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Ritual, Sex and the Body: Heterodox Ritual Practices at Pilgrimage Sites in Central Java

Ritual, Sex and the Body: Heterodox Ritual Practices at Pilgrimage Sites in Central Java This article compares three pilgrimage sites in Central Java known for heterodox ritual practices. These practices include sexual activities between partners who are not married to each other (ritual seks). Since the sexual partners meet each other as strangers, they ignore the possible differences of rank and status between them and encounter each other as equals. These practices are part of a ritual repertoire that is constitutive of a current within Islam for which the controversial category abangan has established itself in anthropological discourse. The fact that these ritual practices have been enjoying an unprecedented boom in the context of local pilgrimages since the 1980s sheds a different light on the widely held thesis of a decline in this social category. Rather, this boom makes it clear that the Islamisation of Indonesia is not a linear process, but is ambivalent and contradictory. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Taylor & Francis

Ritual, Sex and the Body: Heterodox Ritual Practices at Pilgrimage Sites in Central Java

Gottowik, Volker
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology , Volume 21 (4): 20 – Aug 7, 2020
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Ritual, Sex and the Body: Heterodox Ritual Practices at Pilgrimage Sites in Central Java

Abstract

This article compares three pilgrimage sites in Central Java known for heterodox ritual practices. These practices include sexual activities between partners who are not married to each other (ritual seks). Since the sexual partners meet each other as strangers, they ignore the possible differences of rank and status between them and encounter each other as equals. These practices are part of a ritual repertoire that is constitutive of a current within Islam for which the controversial...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2020 The Australian National University
ISSN
1740-9314
eISSN
1444-2213
DOI
10.1080/14442213.2020.1800811
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article compares three pilgrimage sites in Central Java known for heterodox ritual practices. These practices include sexual activities between partners who are not married to each other (ritual seks). Since the sexual partners meet each other as strangers, they ignore the possible differences of rank and status between them and encounter each other as equals. These practices are part of a ritual repertoire that is constitutive of a current within Islam for which the controversial category abangan has established itself in anthropological discourse. The fact that these ritual practices have been enjoying an unprecedented boom in the context of local pilgrimages since the 1980s sheds a different light on the widely held thesis of a decline in this social category. Rather, this boom makes it clear that the Islamisation of Indonesia is not a linear process, but is ambivalent and contradictory.

Journal

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Aug 7, 2020

Keywords: Sexuality; Religion; Pilgrimage; Mimesis; Indonesia

References

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