THE COMMODIFICATION OF THE TRADITION OF HANGING THE PLACENTA AND PLACENTA CEMETERY AS A TOURIST ATTRACTION IN BAYUNG GEDE VILLAGE

Abstract

As it is known as a traditional village or Bali Aga, Bayung Gede village has a unique culture, namely carrying out the tradition of burying the placenta by hanging it. Even so, the undeniable touch of the massive expansion of tourism in Bali has driven the potential of this unique tradition to be a tourist attraction. This paper generally examined the commodification of the practice of hanging the placenta and the area of the placenta cemetery as local wisdom and cultural identity for the villagers, which is a consequence of global capitalism development that can be functioned as a tourism prospect. This qualitative descriptive research is conducted in Bayung Gede village, Kintamani, Bali. This study employs a critical ethnographic method in the paradigm of cultural studies. The methods of observation, interviews, and documentation used to collect the required data and supported by secondary data sources in the form of written notes, previous studies, books, and other related documents. The globalization theory, the theory of capitalism, and the theory of commodification are used as a theoretical basis to investigate the problems studied. The results revealed the commodification of the tradition of hanging the placenta and the placenta forest could be seen in the forms of commodification of the tradition of hanging the placenta, and the placenta cemetery as a tourist attraction in Bayung Gede village is in the form of the production processes, distribution, and consumption processes. Moreover, the commodification of the tradition of hanging the placenta along with the usage of traditional placenta cemetery as a tourist attraction is impacted by external and internal factors, which have implications for social, economic, and cultural aspects.