Understanding an Active Volcano: Naturalism, Analogism and Animism in Central Javanese Society

Through the example of the Merapi volcano in Central Java in Indonesia, this talk will explore different practices and conceptions related to the comprehension and the communication with this uncertain environment. Merapi volcano is located in the “ring of fire” where Indo-Australian plate meets the Eurasian plate. At almost 3000 meter above the sea level, it is considered as permanently active. The volcano stands at 30 kilometers from the city of Yogyakarta, capital city of the eponym province. In the region, population density is quite high with 7000 inhabitant/km2 in the city and around 1000 inhabitant/km2 in the rural areas of Merapi’s south flank.

Map of the Indonesian Subduction Zone System (Gertisser & Keller, 2003)
Resettled Village of Pelemsari, 2012.

This reflection is a part of an anthropological research about the post-disaster resettlement (relokasi) of a village (dusun) located in the Merapi volcano’s south flank. Totally destroyed by the 2010 eruption of Merapi, the 81 household of the studied village was removed 5 kilometers downstream of its original location, through a post disaster governmental reconstruction program.

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Introduction session part 1 : Beyond Nature and Culture in Southeast Asia

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The objective of this seminar is to study the relations between natures and societies in Southeast Asia in the light of the work of the French anthropologist Philippe Descola. The expressions Beyond nature and culture1 refers to the title of his master piece which is a deconstruction of the idea of a universal nature. It means that we will attempt thought this seminar :

Beyond Nature and Culture

  1. To transcend the Western dualism that opposes nature and society as two different and separate realms of beings.
  2.  To include in our study the relation between human and non-humans – gods, spirits, plants, animals, objects.
  3. To explore the diversity of natures in Southeast Asia.

 

In this first part, I will present Philippe Descola and the big lines of the his thought.
In the second part, I will develop through examples how his theoretical propositions could be adapted to Southeast Asian ethnographic materials.

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  1. Philippe Descola. Beyond Nature and Culture, Translated by Janet Lloyd Foreword by Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago Press, [2005] 2013, 488 pages []
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