Contesting Sacred Boundaries of Uluwatu

Abstract

Pecatu Village in the southern peninsula of Bali has transformed rapidly from a remote and arid area into a well-known tourist village where the Uluwatu Temple, white sand beaches, and luxuries hotels or villas are situated. In this chapter, I discuss my first case study concerning conflicts over the sacred space of Uluwatu Temple. I examine how the changes in physical landscape, economy, and socio-cultural conditions of the village due to massive tourism development have affected the ways in which local people perceive sacred space. The chapter shows that the entanglement between the ‘production’ of Uluwatu Temple’s sacred space and the ‘profane’ forces of the mass tourism industry provoke complex cross-scale alliances and resistances to claim responsibility and ownership of the space’s material and symbolic significance.