Anthropology of religion: Disasters and the representations of tradition and modernity

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research, this article explores local explanations for and interpretations of the earthquake which occurred on the island of Java, Indonesia in May 2006, costing 6000 lives and leaving about 1 million people homeless. Although everybody knows that the disaster was the result of tectonic activity, this knowledge co-exists with religious beliefs in manifold ways. The most widespread accounts of the earthquake referred to local myths connected to the landscape. The spirits are said to have sent the disaster in order to remind the Javanese – and most importantly the Sultan and other people in power – of their traditions. Several rituals were invented to prevent more misery, and certain experts thereby gained considerable importance. The various ways in which people shaped, interpreted and negotiated the meaning of the disaster are interconnected with their understanding of tradition and modernity. This article argues that – whereas Javanese culture was based on an image of the reconciliation of these spheres before – the discourse on the earthquake reveals a new tendency to polarise: on the one hand modernity is associated with secularisation, materialism, moral decay and ecological exploitation, while on the other hand tradition is idealised according to a global model of spirituality and harmony. Thus, the main argument of this paper is that the culturalisation of a natural event brings both cultural and transcultural dynamics to light.