Dynamics of Religion at the Margins of Modern Indonesia

One of the five principles of the Indonesian state ideology is belief in one supreme God. Religious freedom is supported but restricted to six officially recognized “world religions”, which are defined by a scriptural monotheistic doctrine. These world religions are contrasted with a variety of local traditions and belief system. This research project in social and cultural anthropology explored what the norm-setting religious politics of the Indonesian nation-state means for Indonesia’s many minority religions. It did so through a study of the Kaharingan religion in the two provinces of East and Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo, and especially among the Luangan Dayak, a group of indigenous non-Muslim peoples. In Central Kalimantan, Kaharingan has become recognized as a “religion” as a result of affiliation with Balinese Hinduism, and subsequently known as Hindu Kaharingan. In East Kalimantan Kaharingan only has status as tradition, and its participants are consequently seen as primitive animists who lack national consciousness. This makes the Luangan particularly suitable as a subject for a comparative study of how Indonesian religious politics have influenced local religious practices and the position of ethnic minorities in it, forming a sort of natural laboratory for comparison.

The research compared the situation in East and Central Kalimantan to learn about what work the “agama” concept accomplishes in practice. What does it include and what does it exclude? What does it mean to have a religion for Central Kalimantan Luangans, and not to have one for East Kalimantan Luangans? How do Luangan conceptions of religion differ from those expressed in the national discourse?

The research objective was two-fold: to explore how Luangan, and other Dayak, religious practices and discourse challenge national and global definitions of religion, and to study how they were articulated with local, national, and global hierarchies of value. Whereas existing scholarship mostly has focused on the concept’s emergence in colonial times, the project explored how it continues to be negotiated in contemporary societies. By studying Luangan religious identity and practice as a result of different, sometimes conflicting value orientations, the project illuminated not only processes of accommodation or resistance, but also questions of how people organize their lives to pursue what they understand of as the good.