JULIUS BAUTISTA, ed. The Spirit of Things: Materiality and Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2012, x+220p.

Abstract

The Spirit of Things: Materiality and Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia JULIUS BAUTISTA, ed. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2012, x+220p.Southeast Asia is a region of great religious diversity. A variety of ethnic religions interact with world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, all of which, with the excep- tion of Judaism, are still flourishing there. While advocates of secularization thesis previously deemed religion to be an antithesis to modernity, recent scholarship has shown that religion suc- ceeds in adapting itself to the modernization process, and that it continues to shape personal beliefs, moral values, and faith practices in Southeast Asia today.The 13 essays in The Spirit of Things vary in research scope and interest. The contributors are committed to analyzing the religious material culture from historical and ethnographic perspec- tives. They explore how religion manifests itself in different forms of material culture ranging from icons and liturgies to architecture and artifacts. These material forms not only make doctrinal teachings easily accessible to commoners but also define the world of beliefs and practices.The opening essay by Julius Bautista and Anthony Reid conceptualizes the overlapping rela- tions between materiality and religiosity in colonial and postcolonial Southeast Asia. Using the materiality of religion as a theoretical framework, they argue that religiosity is closely linked to collective rituals and sacred objects, and deeply embedded in local society. Because religious material culture covers a spectrum of sensory experiences and emotional sentiments, it is impor- tant to examine how certain icons, commodities, and acts come to be identified with devotional meanings in specific temporal and spatial contexts. Therefore, belief and material culture are not independent variables. Rather, they constantly interact with each other in both sacred and secular domains and shape the religious landscape.The first two chapters highlight the effects of marketization on piety in Vietnam and Malaysia. Laurel Kendall, Vu Thi Thanh Tâm, and Nguy?n Thi Thu Huong investigate the widespread circu- lation of sacred objects in contemporary Vietnam. Although the late twentieth-century Vietnamese reformers attacked organized religion and the devotional and liturgical practices of commoners, religious practitioners never remained passive subjects in the state-building process. They reacted to top-down institutional change by shifting their bargaining strategies, which in turn affected the socialist government's anti-religion policies. As a result, popular religions continue to flourish, providing people with moral guidance in a fast-changing world and enabling them to access the cosmological power of gods, ghosts, and ancestors for protection. Johan Fischer studies the efforts of middle-class Malay Muslims to reconcile next-worldly piety with worldly concerns like wealth and health (p.31). As automobiles become a major marker of socioeconomic status in Malaysia, many middle-class Muslims favor the ownership of locally-manufactured Proton cars as a moral and patriotic choice against the purchase of Western luxury cars.People in Southeast Asia have experienced a long history of intra- and inter-state conflicts. In time of peace and stability, ecumenical infrastructure is thought to be capable of resolving reli- gious and ethnic divides. Chapters 4 to 6 address the symbiotic relationship between religion and politics. Janet Hoskins analyzes the visual expression of Caodaism, a homegrown religion based in Tay Ninh, about 100 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City. The Caodaists carved out a separate space for themselves at the margin of French Indochina. Owing deference neither to the French nor to the Communists, Caodaism was suppressed by the socialist state after 1975, and was only given legal recognition in 1997. The religious architecture in Tay Ninh today expresses a theo- logical desire to operate as a self-autonomous faith community and to distance itself from secular politics. …