Feeling your way in Java: An essay on society and emotion

This article reconsiders the place of emotion in society. With the example of Java, I argue for an expanded understanding of social sentiments that would recognize a structuring role for emotion beyond the family and the shaping, through emotional practices, of a fluid but crucial level of ‘community’. Using Balinese ethnology as a foil, I contrast the uses of emotion in Java and Bali, drawing, toward the end, upon Bateson's concept of schismogenesis.