The Power Of The Senses: Ethnicity, History and Embodiment in East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

The people of Probolinggo in East Java describe themselves as ‘mixed people’, i.e. the outcome of intense interaction between descendants of migrants from Java and Madura, and construe this mixing as founded on the merging of the otherwise juxtaposed qualities of halus and kasar. The paper reconsiders some of the issues surrounding this distinction and by placing itself in the intersection of deconstructive readings of ‘Java’ and the paradigm of embodiment, it attempts to arrive at a phenomenological analysis of ethnicity in contemporary Java that throws light on the ways culture constructions are lived and experienced.