Magico‐spiritual power,female sexuality and ritual sex in Muslim Java: Unveiling the kesekten of magical women

This article argues that in practice, concepts of magico‐spiritual power (Javanese: kesekten; Indonesian: kesaktian) are linked with sexuality, particularly female sexuality, in some segments of contemporary Central and East Javanese Muslim society. Few scholars have turned attention to the interconnectedness of these seemingly contradictory topics. Feminist studies tend to focus on the ways in which women locate themselves within and critique Sharia‐based discursive and social orders, without considering the roles that magico‐spiritual power and associated practices play in these Islamic systems or in Islam in a more general sense. Similarly, male scholarship that considers the cultural relevance of Islam and magic rarely refers to gendered and sexual dimensions as praxis from a feminist perspective. By drawing on examples of ‘magical women’ including the Javanese spirit queen of the southern ocean Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, the historical Hindu figure Ken Dedes, and contemporary ritual sex practices at a Muslim saint's grave, we show how women, female spiritual beings and female sexuality, and sexuality in general, can be considered sources of magico‐spiritual power in Muslim Java. Our arguments conclude that in Javanese Islam, transgression of Sharia sexual norms can be both a sign and a source of magico‐spiritual power.     

‘Socialism,nations and international cooperation’ (a report on the round table ‘87 conference held at Cavtat,Yugoslavia, October 1987)

Ethnic ideologies, comprised of selective reflections on past, present and future plights of a community within a given context, arise or are modified at certain historical junctures often marked by rapid social change. Religious concepts, values and practices may play fundamental roles in the formation of such ideologies, since they provide points of reference or legitimations which hold considerable affective power among community members. These religious components of ethnic ideology, moreover, are by no means fixed; they may be reformulated in multifold ways in relation to contextual change. This article explores these notions by way of a history of Hinduism in Trinidad, and particularly, through an examination of the contemporary Hindu youth movement. It is shown that Hindu ethnic ideology in Trinidad has been historically forged through a sequence of different circumstances in the past, and that the current movement represents an exemplary case demonstrating the relation of religion and ethnic ideology.     

‘Our bones are made of Iron’: the political ecology of Garhwali women's activism

In the Garhwal Himalaya of India's Uttarakhand State, a series of social movements emerged in the late 2000s to contest hydroelectric dams on a tributary of the sacred River Ganga. Within these opposition movements, men often took high‐profile leadership roles whereas women from a range of socio‐economic backgrounds formed the overwhelming base of participation at meetings, assemblies, and rallies. This article draws from event‐based participation and semi‐structured interviews to explore the diverse concerns that women gave to explain their engagements with opposition efforts. I counter essentialist frames and employ a feminist political ecology approach to argue that the gendered dynamics are attributable to historical, cultural, religious, and political‐economic influences. The article contributes to anthropologies of gender, environment, and social movements by taking an approach focused on disparities of practice and power that helps situate Garhwali women's roles in development contestations.     

God,Fatherland, Home: revealing the dark side of our anthropological virtue

The article uses ethnographic research on right-wing anti-government movements in Bolivia conducted at the height of social conflict and cultural violence in 2008 and 2009 to reflect more generally on the relationship between anthropological research, ethical commitment, and the politics of knowledge. The article first describes the relevant epistemological and political contexts in which engaged anthropology emerged as an important disciplinary current. It then goes on to consider how and why the author's research on right-wing political practice in Bolivia diverged from the disciplinary expectations of engaged anthropology. After reflecting on the implications of this shift, the article concludes by arguing for a methodological recalibration that allows anthropologists to take seriously the ideologies and cultural logics of contemporary right-wing mobilization, particularly social and political movements that are animated by what Edmund Burke described as ‘just prejudice’.     

Utopianism in the British evolutionary synthesis

In this paper I propose a new interpretation of the British evolutionary synthesis. The synthetic work of J. B. S. Haldane, R. A. Fisher and J. S. Huxley was characterized by both an integration of Mendelism and Darwinism and the unification of different biological subdisciplines within a coherent framework. But it must also be seen as a bold and synthetic Darwinian program in which the biosciences served as a utopian blueprint for the progress of civilization. Describing the futuristic visions of these three scientists in their synthetic heydays, I show that, despite a number of important divergences, their biopolitical ideals could be biased toward a controlled and regimented utopian society. Their common ideals entailed a social order where liberal and democratic principles were partially or totally suspended in favor of bioscientific control and planning for the future. Finally, I will argue that the original redefinition of Darwinism that modern synthesizers proposed is a significant historical example of how Darwinism has been used and adapted in different contexts. The lesson I draw from this account is a venerable one: that, whenever we wish to define Darwinism, we need to recognize not only its scientific content and achievements but expose the other traditions and ideologies it may have supported.     

“The world’s best minority”: Parsis and Hindutva’s ethnic nationalism in India

There is an assumption that nationalist movements which are constituted by an ethnic majority are hostile towards all minorities, so how does one account for such a movement’s affection for one minority and hostility for another? In this paper I explore this question using the case study of a Hindu nationalist movement in India called Hindutva which simultaneously expresses hostility towards Muslims and affection for another minority known as the Parsis. I argue in societies that imagine themselves as plural there is a type of nationalist thought premised upon the existence of both exemplary and threatening minorities. An exemplary minority is imagined as loyal and acculturating, illustrating both how a minority should relate to the majority and why other minorities are threatening. While an historical argument enables the distinction between the majority and minorities, a plural hierarchy of minorities is enabled by mythical stories of coexistence and conflict.     

Meeting with Ancestors—Contesting Borders in Indonesian Religion and Politics

Ancestors have often played an important role in the exercise of politics in Indonesia. However, from a situation in which they were highly influential and present in ritual, as well as in the everyday lives of both commoners and kings, ancestors and traditional lifestyles have been increasingly marginalised through the impact of secular politics and Islamist movements. An era of political reformation began after the fall of Indonesia's former political regime, Orde Baru. Reform meant the decentralisation of political power, and this led to a revival of local traditions. This article takes this revival of tradition as a framework to understand meetings that took place with ancestors at local pilgrimage sites on West Java. It is concluded that meetings of this kind are not simply about fulfilling personal goals, but they also show features of resistance and subversion in relation to the dominant political and religious leadership in Indonesia.     

DNA tests in prolific sheep from eight countries provide new evidence on origin of the Booroola (FecB) mutation

Recent discoveries that high prolificacy in sheep carrying the Booroola gene (FecB) is the result of a mutation in the BMPIB receptor and high prolificacy in Inverdale sheep (FecX(I)) is the result of a mutation in the BMP15 oocyte-derived growth factor gene have allowed direct marker tests to be developed for FecB and FecX(I). These tests were carried out in seven strains of sheep (Javanese, Thoka, Woodlands, Olkuska, Lacaune, Belclare, and Cambridge) in which inheritance patterns have suggested the presence of major genes affecting prolificacy and in the prolific Garole sheep of India, which have been proposed as the ancestor of Australian Booroola Merinos. The FecB mutation was found in the Garole and Javanese sheep but not in Thoka, Woodlands, Olkuska, Lacaune, Belclare, and Cambridge sheep. None of the sheep tested had the FecX(I) mutation. These findings present strong evidence to support historical records that the Booroola gene was introduced into Australian flocks from Garole (Bengal) sheep in the late 18th century. It is unknown whether Javanese Thin-tailed sheep acquired the Booroola gene directly from Garole sheep from India or via Merinos from Australia. The DNA mutation test for FecB will enable breeding plans to be developed that allow the most effective use of this gene in Garole and Javanese Thin-tailed sheep and their crosses.     

Gene diversity in some Muslim populations of North India

North Indian Muslim populations have historical, linguistic, and socioreligious significance to the Indian subcontinent. Although sociocultural and political dimensions of their demography are well documented, no detailed genetic structure of the populations is available. We have undertaken a survey of the gene frequencies of the ABO, Rh, PTC taste ability, sickling, and G6PD systems for different endogamous groups: Sheikh, Syed, Pathan, Ansari, Saifi, and Hindu Bania. All the groups at most loci showed statistically nonsignificant differences, except for ABO and PTC traits, for which interpopulational differences were seen. Heterozygosity ranged from 0.048 to 0.617 among the Sheikh, 0.149 to 0.599 among the Pathan, 0.105 to 0.585 among the Ansari, 0.25 to 0.869 among the Syed, 0.107 to 0.565 among the Saifi, and 0.100 to 0.492 among the Hindu Bania. The average D(ST) and G(ST) values for the five marker loci were 0.0625 +/- 0.098 and 0.1072 +/- 0.041, respectively. A dendrogram was constructed using the UPGMA clustering method. Our results revealed that the Pathan and the Sheikh form one cluster, the Syed and the Hindu Bania form another cluster, and the two clusters join together (the so-called higher caste); also, the Saifi and the Ansari form a separate cluster (lower caste). The results of the genetic distance analysis are useful for understanding the pattern of genetic relationships between different endogamous groups of Muslims.     

Hindutva in the West: mapping the antinomies of diaspora nationalism

This introduction provides a historical background to Hindu nationalism and examines several theoretical and empirical themes that are important for its analysis both in India and the diaspora. It is argued that there has been a relative neglect within the research field of diaspora nationalist movements and the impact they can have on constituting antisecular and absolutist orientations to minorities and majorities both within the diaspora and in the “homeland”. The introduction examines the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1920s and considers the debates about its relation to ethnic, nationalist, religious, racist and fascist ideologies. We consider how an examination of Hindu nationalism can modify many recent debates on “race” and ethnicity, multiculturalism and “diaspora”. Several themes relating to caste, gender and “Aryanism” are examined. The contents of this Special Issue are contextualized within these debates and a summary of the key themes of the contributions is provided.     

The Pope in Mexico: Syncretism in Public Ritual

Pope John Paul II's canonization, in 2002, of Juan Diego, the Indian to whom the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared, was variously interpreted by sections of Mexican society as an acknowledgement of the indigenous element in Mexican Catholicism and thus a restitution of past wrongs; conversely, as a final domestication of the Indian; and as an evangelical move against a resurgent Latin American Protestantism. The canonization rites were nested within political ceremonies staged, controversially, to anoint a new presidency. This broader political message was in turn challenged in the media and on the streets. In this article, I show how a major public event can articulate the life of a complex, culturally diverse society. I identify a syncretic effect produced by the struggle for ritual control. And I take a comparative view of syncretism, drawing on Javanese ethnography to suggest common mechanisms of meaning making.     

The terms of the debate: Untangling language about ethnicity and ethnic movements

Theoretical debates on ethnicity suffer from a general confusion about the divergent meanings which academics ascribe to key terms. ‘Primordialist’ approaches include biological, psychological and cultural explanations, whose conflation tends to confuse proponents and critics alike. ‘Instrumentalist’ approaches conflate all ethnic movements within a profile of political opportunism, failing to recognize the varying degrees to which underlying social‐institutional incompatibilities may contribute to ethnic conflict. ‘Constructivist’ approaches vacillate between a focus on the influence of intellectual ethnic discourse and an understanding of ethnic identity as developing out of wider bodies of social experience. Greater attention to the varying contribution of ‘deep’ culture to ethnic conflict can clarify why these subschools find such differences among ethnic movements, which can indeed be understood to vary along a spectrum of political functions: at one pole, ethnic movements seek to inflate ethnic sentiment for political purposes; at the other, they seek rather to reconstruct the existing political position of a distinct cultural formation. This distinction can permit more appropriate policy‐making towards the resolution of ethnic conflict, yet raises new challenges to the biases of the researcher.     

The Otavalo trade diaspora: social capital and transnational entrepreneurship

This article examines the role of historical social resources in the development of a transnational trade diaspora of Ecuador's indigenous Otavalan merchants. The Otavalans are well known for their production of handicrafts, using pre-industrial and industrial technologies, and for their far-flung trips in search of foreign buyers. In this account, the role of 'social capital', typically defined as a 'public good', is highlighted to better gauge its usefulness to other migrant and indigenous groups. I conclude that the Otavalo case suggests that in-group 'social capital' is: (a) not sufficient or necessary for 'grass-roots' transnational entrepreneurship; (b) the political origins of an ethnic group's 'trust-worthiness' reveal a more diverse set of symbolic and cultural 'capitals', which may then be used by an emergent merchant class to gain financial capital for a business venture; and (c) 'globalization' notwithstanding, contemporary trade diasporas may rise and fall due to similar causal dynamics found among much older and ubiquitous 'cross-cultural trade diasporas'.     

Alt-Right with the Hindu-right: long-distance nationalism and the perfection of Hindutva

In the 2016 US Presidential election, a small but vocal group of Hindu supporters of Donald Trump drew international media attention in India and the US for their political mobilizing for the Republican candidate. In this paper, I examine the political campaigns of “Hindus for Trump” and its affiliated groups to analyse the diverse ways in which these diasporic activists engage in and advance a number of distinct nationalist projects simultaneously. Tracing links between the “Hindus for Trump” platform, Hindutva ideology that seeks to redefine India as a Hindu nation, and the racist “alt-right” movement that forms the political base for President Trump in the US, I argue these diasporic activists enact a synergetic nationalism that has productive effects in both “home” and “host” countries. The result is the perfection of Hindutva on the global stage through the very activities that legitimize the isolationist xenophobia associated with the Trump administration.     

Ideology and nationalism: The Finnish move to independence, 1809–1918

Sociologists often dismiss the emergence of unique nationalist identities as reflections of changing structural elements, namely the political and economic. In this article I view nationalism as a socially created and sustained ideological discourse. From this orientation, the importance of attending to cultural or symbolic constructions within nationalist movements becomes more pronounced. Thompson's (1987) re‐orien‐tational conceptions of ideology are used as an interpretative frame to analyse the construction of nineteenth‐century Finnish nationalism. Through this theoretical focus on language, the Kalevala, a book of Finnish folk poems, can be seen as a socio‐historical phenomenon amidst human conflict. This collection of poems provided the necessary discourse used to disrupt the previous Swedish cultural and emergent Russian political dominance. Symbolizing the invented culture, the Kalevala served as the basis for popular Finnishness, as well as politically mobilizing critical ideological assertions. The creation, transmission, and contestation of social meaning, through the use of language and material culture, specifically embodied in the Kalevala, is traced throughout the Finnish struggle for independence.     

Beware of charitable souls: contagion, roguish ghosts and the poison(s) of Hindu alms

Bhats are a caste of low-status performers from the Indian state of Rajasthan. Bhat patrons, following deaths in their families, distribute 'alms' ( dan ) to Bhats who work as their genealogists and praise-singers. Though their patrons are generous on these occasions, Bhats typically must be coerced into taking these offerings, which they consider dangerous and even lethal. The 'poison' of Hindu transactions such as these is usually attributed to a fear of impure or inauspicious substances passed between persons during exchange. Bhat explanations, however, reveal a danger linked to ambiguities created by death related to property rights and exchange obligations. These ambiguities, according to Bhats, precipitate disputes between patrons, ritual intermediaries, and spirits. Such conflict translates into a perception of danger to one's person. Based on Bhat accounts, I suggest there may be a variety of distinctive 'poisons' associated with Hindu alms. I further argue that the Bhat sense of danger, which emerges from the fluid give and take of social relations rather than a fear of contagion, is heightened by this community's position as marginalized bards.     

Symbol and Sustenance: Cattle in South Asian Culture

Domesticated Indian zebu cattle were present on the western margins of the South Asian subcontinent as early as 6000 B.C. Cattle were important in the agricultural economy of the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley, but archaeological evidence suggests the bull was also assuming a symbolic or religious role in this culture during the third millennium B.C. There is, however, little to suggest that the cow was viewed as sacred. Following the decline of the Harappan civilization, northwestern India was settled by Aryan-speaking peoples who laid the foundations of modern Indian society. The Aryans were pastoral by nature and the economic importance of cattle to this society is mirrored in the role of cattle in ritual, in the pastoral symbolism of the Vedic literature (the ancient religious literature of Hinduism), and also in the association of the cow with various Vedic deities. Yet, again there is nothing to suggest the cow was viewed as sacred at this time. It is not until the appearance of the ahimsa philosophy at the end of the Vedic period, and the acceptance of this belief in the major religious philosophies of the region (Jainism, Buddhism, and later Hinduism), that the concept of the sanctity and inviolability of the cow began to crystallize. The “sacred-cow concept” appears as established doctrine in Hindu literature by the end of the medieval period (ca. fourth century A.D.), although popular practice appears to be at variance with this doctrine. A variety of historical, political, religious and social factors appear to have contributed to the general acceptance of the sacred cow doctrine by the Hindu population at large. During the 1960s, the “sacred cow” was at the center of a controversy in the social sciences concerning whether the concept was essentially religious in nature or reflected the ecological realities of the cattle economy of the Indian subcontinent. This debate notwithstanding, cattle remain central to the Indian economy, but also play a significant role in the religion and rituals of modern Hinduism, particularly those related to the worship of Krishna. Cattle have also assumed a political role in contemporary India, with anti-cow-slaughter legislation and the protection of the cow being identified with the emerging Hindutva movement. No understanding of South Asian culture can be complete without an awareness of the economic, historical, political and religious dimensions of cattle in the Indian subcontinent.     

The Punjab crisis since 1984: A reassessment

Over the last decade there has been increasing scholarly interest in the ethnic character of the Indian state. This interest has coincided with the rise of the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP], nation‐wide clashes between Hindus and Muslims, and bitter conflict over affirmative action for backward classes. Simultaneously, the Indian state has been confronted by regional movements in Kashmir, Assam and Punjab seeking secession from the Indian Union. By focusing on the Punjab crisis this article argues that conventional explanations have concentrated on national political centralization and regional economic factors, to the neglect of Sikh ethno‐nationalism and its dialectical relationship with strategies for ethnic conflict management followed by the Indian state since 1947. Drawing on recent revisionist accounts, the Indian state, it is suggested, should be viewed as a form of an ethnic democracy in which hegemonic control is exercised over non‐Hindu ethnic groups. The Punjab case‐study shows that hegemonic control has characterized the relationship between the Sikhs and the Indian state between 1947 and 1984, and efforts to re‐establish hegemonic control after 1984 degenerated into violent control. The experience of the last ten years suggests that hegemonic control and violent control are unlikely to provide an enduring solution to the Punjab crisis. Rather, there is a need to address fundamentally the crisis of the Indian political system and how it has managed its minorities since 1947. Central to this reassessment is the viability of India's majoritarian political system in the context of an ethnically plural society.     

Discarding Park's axiom

Ethnic and racial studies fail to link up well with mainstream sociology if they assume that their subject matter is defined by the social constructs of ethnicity and race. Hindu nationalism cultivates other social constructs, yet recent studies of this movement show that sociologically it has much in common with ethnic and racial movements. The theory of collective action offers the most promising prospect for the analysis of such commonalities on a global scale.     

How can we meet ‘the demands of the day’? Producing an affective,reflexive, interpretive,public sociology of ‘race’

This article argues for a public sociology of ‘race’ that can respond to Weber's injunction that sociology should ‘meet the demands of the day’. While the author's version of these demands – for a society of autonomous individuals and groups, living as equals – is utopian, the main argument offered here is that a sociology of ‘race’ should be a modified version of Burawoy's ‘public sociology’. Adopting Bauman's notion of a sociology of interpreters, a further suggestion is that this type of sociology needs to be reflexive and affective. Based on an analysis of his own sociological education in the late 1960s, his participation in social and political movements in which ‘race’ was key, and with brief reference to the sociology of ‘race’, the author argues that the emotions that circulated in each arena need to be examined, acknowledged and incorporated if theoretical and practical progress is to be made.