Wrathful Ancestors, Corporate Sorcerers: Rituals gone Rogue in Merauke, West Papua.
Anthropological studies of ritual 'failure' challenge the assumed efficacy of ritual in affirming the social order. Drawing from fieldwork in West Papua, I examine the 'failure' and 'success' of two rain‐making ceremonies – one hosted by an indigenous Marind expert, the other by an Indonesian oil pa...
| Publicado en: | Oceania Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 266 - 284 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Wiley-Blackwell
Nov2019
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=139455946&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 139455946 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00298077 OCA jtl: Oceania issn: 00298077 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Nov2019 vid: 89 iid: 3 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 139455946 10.1002/ocea.5229 ppf: 266 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 169KB tig: atl: Wrathful Ancestors, Corporate Sorcerers: Rituals gone Rogue in Merauke, West Papua. aug: au: Chao, Sophie affil: University of Sydney su: Papua (Indonesia) Bateson, Gregory, 1904-1980 Social order Corporate power Supernatural Foreign corporations Ritual Oil palm sug: subj: Social order Corporate power Papua (Indonesia) Supernatural Foreign corporations Ritual Oil palm Bateson, Gregory, 1904-1980 keyword: corporations Marind morality ritual sorcery West Papua corporations Marind morality ritual sorcery West Papua ab: Anthropological studies of ritual 'failure' challenge the assumed efficacy of ritual in affirming the social order. Drawing from fieldwork in West Papua, I examine the 'failure' and 'success' of two rain‐making ceremonies – one hosted by an indigenous Marind expert, the other by an Indonesian oil palm corporation. Participants conceived the failure of the first ritual as a punishment meted by ancestral spirits against Marind who support agribusiness expansion. Meanwhile, the success of the corporate ceremony confirmed rumours that corporations wield foreign and powerful forms of sorcery. Drawing on Gregory Bateson's notion of the double bind, I suggest that the ritual outcomes dramatize the irreconcilable demands placed on Marind by custom and capitalism. Attempts to endorse agribusiness incur ancestral punishment, while efforts to oppose it are thwarted by the superior power of corporate sorcerers. In this context, I argue, the moral implications of the corporate ritual's unexpected 'success' prove just as problematic as those of the customary ritual's dramatic 'failure'. Co‐opted yet efficacious, corporate rituals point to a new social order in which both Marind and their ancestral spirits find themselves subjected to foreign sources of supernatural control. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|