner Islamisation of Java' (1990a) I argue that an Islamic gestalt frames religious politics and even inner spiritual discourses in contemporary Java. On the other hand, when also stressing the syncretic process linking Javanist voices to their ancestral substratum, a dynamic Islam in Java obscures, I document Javanist views and distinguish doing so from my interpretation of mediating transformations.
As Woodward suggests, my view arises from focus on mysticism as such and the religious environment it operates within, central to his concern, has been peripheral to me. But I should not be read as prioritising the Indic as a counter to his Islamic reading of Javanism. I repudiate such ideological constructions of the polarity, note that Javanists inhabit the whole spectrum of local, Indic and Islamic idioms (1980a pp 324-334) and present tension as turning on literalism versus mysticism (1980a pp 43-50). Javanists prioritise the vertical or depth axis and santris the horizontal (socio-cultural) dimensions of spirituality. Exactly that distinction does exist, as both Woodward (1989) and I (1986) maintain, within traditional Javanese Islam, which includes the mystical even in some current contexts. But because expanding modern and fundamental Islam has been an uncomfortable home for mystics many have repudiated Islam as such. Our perspectives converge on the place of mysticism within Islam, but diverge in my argument that Javanese mystics cannot be claimed by it. Their sources of inspiration and modes of practice derive substantively, not just in their imagination, from animistic, Indic and, as we both observe, modern sources including Theosophy (Woodward 1991 pp25-6; Stange forthcoming a).
Woodward notes, with sensitivity and an apt tone, that I employ Javanist conceptions and betray theological and essentialist commitments (p17). This opening of problematic aspects of my work contrasts with the awkward silence it meets within anthropology and history and is welcome opportunity to defend my position. Highlighting my declarative reference to Semar's existence, he rightly indicates an ontology indeed at odds with sanctioned norms. But if I share concerns, even convictions, with my informants, why should that mean that supporting documentation can be conflated with apologetics and implicitly devalued? He conflates ethnographic report with historical interpretation in using my statement, beginning "...see themselves...", to support assertion that I "...accept the claims of Javanists ... uncritically..." (p15). In any event, should glimpses of positioning be questioned sharply only when departing from norms and impinging on epistemology?
I may present experiential perspectives on mystical religion, but my representation is guided by the same mind employed in reviewing books. Ironically what western colleagues read as bland apologetics is registered by Javanist friends as charged, critical and politically sensitive. While confirming my reading of Sumarah history and practice Arymurthy, a Jakarta leader, discouraged its publication, arguing that I opened and probed too much, that my narrative would be easy to misuse and dangerous. I do deploy Javanist theories, but selfconsciously and combined with argument that postcolonial theorising requires it (1980a; 1984; forthcoming a). If I hold essentialist views it is in Ibn al-Arabi's terms and I wonder why it matters. The evidence I marshall and arguments I mount do not rest on theological foundations any more than Geertz's have on his profession of unbelief (1971 p?).
The heresies of my thesis indicate the constraints of allowable plurality in ethnography. Unwillingness to pretend neutrality came too early and/or in the wrong context; still worse, the convictions I was open about do not match norms. I approached fieldwork in the early 1970s in accord with precepts sanctioned only now by postmodern ethnography, as Woodward suggests they should be (1991 pp18,22). We all laud the superb knowledge of Javanese language underpinning Keeler's (1986) analysis, and both he and Woodward stress that meditation is fundamental in Javanese epistemology. Nevertheless, claims to inside knowledge of meditation are read as 'going native' and disqualifying scholarly comment. In relation to meditation only those who claim it cannot be known are allowed to speak about it, inverting notions that reports should be grounded in knowledge. While we agree that personal views influence every work implicitly, there are clearly other issues at stake and Woodward may even endorse my next step.
If mystical notions of experiential depth read as heresy within history a decade ago, they may be more implausible within postmodernism now. Derrida is supposed to have demonstrated that 'essentialism' is impossible and postmodernists often deploy it, like 'orientalism' or 'othering', as a dismissive dictum. While endorsing heterogeneity current conventions repudiate conceptualisation of levels of consciousness. Even theorising of the body as a site of knowledge, related to earlier notice of tacit knowledges, is highly resistant to conceptualisation of hierarchies. For example eco-feminists argue that the 'great chain of being', implicit in deep ecology, is patriarchal, making it seem unimaginable. We apparently need constant reminder, following Foucault and Rorty, that these ploys enforce conventions of discourse embedded in power relations and that dominant metaphors are not necessarily right or better.
These movements may exclude consideration of experiential mysticism as rigidly as the contrasting postmodern phenomenon we term 'religious fundamentalism' (see Stange forthcoming a). The highly articulate early formulations of Ibn al-Arabi and Neoplatonism coped with valencies no less present in our world. These are inaccessible to one-dimensional thought in every form, as remote in the theories of pluralistic postmodernism as in fundamentalist exclusivism. We can thank Woodward for opening this door and facilitating dialogue between ethnography and the history of religion. If sensitivity to the dimensionality of religion combines with affirmation of complementarity we will pass beyond pluralism to register the valencies of depth needed for informed reading of the interplay between the social, cultural and spiritual planes of life.
References cited
GEERTZ, C. 1971. Islam Observed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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KEELER, W. 1987. Javanese Shadow Plays, Javanese Selves. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
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STANGE, P. 1989 Interpreting Javanist Millenial Imagery. in P. Alexander ed. Creating Indonesian Cultures. Sydney: Oceania Publications. pp 113-134
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STANGE, P. 1990b Javanism as Text or Praxis. Anthropological Forum V 6 N 2. pp 229-247
STANGE, P. forthcoming a. Deconstruction as Disempowerment: New 'Orientalisms' of Java. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (accepted October 1989)
STANGE, P. forthcoming b. Religious Change in Contemporary Southeast Asia. chapter 9 in N.Tarling ed. The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Vol II. Sydney: Cambridge University Press. (proof pp 805-892)
WOODWARD, M. 1989. Islam in Java. Tucson:Association for Asian Studies & University of Arizona Press
WOODWARD, M. 1991. Javanism, Islam and the Plurality of Ethnography.
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