Author Description

"Ritual and World Change in a Balinese Princedom is an ethnography of a contemporary Balinese princedom as it engages with globally influenced circumstances. A ritual of ancestral deification serves as a vehicle for talking about the Balinese negara (or state), power, subject formation, and local approaches to the changing nation-state. The stage is set with a narrative of the large-scale ritual performed by a minor noble house in the highlands of eastern Bali, presented as it unfolds in counterpoint with the national political upheaval surrounding President Suharto's fall from power in 1998. Through the lens of the ritual we observe the deliberate reconstitution of ancient forms of caste hierarchy, from where we go on to look more closely at how and why the various participants became involved. Two discourses join in a surprising way, as questions posed about modern politics and the broader meaning of the ritual lead back to issues debated at the level of the nature of the Balinese state. In the modern era, where the princedom lacks obvious forms of power to coerce, the question that rises to the fore is "why?". Why do the subjects still follow and work for file princes? This question recurs as subsequent chapters investigate what the ritual reveals about the dynamics of the princedom and how it relates to other aspects of Balinese society. Ritual and World Change examines local approaches to being princes and princely subjects, but also to being subjects of and agents in the nation-state in times of turmoil."--Jacket.