Discordant temporalities in Bali's new village jurisdictions

Abstract

In Bali's new village jurisdiction that came about as a by-product of Indonesia's recent decentralisation process, a magical worldview has been juridified that is intrinsically linked to traditional Balinese ritualism. The juridification of the magical worldview and the ritualism that comes with it not only attest to increasing legal pluralism in contemporary Indonesia but also bear evidence to rising interlegal tensions by showing how important norms of the national legal system, such as gender equality, religious freedom, and equal rights for all Indonesian citizens, are effectively challenged by lower level legislations. Preoccupied with the continuous actualisation of eschatological reference points in Bali's past, Balinese ritualism – together with local customary law in which it is firmly embedded – has become a major source of law in the island's new village jurisdictions. Casting modernist Hindu cosmologies and notions of time as potentially threatening to the ritual purity of the realm, the juridified traditionalist norms have exacerbated the existing discord between traditionalist and modernist Hindu Balinese, seriously disadvantaging the latter. This article explores the emic logic, the political circumstances, and some of the socio-cultural ramifications of this development by paying particular attention to divergent social notions of time implied in the conflict.