Martial arts and the body politic in Indonesia
By: by Lee Wilson
Series: Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde -- volume 299; Power and place in Southeast Asia -- volume 7
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 244
ISBN-13: 9789004287730; 9789004289352
Subjects: Pencak silat; Martial arts; Power (Social sciences)
Description: "Offers an innovative study of nationalism and the Indonesian state through the ethnography of the martial art of Pencak Silat. Wilson shows how technologies of physical and spiritual warfare such as Pencak Silat have long played a prominent role in Indonesian political society. He demonstrates the importance of these technologies to the display and performance of power, and highlights the limitations of theories of secular modernity for understanding political forms in contemporary Indonesia. He offers a compelling argument for a revisionist account of models of power in Indonesia in which authority is understood as precarious and multiple, and the body is politically charged because of its potential for transformation"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-226) and index.
Table of contents: title: From out of the shadows; title: Bodies of knowledge : the pedagogy of pencaksilat; title: Blessings, bone setting and the blood of the ancestors; title: The management of tradition; title: From the mystical to the molecular; title: Sovereign bodies and the practicalities of power.