Journal articles on the topic 'Mythology, Indonesian'

AbstractThis article analyzes how intangible cultural expressions are re-scripted as national intellectual and cultural property in postcolonial nations such as Indonesia. The mixing of intellectual and cultural property paradigms to frame folkloric art practices as national possessions, termed “intangible property nationalism,” is assessed through consideration of Indonesia's 2002 copyright law, UNESCO heritage discourse, and the tutoring of ASEAN officials to use intellectual and cultural property rhetoric to defend national cultural resources. The article considers how legal assumptions are rebuffed by Indonesian regional artists and artisans who do not view their local knowledge and practices as property subject to exclusive claims by individuals or corporate groups, including the state. Producers' limited claims on authority over cultural expressions such as music, drama, puppetry, mythology, dance, and textiles contrast with Indonesian officials' anxieties over cultural theft by foreigners, especially in Malaysia. The case suggests new nationalist uses for heritage claims in postcolonial states.

Abstrak Kearifan lokal tentang insiden lumpur Lapindo adalah cerita rakyat tentang kejadian di masa lalu yang dapat digunakan sebagai pelajaran pada masa kini dan masa depan, tentang dongeng Candi Tawangalun dan dongeng Emas Ketimun. Terlepas apakah itu sebuah dongeng yang pernah terjadi secara empiris atau hanya realitas-fiksi, kehadirannya dapat digunakan sebagai pijakan untuk memahami peristiwa (bencana) dari perspektif budaya. Wawasan Geo-Budaya dan Geo-Mitologi dalam cerita rakyat Lapindo bisa menjadi alternatif bahan pembelajaran kontekstual berbasis kearifan lokal dalam pembelajaran bahasa Indonesia untuk penutur asing karena kontekstualitas dan substansi nilai-nilai yang terkandung di dalamnya sangat menarik. Praktek pembelajaran bahasa Indonesia untuk penutur asing di Australia diketahui bahwa cerita tradisi lisan tapi cerita hanya sebagai pelengkap tradisi lisan sama pentingnya dengan pengetahuan tentang tata bahasa, bahkan dengan pengenalan tradisi lisan cerita, pembelajar BIPA akan mengetahui tentang budaya Indonesia. Kata-kata kunci: cerita rakyat, Geo-Culture, Geo-Mythology, kearifan lokal, BIPA Abstract Local wisdom about Lapindo mudflow incident is the folklore about the events in the past that can be used as a lesson on the present and future, that fairy tales Tawangalun Temple and fairy tale Golden Cucumber. Regardless whether it's a fairy tale ever happened empirically or just reality-fiction, its presence can be used as a foothold for understanding the events (disasters) from the perspective of the present culture. Insights Geo-Culture and Geo-Mythology in Lapindo folklore can be an alternative contextual teaching materials based on local wisdom in learning Indonesian for foreign speakers because contextuality and substance of the values contained in it very interesting. Practice learning Indonesian for foreign speakers in Australia is known that oral tradition story but the story only as a complement to the oral tradition is just as important as knowledge of grammar, even with the introduction of the oral tradition of story, BIPA learners will know the culture of Indonesia.Keywords: folklore, Geo-Culture, Geo-Mythology, local wisdom, BIPA

This article examines the rewriting of mythology (remythology) in Eka Kurniawan’s magic realism novel titled Man Tiger (2004). The discussion particularly explores how the remythology of the Indonesian myth of manusia harimau responses to historical references that are embedded in the narrative. I found that remythology in the novel is used to replicate people’s voice, and by using that voice, the Indonesian nation attempts to decolonize itself from colonization and to epitomize a resistance against postcolonial powers. The myths surrounding manusia harimau in the novel further provide references to Indonesia’s identity that is located between two separate identities, the indigenous and the colonial, which comprise resistance as well as resilience. By using various local mythical frameworks, Eka Kurniawan addresses the complexity of the Indonesian nation which constitutes an acknowledgement, and an interpretation, as well as a response to the past in order to form a resilient present.

Dunia paradigma dan perspektif keilmuan pada masa kini sedang dalam “kekacauan” lewat kehadiran bermacam terminologi, seperti posmodernisme, pasca kebenaran (post truth), disrupsi, dan juga poshumanisme. Masing-masing membentuk pusarannya sendiri-sendiri dan seolah-olah masing-masing memiliki legalitas dan kebenarannya untuk muncul sebagai eksisensi yang sangat menopang perkembangan kualitas peradaban umat manusia di atas bumi ini. Sementara itu, dalam konnteks ke-Indonesia-an, berbagai pusaran tersebut pasti mau tidak mau, lambat maupun cepat, tentu akan memiliki dampak, mengingat Indonesia merupakan bagian dari peradaban dunia yang sedang dan terus dalam proses peradaban global. Alih-alih sekadar sebagai objek dari berbagai pusaran tersebut, mampukah Indonesia mengembangkan pola atau strategi yang karakteristik sehingga mampu juga hadir sebagai agen pengubah bagi peradaban tersebut? Jika peradaban Barat berhasil mengglobalkan peradabannya ke berbagai penjuru dunia, lepas dari aspek kolonialisme dan modernismenya, lewat kebesaran mitologi Yunani, yang merupakan sumber peradabannya, mungkinkah Indonesia juga mampu menghadirkan diri secara independen dan berkarakteristik lewat mitologi? Di sinilah peranan eksistensi sastra yang akan akan menjadi salah satu pilar utamanya. Terlebih, sebagai bangsa yang sangat beragam dengan kekayaan etnik, yang tentu juga kaya akan mitologi, sastra Indonesia tentu sudah memiliki modalnya. Bersama-sama dengan bangsa-bangsa lain serumpun, Indonesia bisa menciptakan nilai-nilai dalam menegosiasi peradaban dunia yang sedang sibuk dengan berbagai paradigma dan perspektif yang beridentitaskan “post.”.

This paper explores the thoughts of Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana (STA). STA is referred to as a cultural practitioner, because it discusses more the cultures that enter Indonesia, such as Indian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and native Indonesian culture, even it also discusses western culture. He also wrote a lot such as poetry, novels, philosophy books and he was among the first to make Indonesian terms, so he was called a writer. This research is a type of library research (library research) by presenting qualitative-interpretative data. The purpose of this study is to reveal the fact that the religion of Islam in Indonesia is a religion that does not dichotomize between the reality supported by invoices and spiritual reality because Islam today is deeply engrossed in the history of the development of Islam in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, also today Islam is shackled with religious myths, so as to be able to resolve Islam in Indonesia, it cannot develop and is anti-Western rationality. STA thinking is rooted in the humanist understanding that developed in Europe from the Renaissance to the rise of new-positivism. Its humanism is built on human liberation from the shackles of mythology and religion.

Abstract This article reflects on the role of religion as one of four, interconnected layers in the contextual novels of the candid and controversial Indonesian author Ayu Utami (b. 1968). Next to important gender issues, substantial critique of Indonesian politics, and attention to Javanese culture and mythology, her Christian background is present, in varying density, in all novels she has published so far. This can be proved by numerous quotations from the Bible and even by the fact, that the main protagonist of her largest novel so far is given an almost Messianic status. In her earlier novels, Ayu Utami seems to distance herself from patriarchic, institutional Catholicism. However, in her most recent, autobiographical, novel she makes clear, why and under which conditions she is able to return to her maternal faith.

Indonesian films and television shows often feature popularly though only superficially known figures from Javanese mythology, including the Goddess of the Southern Ocean Nyai Roro Kidul and her counterpart the Queen of the Snakes Nyi Blorong. In this study I examine the effects of placing the stories about these entities in ‘media space’ (Sen and Hill 2000:199), thus removing them from the local context that in the past infused them with its truth, and making possible their apposition to other truths and values that were previously unconnected to them, and may or may not be congenial with them.

This article reveals the fact that in Islamic Family Law, there are a number of anomalies and crisis, for instance, Islamic Law Compilation (KHI) on polygamy and mixed-religion marriage which contains discrimination and intolerance. This, however, is caused by its enforcement bound by civil law and merely to theMoslem communities. The article introduces the nationalization and internationalization of Islamic family law in the KHI, thus eliminating discrimination and intolerance. This will be sought by creating coherence between KHI and modernity issues such as: Human Rights, democracy, civil society, nation state and constitutionalism in the effort to desacralization. When added with the term desacralization, it will mean to liberate people from superstitious constraints (mythology) in some aspects, yet reserving the sacralization, not undermining or abandoning religious orientation in the norms and values of society, especially in the Islamic Family Law. Understanding this fundamental, desacralization of Islamic family law is, hence, Quo Vadis Islamic Family Law, that will eventually create progressive Islamic Family Law consistent with modernity and Indonesian ideology

Abstract Structural anthropology in Leiden was very much inspired by Mauss and the Année sociologique group. This paper focuses on the development of the “field of anthropological study” (FAS) that played an important role in the history of the structuralist movement in Leiden. Its definition was derived from the famous essay Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo by Mauss. J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong and P.E. de Josselin de Jong developed it into a conceptual tool for the comparative study of the Indonesian archipelago. In the early 1980s, the method was applied to the anthropological study of South Africa and to the comparative study of Indo-European mythology. Since 1986, it was also applied to solve core issues in the comparative study of Inuit culture. The FAS approach does not look primarily for similarities and generalisation, but for homologies, variations and transformations. In this respect, it corresponds to the valorisation of cultural differences by Inuit themselves. More than 100 years after it was developed by Mauss to explain the morphology of Inuit societies, the field of anthropological study still proves to be as rich and rewarding as ever.

This study reveals the myth criticism on rhyme "Hang Tuah", an Amir Hamzah’s work expressing Malay myth. The Malay myth found in the rhyme "Hang Tuah" is placed as a meeting place of myth criticism study which includes (1) the structure of the text, (2) figure with its ideology, (3) setting presenting the myth, (4) type of myth, (5) method the poet displays the myth, and (6) the benefit or function of myth. The six elements of the review are expected to contribute in exposing and describing the element of mythology in modern Indonesian poetry and its relevance to the present situation. It is identified that Hang Tuah has an ideology of Malay heroism loyalty able to be a resource in national character building: willing to sacrifice and resilient in defending the country's sovereignty rights. The Malay heroic myth of Hang Tuah, delivered in the form of poetic ballads, adds to the classic aesthetic value. The present benefits of Hang Tuah myth, by his heroism in getting rid of European colonization, is certainly to boost the fighting spirit in defending the rights and dignity as an independent nation, free from occupation or colonialism. This study reveals the myth criticism on rhyme "Hang Tuah", an Amir Hamzah’s work expressing Malay myth. The Malay myth found in the rhyme "Hang Tuah" is placed as a meeting place of myth criticism study which includes (1) the structure of the text, (2) figure with its ideology, (3) setting presenting the myth, (4) type of myth, (5) method the poet displays the myth, and (6) the benefit or function of myth. The six elements of the review are expected to contribute in exposing and describing the element of mythology in modern Indonesian poetry and its relevance to the present situation. It is identified that Hang Tuah has an ideology of Malay heroism loyalty able to be a resource in national character building: willing to sacrifice and resilient in defending the country's sovereignty rights. The Malay heroic myth of Hang Tuah, delivered in the form of poetic ballads, adds to the classic aesthetic value. The present benefits of Hang Tuah myth, by his heroism in getting rid of European colonization, is certainly to boost the fighting spirit in defending the rights and dignity as an independent nation, free from occupation or colonialism Key Words: myth criticism; heroism; loyalty; fighting spirit Abstrak: Penelitian ini mengungkapkan kritik mitos sajak “Hang Tuah” karya Amir Hamzah yang menampilkan mitos Kemelayuan. Mitos Kemelayuan yang ditemukan dalam sajak “Hang Tuah” tersebut ditempatkan sebagai pumpunan penelaahan kritik mitos yang meliputi (1) struktur teks, (2) tokoh dengan ideologinya, (3) latar yang menghadirkan mitos, (4) jenis mitos, (5) cara penyair menampilkan mitos, dan (6) manfaat atau fungsi mitos. Dengan keenam unsur penelaahan kritik mitos itu diharapkan dapat diungkapkan dan dideskripsikan adanya unsur mitologi dalam puisi Indonesia modern dan relevansinya dengan keadaan masa kini. Ternyata Hang Tuah memiliki ideologi loyalitas heroisme Kemelayuan yang dapat menjadi pembentuk karakter bangsa: rela berkorban dan tangguh mempertahankan hak kedaulatan negeri. Mitos kepahlawanan Melayu Hang Tuah dengan cara disampaikan dalam bentuk balada yang puitis menambah nilai estetika klasik. Manfaat bagi kehidupan masa kini mitos Hang Tuah, atas kepahlawanannya mengusir penjajahan bangsa Eropa, tentu sebagai pemompa semangat juang mempertahankan hak dan martabat diri sebagai bangsa yang merdeka, bebas dari penjajahan atau kolonialisme

The Wana of Morowali (Indonesia) are nowadays a small endangered community marginalized by the Indonesian government, world religions and the other communities in the area but, according to their own mythology, they are not the periphery of the world, but the real centre of it. Their cosmogonic myth tells how the Wana land (Tana Taa) was the first land placed on the primordial waters and it was full of mythical power, a power that, when the land was spread around the world to create the continents, abandoned the Wana to donate wealth and power to the edge of the world: the West. This myth has a pivotal role in the Wana worldview, their categorization of the world and the power relationships in it. The Wana reverse the traditional relationship between centre and periphery, placing themselves in a powerless centre (the village or the Tana Taa) that gave all its power to a periphery (the jungle or the West) that must be explored to obtain power and knowledge. This relationship not only expresses a clear agency in shaping the relationship of power with forces way stronger than the Wana (Government and world religions) but also creates internal hierarchies based on the access to this knowledge; granted to men and partially precluded to women due to the cultural characterizations of these genders. Indeed, the majority of shamans, called tau walia (human-spirit), are men, and they are the only one that can travel between the human and the spiritual world, obtaining a spiritual and social power. In this article, we will see how Wana categorise the world and use religion, rituality and gender to express their agency to cope with the marginalization by the government, the world religions and the other community in the area.

The presence of Indonesian women writers with the dominant discourse of the power of body, presenting the pros and cons that would not go over. Female body is the language of women that can be poured through the writing of literary works. Helene Cixous brought the spirit of "writing the body" to motivate women authors to express himself through written discourse, which so far has been dominated by men. Cixous spirit is also promoted by Dinar Rahayu appear in the novel Ode untuk Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch. Dinar Rahayu voicing complexity of urban women's voices in this novel through several migration symbolic of the power of the female body. Migration is enriched by the presence of symbolic power in a sound body of Greek and Scandinavian mythology and Leopold voices in his work Venus in Furs. Through in-depth reading on the symbolic migration brought to the Ode untuk Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch through the voices of the characters and the particularities of naration techniques can be seen that this novel (as well as other sexist novels) is not merely a commodity that exploit sexuality pornography but rather an attempt to author urban female voices will be the "body power". This study uses content analysis method that begins with the reading of literature, heuristic and hermeneutic, and take advantage of intertextuality approach.

Sentani is one of more than two hundred tribes in Papua that has various folklore as their invaluable cultural heritages. One of them is folktale. Folktales that used to be passed down with some purposes are not recognised by the people anymore. This serious phenomenon cannot be ignored since there are philosophy, mythology, and indigenous knowledge they carried with that can be used to build identity and the whole social life of Sentani people. This writing aims at igniting Sentani folktales and using them as learning sources for children. Data were collected through observation, deep interview, and recordings in three areas of Sentani, namely East, Central, and West Sentani. The research used socio-cultural approach and involved tribal chiefs, elderly people, parents, and teachers as the informants. The research found that folktales were still recognised in remote areas of Sentani, known by some tribal chiefs and elderly people and told mostly in Indonesian. Folktales collected can be used as various learning sources for children, i.e. (1) Sentani language, (2) literacy, (3) indigenous knowledge, and (4) character building. Igniting folktales as learning sources also means doing preservation of Sentani cultural heritages. Initiatives and discussion with tribal chiefs, government, and educators are urgently needed. Keyword: Sentani, cultural heritages, folktales MENGHIDUPKAN KEMBALI CERITA RAKYAT SEBAGAI SUMBER BELAJAR ANAK-ANAK DI SENTANI JAYAPURA PAPUA AbstrakSentani adalah satu dari ratusan suku di Papua yang mempunyai berbagai pusaka budaya yang tak ternilai harganya. Salah satunya adalah cerita rakyat. Cerita rakyat yang dahulu dituturkan dengan bermacam tujuan ini kini telah ditinggalkan oleh sebagian besar masyarakat. Fenomena seperti ini tak dapat dibi­ar­kan karena dalam cerita rakyat terdapat filosofi, mitologi, pengetahuan, dan nilai kearifan masyarakat yang dapat digunakan untuk membangun identitas dan kehi­dupan masyarakat secara keseluruhan. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menghidupkan kembali cerita rakyat dan menggunakannya sebagai sumber pembelajaran untuk anak-anak. Data dikumpulkan melalui observasi, wawancara mendalam, dan rekaman di tiga wilayah Sentani, yaitu Sentani Timur, Sentani Tengah dan Sentani Barat. Penelitian menggunakan pendekatan sosial-budaya dan melibatkan pe­mang­ku adat, tokoh masyarakat, orang tua dan guru sebagai informan. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa cerita rakyat masih dikenali di wilayah terpencil Sentani, dikuasai oleh sebagian kecil pemangku adat dan tokoh masyarakat, dan dituturkan sebagian besar dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Cerita yang diperoleh dapat digunakan sebagai sumber pembelajaran bagi anak-anak, yaitu (1) bahasa Sentani, (2) lite­rasi, (3) kearifan lokal, dan (4) pengembangan karakter. Menghidupkan kembali cerita rakyat sebagai sumber pembelajaran berarti melakukan preservasi pusaka budaya masyarakat. Inisiatif dan diskusi dengan para pemangku adat, pemerintah dan pemangku pendidikan perlu segera dilakukan. Kata Kunci: Sentani, pusaka budaya, cerita rakyat

This study relies on cultural political issues in the Sinden novel to be analyzed using the concept of Roland Barthes mythology. The mythology looks at the form of speech, including a literary work that reflects and reduces social discourse, cultural, ideological and historical. The method used in this research is a qualitative research method. The analysis has two stages of the sign system. The first system is the sign of denotative sign reading that takes the structural data covering themes, characters, conflicts, and settings that will produce signs. The results mark the first sign of the system as a new marker for a myth reading on both sign system. The reading of the myth in the Sinden novel generates political discourse cultures that reflect events in Indonesia with 1960s background. This study aims to describe the cultural issues covered by political interests and reveal the impact of cultural-political events experienced by the grassroots and increase appreciation of the reader in understanding the Sinden novel.

Socio-cultural and political changes occurred significantly in Chinese people in Indonesia after the fall of the new order. Gus Dur issued a revitalization policy of Chinese customs and beliefs as well as revoked Presidential Instruction numbered 14 of 1967. The shift in the political climate encouraged Chinese people to participate in the community, including from Chinese Muslims. Within Persatuan Islam Indonesia (PITI), they try to consolidate in order to adapt and exist. The objective of this research is to examine participatory strategy and PITI organizational dynamic in post-reformation Yogyakarta and use qualitative approach and phenomenology as a method. According to the analysis, keeping Chinese identity and being Javanese are cultural strategies in communicating Islam and methodology of adaptation. Manifested Chinese traditional elements (oral history, mythology, and philosophy) show dialogue and open-mindedness this community in the society. As a result, Chinese Muslims community plays a role as cultural broker between Chinese ethnicity and Yogyakarta Muslim society.

In times past, Christian missions emphasized significant culture change as an essential missionary goal. Recent missiology has moved toward a respect for the culture of the target society. In contrast to this movement, religious emissaries to the Liana-Seti people of Indonesia have overtly repressed that culture so that it might be replaced with a form of officially approved Christian culture. This has resulted in a bifurcated culture and ineffective Christianity. In an effort to respect the indigenous culture while challenging it, the current authors experimented with a narrative form of communication that respectfully incorporated the origin mythology1 of the people.

The problem of the veil remains a controversial issue that requires ongoing debate. This is inevitable because the use or wearing of a veil is closely associated with culture. In terms of etymology, the term hijab was not known in Indonesia until the coming of Islam. In the history of Indonesia, females are more familiar with the term kerudung than jilbab (both meaning veil). In the contemporary era, however, the term jilbab is arguably also marginalized by the term hijab. This word shift must have been influenced by the local culture. If the term can shift, so too can the meaning of its functions and benefits. Through this article, the author tries to read the veil from its shifting meanings and functions. For Roland Barthes the shift in meaning is called myth. It is very interesting to present the veil from the perspective of mythology, so that at a glance we can see the shift in the meaning of the veil in the Muslim community, ranging from a status symbol from the pre-Islamic era to the time of the Prophet, and now to a symbol of piety and lifestyle.

<p class="Bodytext20">The national revolution has brought effects on many aspects including the changing process of Javanese syncritism and relativism into the tolerance of Javanese. Anderson argues that Javanese relativism should not be understood as the tolerance toward public differences by ignoring races, colors, and beliefs. In fact, Javanese relativism does not bring any effect on other ethical groups in Indonesia. Therefore, the idea of openness and tolerance which has been admired from Javanese value is just like chauvinism cultural terminology. Javanese cultural behavior still becomes a mystery as its practice of tolerance measured by the wish and propinquity to its culture. The term of tolerance which becomes a pride and an ideology for Javanese people, in fact, shows the opposite situation as the practices of religiousness are still measured by social hierarchy. This character is inseparable from what is called a rigid religious mythology. It, then, offers much particular morale structure with diverse forms.</p><p class="Bodytext20"> </p><p class="Bodytext20">Revolusi nasional telah membawa dampak pada banyak aspek termasuk perubahan proses sinkritisme dan relativisme Jawa menjadi toleransi orang Jawa. Anderson berpendapat bahwa relativisme Jawa tidak boleh dipahami sebagai toleransi terhadap perbedaan publik dengan mengabaikan ras, warna, dan kepercayaan. Kenyataannya, relativisme Jawa tidak membawa dampak pada kelompok etis lain di Indonesia. Oleh karena itu, gagasan keterbukaan dan toleransi yang dikagumi dari nilai Jawa sama seperti istilah budaya chauvinisme. Perilaku budaya Jawa masih menjadi misteri karena praktik toleransinya diukur dengan harapan dan propimquity terhadap budayanya. Istilah toleransi yang menjadi sebuah kebanggaan dan ideologi bagi orang Jawa, pada kenyataannya, menunjukkan situasi yang berlawanan karena praktik religiusitas masih diukur dengan hierarki sosial. Karakter ini tak terpisahkan dari apa yang disebut mitologi religius yang kaku. Kemudian, ia menawarkan banyak struktur moral tertentu dengan beragam bentuk.</p>

One of Indonesia’s attractive cultures is available in the Javanese culture, especially in marriage tradition. Javanese marriage has been practiced in the forms of ritual or traditional ceremonies one of which is Jilu marriage. Jilu marriage is a customary law that prohibits a marriage between the fisrt child and the third child. Javanese people believe that the transgression of this law may bring about misfortune. This study explores how millennial generations view this tradition This research was conducted by using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Methods of collecting data include interview, literature review, and questionnaire. Quantitative data relies upon the statistic method while qualitative data is analyzed by reducing, exposing, and making conclusion. The study found that the mythology of Jilu marriage derives from Javanese ancestors’ beliefs that regard number 3 as sacred number. Interestingly, millennials views of this can be categorized into three groups: those who believe, those who do not take it into consideration, and those who are neutral. Salah satu budaya di Indonesia yang menarik untuk dikaji adalah budaya Jawa. Salah satunya terletak pada bidang pernikahan. Dalam melaksanakan pernikahan ada serangkaian ritual atau upacara adat yang harus dilaksanakan. Salah satu aturannya adalah dilarang melakukan pernikahan Jilu, yakni menikahkan anak nomor satu dengan anak nomor tiga karena dipercaya akan mendatangkan malapetaka. Pada era modern masyarakat Jawa masih ada yang percaya terhadap tradisi tersebut dan ada juga yang sudah meninggalkan. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk memberikan deskripsi tentang mitos pernikahan Jilu dan pendapat generasi milenial tentang mitos tersebut. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dan kuantitatif. Metode pengumpulan data menggunakan wawancara, studi pustaka, dan kuesioner. Data kuantitatif yang ada dianalis dan disajikan dengan model statistika (diagram batang dan lingkaran) dan dilakukan penarikan kesimpulan, sedangkan data kualitatif dianalisis dengan cara mereduksi serta memaparkan data, dan penarikan kesimpulan. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan mitos pernikahan Jilu berasal dari kepercayaan nenek moyang suku Jawa yang mengkeramatkan angka 3 dan dampaknya sering terjadi karena menjadi guneman masyarakat. Generasi milenial di Nganjuk ada yang percaya dengan tradisi Jilu, ada yang tidak percaya, dan ada yang bersikap netral.

Sangat lama pendidikan budi pekerti yang lahir dari bumi pertiwi terlindas pendidikan global yang menaruh harapan besar pada nilai-nilai Barat yang cenderung material dan amat hedonis. Pembangunan hanya mengejar nilai ekonomis, kurang memperhatikan pembangunan mental spiritual yang tumbuh dari peradaban sendiri sehingga mengakibatkan generasi penerus bangsa menjadi generasi “kolokan”, tidak tahu tata etiket bangsanya. Arti dari kegetiran itu adalah kita sejak lama membutuhkan santapan rohani yang membumi, agar anak bangsa ini tidak tercerabut dari akar tradisi luhurnya. Oleh karena itu, pada kesempatan ini penulis menyajikan nilai-nilai moralitas bangsa yang tertuang dalam karya-karya klasik, khususnya karya Geguritan Sarasamuscaya. Pengungkapan nilai-nilai ajaran yang dikandung kiranya dapat dipakai ancangan untuk mengisi pendidikan budi pekerti yang dilupakan dalam kurikulum sekolah di Indonesia. Namun, belakangan ini semakin santer terdengar manfaatnya untuk diajarkan dari tingkat pendidikan paling dasar hingga ke pendidikan perguruan tinggi. Dalam rangka merancang nilai moralitas dari teks Geguritan Sarasamuscaya menjadi bahan jadi yang dapat dipedomani, penulisan ini dibantu dengan pendekatan yang bersifat pascastruktural yang kritis. Teori yang digunakan adalah teori resepsi Jauss, teori semiotika Pierce, dan teori mitologi dari Barthes. Nilai-nilai moralitas teks Geguritan Sarasamuscaya sangat baik dipakai pedoman untuk pengajaran budi pekerti. Dengan demikian, moralitas bangsa yang kita cintai ini tidak jatuh pada titik nadir.Abstract:It has been a decade that character building education taken from national cultural h er it ag e s qu as hed b y gl ob al edu ca t io n. T he g lo ba l edu ca ti on h as cou n ted grea tl y o n western values tending to be the material and very hedonistic. Development only pursues on economic value and less attention to development of mental spiritual that has grown from his own civilization. As the result it has created ”spoiled” generation , not knowing the character of their own nation. The meaning of bad condition is that we have been searching for finding our spiritual teaching. Hence, child ren of this na tion are not up rooted f rom tra dition i nherited by ou r ancest ors. Therefore, on this occasion the writer presents the nation’s moral values contained in the classical works, particularly works of Geguritan Sarasamuscaya. Disclosure of moral values contained in it can be applied as a subject of national character building of the school’s curriculum in Indonesia. However, it has been a big issue about the advantage of teaching nation character building started from the most basic level of education up to university. In order to design moral value of the text Geguritan Sarasamuscaya into materials that can be applied in education, the writer applies the critical pascastructural approach . The supporting theory used is Jaus’s reception theory, semiotics Pierce theory, and mythology theory of Barthes Moral values of text Geguritan Sarasamuscaya is very essential to be applied as guidelines for manner teaching . Thus, the morality of our beloved nation is not falling so badly.

- Jet Bakels, Robert Layton, The anthropology of art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 258 pp. - J.M.S. Baljon, Herman Leonard Beck, De Islam in Nederland: Romancing religion? [Inaugurele rede theologische faculteit Tilburg 14.2.1992.] Tilburg: Tilburg University Press 1992. - R.H. Barnes, J.D.M. Platenkamp, North Halmahera: Non-Austronesian Languages, Austronesian cultures?, Lecture presented to the Oosters Genootschap in Nederland at Leiden on 23 May 1989, Leiden: Oosters Genootschap in Nederland, 1990. 33 pp. - Hans Borkent, Directory of Southeast Asianists in the Pacific Northwest. Compiled by: Northwest Regional Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies. Seattle, WA: University of Washington [et al.], 1990. 108 pp. - Roy Ellen, Frans Hüsken, Cognation and social organization in Southeast Asia. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 145. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1991, 221 pp. figs. tables, index., Jeremy Kemp (eds.) - C. de Jonge, Huub J.W.M. Boelaars, Indonesianisasi. Het omvormingsproces van de katholieke kerk in Indonesië tot de Indonesische katholieke kerk, Kerk en Theologie in Context, 13, Kampen: Kok, 1991, ix + 472 pp. - Nico de Jonge, Gregory Forth, Space and place in eastern Indonesia, University of Kent at Canterbury, Centre of South-east Asian Studies (Occasional Paper no. 16) 1991. 85 pp., ills. - J. Kommers, Bernard Juillerat, Oedipe chasseur. Une mythologie du sujet en Nouvelle-Guinée, P.U.F., Le fil rouge, section 1 Psychanalyse. Paris, 1991. - Gerco Kroes, Signe Howell, Society and cosmos, the Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia, University of Chicago Press, 1989, xv + 294 pp. - Daniel S. Lev, S. Pompe, Indonesian Law 1949-1989: A bibliography of foreign-language materials with brief commentaries on the law, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law and Administration in Non-Western Countries. Nijhoff, 1992. - A. M. Luyendijk-Elshout, H. den Hertog, De militair geneeskundige verzorging in Atjeh, 1873-1904. Amsterdam, Thesis Publishers, 1991. - G.E. Marrison, Wolfgang Marschall, The Rejang of South Sumatra. Hull: Centre for South-east Asian Studies, 1992, iii + 93 pp., ill. (Occasional Papers no. 19: special issue)., Michele Galizia, Thomas M. Psota (eds.) - Harry A. Poeze, Marijke Barend-van Haeften, Oost-Indie gespiegeld; Nicolaas de Graaff, een schrijvend chirurgijn in dienst van de VOC. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1992, 279 pp. - Ratna Saptari, H. Claessen, Het kweekbed ontkiemd; Opstellen aangeboden aan Els Postel. Leiden: VENA, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Leiden, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RA., M. van den Engel, D. Plantenga (eds.) - Jerome Rousseau, James J. Fox, The heritage of traditional agriculture among the western Austronesians. Occasional paper of the department of Anthropology. Comparitive Austronesian Project. Research school of Pacific studies. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 1992. 89 pp. - Oscar Salemink, Gehan Wijeyewardene, Ethnic groups acrss National boundaries in mainland Southeast Asia. Singapore 1990, Institute of Southeast Asian studies (Social issues in Southeast Asia series). x + 192 pp. - Henk Schulte Nordholt, U. Wikan, Managing turbulent hearts. A Balinese formula for living, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1990, xxvi + 343 pp. photos. - Mary Somers Heidhues, Claudine Salmon, Le moment ‘sino-malais’ de la litterature indonesienne. [Cahier d’Archipel 19.] Paris: Association Archipel, 1992. - Heather Sutherland, J.N.F.M. à Campo, Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij; Stoomvaart en staatsvorming in de Indonesische archipel 1888-1914, Hilversum: Verloren, (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Publikaties van de Faculteit der Historische en Kunstwetenschappen III), 1992, 756 pp., tables, graphics, photographs. - Gerard Termorshuizen, Robin W. Winks, Asia in Western fiction. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990. x + 229 pp., James R. Rush (eds.) - John Verhaar, Lourens de Vries, The morphology of Wambon of the Irian Jaya Upper-Digul area. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1992, xiv + 98 pp., Robinia de Vries-Wiersma (eds.) - Maria van Yperen, Cornelia N. Moore, Translation East and West: A cross-cultural approach, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. xxv + 259 pp., Lucy Lower (eds.) - Harvey Whitehouse, Klaus Neumann, Not the way it really was: constructing the Tolai past. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992.

The Rebellion of Syssiphus. The Rebellion of Syssiphus play script is an effort to response suicide phenomenonin Indonesia. Joining two different social lives among human life in Indonesia and Greek mythology constructsthis creation as a surrealism play script. The purpose of this creation is: 1) to create a joint script of two differentrealms between Sissyphus’ life and recent reality of Indonesian people’s life in surrealist plot, (2) to produce a scriptconstantly contextual with man’s problem in life, (3) to enrich Indonesia Drama documentation through a scriptwith high motivational contents as an alternative of destiny. As a anti-suicide campaign for Indonesians, the authorinvokes a brilliant thinking of existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus, within the script to be performed andwatched. The implementation is not wholesome, but adapting Pancasila values. Therefore, this script is importantas a reference for students who teach and perform absurd scripts. Most drama observers say that the emergence ofabsurd script proposed by group of dramatist in 1950’s could not be released from Camus’ thought

Индонезийский батик (ручная роспись по ткани) в 2009 г. был признан ЮНЕСКО шедевром нематериального наследия человечества. Насчитывается множество видов и стилей батика, со своей техникой, орнаментальным набором, цветовой гаммой. Батик нередко служит не только символом культуры, но и этнорегиональным маркером, определяющим идентичность народов Индонезии. Один из центров производства батика, — город Чиребон, «врата Центральной Явы», разделяющий центр острова и его западную часть. Самый известный орнаментальный мотив чиребонского батика — мега мендунг, или небесно-облачный орнамент, в котором чувствуется мощное влияние китайской культуры. В китайской мифологии небо — символ божественности, свободы и величия. Мотив мега мендунг представляет собой многослойное небо. Традиционно в нем семь уровней (слоев), представленных различными цветами: от светлых и ярких до темных. Излюбленная цветовая гамма мега мендунг — синий и темно-красный. Ассоциирующиеся с мужественностью и динамизмом эти цвета отражают характер жителей побережья (Чиребон расположен на берегу Яванского моря) — это открытые, активные, легко приспосабливающиеся, веселые и счастливые люди. Indonesian batik (hand painting on fabric) was recognized by UNESCO as a masterpiece of the intangible heritage of humanity in 2009. There are many types and styles of batik, with its own technique, ornamental set, and color scheme. Batik often serves not only as a cultural symbol, but also as an ethnoregional marker that defines the identity of Indonesian peoples. One of the centers of batik production is the city of Cirebon, the «gate of Central Java», that separates the center of the island from its western part. The most famous ornamental motif of Cirebon batik is the mega mendung, or sky-cloud ornament, which has a strong influence of Chinese culture. In Chinese mythology, the sky is a symbol of divinity, freedom, and greatness. The mega mendung motif represents a multi-layered sky. Traditionally, it has seven levels (layers), represented by different colors: from light and bright to dark. The favorite colors of a mega mendung are blue and dark red. Associated with masculinity and dynamism, these colors reflect the character of the coastal inhabitants (Cirebon is located on the coast of the Java sea) — they are open, active, adaptable, fun and happy people.

This paper attempts to shed light on the context of religiosity which is very pluralistic and dynamic in Indonesia. It is based on the field research conducted in Singkawang focusing on the Chinese religion. Some important conclusions could be drawn here such as the syncretization of the Chinese religion concerning the understanding of the existence of God and the gods which often has overlapping hierarchy including syncretic perspectives on understanding cosmology, mythology, symbols associated with mystical tales and supernatural beings. In the process, many Chinese Indonesians in Singkawang who are demographically Buddhists, Christians, or Muslims, still perform a pattern of worship of Confucianism or Taoism in their daily lives. The procedure of worship has also been modified so that its format differs from that found outside Indonesia. Meanwhile, during the celebration of the Chinese lunar new year and Cap Go Meh (the fifteenth night), Chinese Indonesians in Singkawang perform a ritual to get rid of bad luck. It is a unique, syncretic ‘collaboration’ between Chinese traditions and local culture. Keywords: Syncretization, Religion, Chinese, Singkawang.

History discourses and reconciliation process in post-Suharto IndonesiaAfter periods of internal conflicts and authoritarianism, educational institutions often have to be reformed. However, in countries where education has been used to support repressive politics and violations of human rights, or when conflicts and abuse have resulted in a loss of educational opportunities, a traumatic past and the legacy of injustice can be a serious challenge to effective educational reforms. Prospects for the development of democracy, which usually fuel the program of rebuilding the state and building a civil society, do not often attach great importance to the settlement of the brutal past in historical education. Meanwhile, the coupling of transitional justice and reform of education systems, including historical education programs, can facilitate the reintegration of society, including children and youth in the society, and may involve younger generations in work for justice.The history of 1965-66 in Indonesia, the history of mass killings and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of alleged communist Indonesians, was for a long time silenced and mystified by anti-communist mythology. This was created by the authoritarian rule of Suharto. This article examines how the Orde Baru constructed a strong policy of remembrance and how this narrative that labels victims as perpetrators deserving their fate dominated historical politics (history education). This approach is still present in the official historical and political narrative in Indonesia. Meanwhile, showing the history of victims in the history education can be a prerequisite for understanding the process of reconciliation by Indonesians, thus having an impact on the democratisation of society. Thus, historical education is closely connected with transitional justice. Dyskursy historyczne a proces pojednania w Indonezji po epoce SuhartoDyskursy historyczne wiążą się ściśle z pojednaniem w procesie sprawiedliwości okresu przejściowego. Po okresach wewnętrznych konfliktów i autorytaryzmu, instytucje edukacyjne często muszą zostać zreformowane. Jednak w krajach, w których edukacja została wykorzystana do wspierania represyjnej polityki i łamania praw człowieka, traumatyczna przeszłość i spuścizna niesprawiedliwości mogą stanowić poważne wyzwanie dla skutecznych reform edukacyjnych, a tym samym demokracji.W artykule przeanalizowano, w jaki sposób Nowy Ład generała Suharto skonstruował silną politykę pamięci, i jak oficjalna narracja historyczna, określająca ofiary jako sprawców zasługujących na swój los, zdominowała politykę historyczną (edukację historyczną). Badanie pokazało, w jaki sposób to podejście jest nadal obecne w oficjalnej historycznej i politycznej narracji w Indonezji. Tymczasem pokazanie historii ofiar terroru w edukacji historycznej może być warunkiem wstępnym zrozumienia procesu pojednania przez Indonezyjczyków, a tym samym wpływania na demokratyzację społeczeństwa. W ten sposób edukacja historyczna jest ściśle związana ze sprawiedliwością okresu przejściowego.

ABSTRACT This article examines the visual archive of the 1955 Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia. Better known as the Bandung Conference or simply Bandung, this diplomatic meeting hosted 29 delegations from countries in Africa and Asia to address questions of sovereignty and development facing the emergent postcolonial world. A number of well-known leaders attended, including Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Zhou Enlai of China, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Sukarno of the host country, Indonesia. Given its importance, the meeting was documented extensively by photojournalists. The argument of this article is that the visual archive that resulted has contributed to the enduring symbolism and mythology of Bandung as a moment of Third World solidarity. More specifically, the street photography style of many images - with leaders walking down the streets of Bandung surrounded by adoring crowds - depicted an informality and intimacy that conveyed an accessible, anti-hierarchical view of the leaders who were present. These qualities of conviviality and optimism can also be seen in images of conference dinners, airport arrivals, delegate speeches, and working groups. Drawing upon the critical work of scholars of southern Africa and Southeast Asia, this article summarily positions the concept of the 'decolonising camera' to describe both the act of documenting political decolonisation as well as the ways in which visual archives produced during decolonisation can contribute to new iconographies of the political, which are both factual and mythic at once.

Abstract. Permana S, Iskandar J, Parikesit, Husodo T, Megantara EN, Partasasmita R. 2019. Changes of ecological wisdom of Sundanese People on conservation of wild animals: A case study in Upper Cisokan Watershed, West Java, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 20: 1284-1293. In the past Sundanese rural people had a very close relationship with the environment. They utilize natural resources based on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and is strongly influenced by their perception of nature. This article elucidates the mythology of Sundanese rural people on wild animals and the changes of rural people perceptions and their behavior to wild animals in the rural ecosystem based on a case study in Bojong Salam and Sukaresmi villages, Rongga district, West Bandung, the upper Cisokan watershed, West Java. Method used in this study was qualitative, while some techniques, including observation, participant observation, and semi-structured interview were applied. The result of study showed that in the past Sundanese the rural people of Upper Cisokan watershed, West Bandung, West Java owned myths on some wild animals that is inherited from their ancestor through oral and using mother language. The influence of these myths on wild animals caused the rural people had prohibited to kill these animals and important role for traditional conservation. Nowadays, however, some myths on wild animals of rural people have not eroded or not recognized by young generations. Consequently, some taboos in hunting and catching animal based on myths on wild animals have tended not been applied to conserve wild animals traditionally. Therefore, to develop appropriate nature conservation, the biophysical, the socio-economic and cultural aspects must be holistically considered.

Many films of the Australian New Wave (or Australian film renaissance) of the 1970s and 1980s can be defined as gothic, especially following Jonathan Rayner’s suggestion that “Instead of a genre, Australian Gothic represents a mode, a stance and an atmosphere, after the fashion of American Film Noir, with the appellation suggesting the inclusion of horrific and fantastic materials comparable to those of Gothic literature” (25). The American comparison is revealing. The 400 or so film productions of the Australian New Wave emerged, not in a vacuum, but in an increasingly connected and inter-mixed international space (Godden). Putatively discrete national cinemas weave in and out of each other on many levels. One such level concerns the reception critics give to films. This article will drill down to the level of the reception of two examples of Australian gothic film-making by two well-known American critics. Rayner’s comparison of Australian gothic with American film noir is useful; however, it begs the question of how American critics such as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris influentially shaped the reception of Australian gothic in America and in other locations (such as Australia itself) where their reviews found an audience either at the time or afterwards. The significance of the present article rests on the fact that, as William McClain observes, following in Rick Altman’s footsteps, “critics form one of the key material institutions that support generic formations” (54). This article nurtures the suggestion that knowing how Australian gothic cinema was shaped, in its infancy, in the increasingly important American market (a market of both commerce and ideas) might usefully inform revisionist studies of Australian cinema as a national mode. A more nuanced, globally informed representation of the origins and development of Australian gothic cinema emerges at this juncture, particularly given that American film reviewing in the 1970s and 1980s more closely resembled what might today be called film criticism or even film theory. The length of individual reviews back then, the more specialized vocabulary used, and above all the tendency for critics to assume more knowledge of film history than could safely be assumed in 2014—all this shows up the contrast with today. As Christos Tsiolkas notes, “in our age… film reviewing has been reduced to a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down” (56)! The 1970s and 1980s is largely pre-Internet, and critical voices such as Kael and Sarris dominated in print. The American reviews of Australian gothic films demonstrate how a different consciousness suffuses Kael’s and Sarris’s engagements with “Antipodean” (broadly Australian and New Zealand) cinema. Rayner’s locally specific definition of Australian gothic is distorted in their interpretations of examples of the genre. It will be argued that this is symptomatic of a particular blindspot, related to the politics and art of place, in the American reception of Wake in Fright (initially called Outback in America), directed by the Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1971) and The Year of Living Dangerously, directed by Peter Weir (1982). Space and argument considerations force this article to focus on the reviews of these films, engaging less in analysis of the films themselves. Suffice to say that they all fit broadly within Rayner’s definition of Australian gothic cinema. As Rayner states, three thematic concerns which permeate all the films related to the Gothic sensibility provide links across the distinctions of era, environment and character. They are: a questioning of established authority; a disillusionment with the social reality that that authority maintains; and the protagonist’s search for a valid and tenable identity once the true nature of the human environment has been revealed. (25) “The true nature of the human environment….” Here is the element upon which the American reviews of the Australian gothic founder. Explicitly in many films of this mode, and implicitly in nearly all of them, is the “human environment” of the Australian landscape, which operates less as a backdrop and more as a participating element, even a character, in the drama, saturating the mise-en-scène. In “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films,” Eva Rueschmann quotes Ross Gibson’s thesis from South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia that By featuring the land so emphatically… [Australian] films stake out something more significant than decorative pictorialism. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are all engaging with the dominant mythology of white Australia. They are all partaking of the landscape tradition which, for two hundred years, has been used by white Australians to promote a sense of the significance of European society in the “Antipodes”. (Rueschmann) The “emphatic” nature of the land in films like Wake in Fright, Mad Max 2 and Picnic at Hanging Rock actively contributes to the “atmosphere” of Australian gothic cinema (Rayner 25). This atmosphere floats across Australian film and literature. Many of the films mentioned in this article are adaptations from books, and Rayner himself stresses the similarity between Australian gothic and gothic literature (25). Significantly, the atmosphere of Australian gothic also floats across the fuzzy boundary between the gothic and road movies or road literature. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is obviously a road movie as well as a gothic text; so is Wake in Fright in its way; even Picnic at Hanging Rock contains elements of the road movie in all that travelling to and from the rock. Roads, then, are significant for Australian gothic cinema, for the road traverses the Australian (gothic) landscape and, in the opportunity it provides for moving through it at speed, tantalizes with the (unfulfillable) promise of an escape from its gothic horror. Australian roads are familiar, part of White European culture referencing the geometric precision of Roman roads. The Australian outback, by contrast, is unfamiliar, uncanny. Veined with roads, the outback invites the taming by “the landscape tradition” that it simultaneously rejects (Rueschmann). In the opening 360° pan of Wake in Fright the land frightens with its immensity and intensity, even as the camera displays the land’s “conquering” agent: not a road, but the road’s surrogate—a railway line. Thus, the land introduces the uncanny into Australian gothic cinema. In Freudian terms, the uncanny is that unsettling combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. R. Gray calls it “the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar” (Gray). The “frightening” land is the very condition of the “comforting” road; no roads without a space for roads, and places for them to go. In her introduction to The Penguin Book of the Road, Delia Falconer similarly sutures the land to the uncanny, linking both of these with the first peoples of the Australian land: "Of course there is another 'poetry of the earth' whispering from the edges of our roads that gives so many of our road stories an extra charge, and that is the history of Aboriginal presence in this land. Thousands of years of paths and tribal boundaries also account for the uncanny sense of being haunted that dogs our travellers on their journeys (xvii). White Australia, as the local saying goes, has a black past, played out across the land. The film The Proposition instances this, with its gothic portrayal of the uncanny encroachments of the Australian “wilderness” into the domain of “civilization”. Furthermore, “our” overweening literal and metaphoric investment in the traditional quarter-acre block, not to mention in our roads, shows that “we” haven’t reconciled either with the land of Australia or with its original inhabitants: the Aboriginal peoples. Little wonder that Kael and Sarris couldn’t do so, as White Americans writing some forty years ago, and at such a huge geographic remove from Australia. As will be seen, the failure of these American film critics to comprehend the Australian landscape comes out—as both a “critical reaction” and a “reactive compensation”—in two, interwoven strands of their interpretations of Australian New Wave gothic cinema. A repulsion from, and an attraction to, the unrecognized uncanny is evidenced. The first strand is constituted in the markedly anthropological aspect to the film reviews: anthropological elements of the text itself are either disproportionately magnified or longed for. Here, “anthropological” includes the sociological and the historical. Secondly, Kael and Sarris use the films they review from Australian gothic cinema as sites upon which to trial answers to the old and persistent question of how the very categories of art and politics relate. Initially sucked out of the reviews (strand one), politics and art thus rush back in (strand two). In other words, the American failure to engage deeply with the land triggers an initial reading of films like Wake in Fright less as films per se and more as primary texts or one-to-one documentations of Australia. Australia presents for anthropological, even scientific atomization, rather than as a place in active, creative and complex relationship with its rendering in mise-en-scène. Simultaneously though, the absence of the land nags—eats away at the edges of critical thinking—and re-emerges (like a Freudian return of the repressed) in an attempt by the American critics to exploit their film subjects as an opportunity for working out how politics and art (here cinema) relate. The “un-seen” land creates a mis-reading amongst the American critics (strand one), only to force a compensatory, if somewhat blindsided, re-reading (strand two). For after all, in this critical “over-looking” of the land, and thus of the (ongoing) Aboriginal existence in and with the land, it is politics and art that is most at stake. How peoples (indigenous, settler or hybrid peoples) are connected to and through the land has perhaps always been Australia’s principal political and artistic question. How do the American reviews speak to this question? Sarris did not review Wake in Fright. Kael reviewed it, primarily, as a text at the intersection of fiction and documentary, ultimately privileging the latter. Throughout, her critical coordinates are American and, to a degree, literary. Noting the “stale whiff of Conrad” she also cites Outback’s “additional interest” in its similarity with “recent American movies [about] American racism and capitalist exploitation and the Vietnam war” (415). But her most pointed intervention comes in the assertion that there is “enough narrative to hold the social material together,” as if this were all narrative were good for: scaffolding for sociology (416). Art and culture are left out. Even as Kael mentions the “treatment of the Aborigines,” she misses the Aboriginal cultural moment of the opening shot of the land; this terrain, she writes, is “without a trace of culture” (416). Then, after critiquing what she sees as the unconvincing lesson of the schoolteacher’s moral demise, comes this: “But a more serious problem is that (despite the banal photography) the semi-documentary aspects of the film are so much more vivid and authentic and original than the factitious Conradian hero that we want to see more of that material—we want to learn more” (416-417). Further on, in this final paragraph, Kael notes that, while “there have been other Australian films, so it’s not all new” the director and scriptwriter “have seen the life in a more objective way, almost as if they were cultural anthropologists…. Maybe Kotcheff didn’t dare to expand this vision at the expense of the plot line, but he got onto something bigger than the plot” (417). Kael’s “error”, as it were, is to over-look how the land itself stretches the space of the film, beyond plot, to occupy the same space as her so-called “something bigger”, which itself is filled out by the uncanniness of the land as the intersections of both indigenous and settler (road-based) cultures and their representations in art (417). The “banal photography” might be better read as the film’s inhabitation of these artistic/cultural intersections (416). Kael’s Wake in Fright piece illustrates the first strand of the American reviews of Australian gothic cinema. Missing the land’s uncanniness effectively distributes throughout the review an elision of culture and art, and a reactive engagement with the broadly anthropological elements of Kotcheff’s film. Reviews of The Year of Living Dangerously by Kael and Sarris also illustrate the first strand of the American-Australian reviewing nexus, with the addition, also by each critic, of the second strand: the attempt to reconnect and revitalize the categories of politics and art. As with Wake in Fright, Kael introduces an anthropological gambit into Weir’s film, privileging its documentary elements over its qualities as fiction (strand one). “To a degree,” she writes, “Weir is the victim of his own skill at creating the illusion of authentic Third World misery, rioting, and chaos” (454). By comparison with “earlier, studio-set films” (like Casablanca [452]), where such “backgrounds (with their picturesque natives) were perfectly acceptable as backdrops…. Here… it’s a little obscene” (454). Kael continues: “Documentaries, TV coverage, print journalism, and modern history itself have changed audiences’ responses, and when fake dilemmas about ‘involvement’ are cooked up for the hero they’re an embarrassment” (454-455). Film is pushed to cater to anthropology besides art. Mirroring Kael’s strand-one response, Sarris puts a lot of pressure on Weir’s film to “perform” anthropologically—as well as, even instead of, artistically. The “movie”, he complains “could have been enjoyed thoroughly as a rousingly old-fashioned Hollywood big-star entertainment were it not for the disturbing vistas of somnolent poverty on view in the Philippines, the location in which Indonesian poverty in 1965 was simulated” (59). Indeed, the intrusive reality of poverty elicits from Sarris something very similar to Kael’s charge of the “obscenity of the backdrop” (454): We cannot go back to Manderley in our movie romances. That much is certain. We must go forward into the real world, but in the process, we should be careful not to dwarf our heroes and heroines with the cosmic futility of it all. They must be capable of acting on the stage of history, and by acting, make a difference in our moral perception of life on this planet. (59) Sarris places an extreme, even outrageous, strand-one demand on Weir’s film to re-purpose its fiction (what Kael calls “romantic melodrama” [454]) to elicit the categories of history and anthropology—that last phrase, “life on this planet”, sounds like David Attenborough speaking! More so, anthropological atomization is matched swiftly to a strand-two demand, for this passage also anticipates the rapprochement of politics and art, whereby art rises to the level of politics, requiring movie “heroes and heroines” to make a “moral difference” on a historical if not on a “cosmic” level (59). It is precisely in this, however, that Weir’s film falls down for Sarris. “The peculiar hollowness that the more perceptive reviewers have noted in The Year of Living Dangerously arises from the discrepancy between the thrilling charisma of the stars and the antiheroic irrelevance of the characters they play to the world around them” (59). Sarris’s spatialized phrase here (“peculiar hollowness”) recalls Kael’s observation that Wake in Fright contains “something bigger than the plot” (417). In each case, the description is doubling, dis-locating—uncanny. Echoing the title of Eva Rueschmann’s article, both films, like the Australian landscape itself, are “out of place” in their interpretation by these American critics. What, really, does Sarris’s “peculiar hollowness” originate in (59)? In what “discrepancy” (59)? There is a small but, in the context of this article, telling error in Sarris’s review of Weir’s film. Kael, correctly, notes that “the Indonesian settings had to be faked (in the Philippines and Australia)” (inserted emphasis) (452). Sarris mentions only the Philippines. From little things big things grow. Similar to how Kael overlooks the uncanny in Wake in Fright’s mise-en-scène, Sarris “sees” a “peculiar hollowness” where the land would otherwise be. Otherwise, that is, in the perspective of a cinema (Kotcheff’s, Weir’s) that comprehends “the true nature of the [Australian, gothic] human environment” (Rayner 25). Of course, it is not primarily a matter of how much footage Weir shot in Australia. It is the nature of the cinematography that matters most. For his part, Sarris damns it as “pretentiously picturesque” (59). Kael, meanwhile, gets closer perhaps to the ethics of the uncanny cinematography of The Year of Living Dangerously in her description of “intimations, fragments, hints and portents… on a very wide screen” (451). Even so, it will be remembered, she does call the “backgrounds… obscene” (454). Kael and Sarris see less than they “see”. Again like Sarris, Kael goes looking in Weir’s film for a strand-two rapprochement of politics and art, as evidenced by the line “The movie displays left-wing attitudes, but it shows no particular interest in politics” (453). It does though, only Kael is blind to it because she is blind to the land and, equally, to the political circumstances of the people of the land. Kael likely never realized the “discrepancy” in her critique of The Year of Living Dangerously’s Billy Kwan as “the same sort of in-on-the-mysteries-of-the-cosmos character that the aborigine actor Gulpilil played in Weir’s 1977 The Last Wave” (455). All this, she concludes, “might be boiled down to the mysticism of L.A.: ‘Go with the flow’” (455)! Grouping characters and places together like this, under the banner of L.A. mysticism, brutally erases the variations across different, uncanny, gothic, post-colonial landscapes. It is precisely here that politics and art do meet, in Weir’s film (and Kotcheff’s): in the artistic representation of the land as an index of the political relations of indigenous, settler and hybrid communities. (And not down the rabbit hole of the “specifics” of politics that Kael claims to want [453]). The American critics considered in this article are not in “bad faith” or a-political. Sarris produced a perceptive, left-leaning study entitled Politics and Cinema, and many of Kael’s reviews, along with essays like “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West,” contain sophisticated, liberalist analyses of the political circumstances of Native Americans. The crucial point is that, as “critics form[ing] one of the key material institutions that support generic formations,” Sarris and Kael impacted majorly on the development of Australian gothic cinema, in the American context—impacted especially, one could say, on the (mis-)understanding of the land-based, uncanny politics of this mode in its Australian setting (McClain 54). Kael’s and Sarris’s reviews of My Brilliant Career, along with Judith Maslin’s review, contain traits similar to those considered in depth in the reviews studied above. Future research might usefully study this significant impact more closely, weaving in an awareness of the developing dynamics of global film productions and co-productions since the 1970s, and thereby focusing on Australian gothic as international cinema. Was, for example, the political impact of later films like The Proposition influenced, even marginally, by the (mis-)readings of Sarris and Kael? In conclusion here, it suffices to note that, even as the American reviewers reduced Australian cinema art to “blank” documentary or “neutral” anthropology, nevertheless they evidenced, in their strand-two responses, the power of the land (as presented in the cinematography and mise-en-scène) to call out—across an increasingly globalized domain of cinematic reception—for the fundamental importance of the connection between politics and art. Forging this connection, in which all lands and the peoples of all lands are implicated, should be, perhaps, the primary and ongoing concern of national and global cinemas of the uncanny, gothic mode, or perhaps even any mode. References Casablanca. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Warner Bros, 1942. Falconer, Delia. “Introduction.” The Penguin Book of the Road. Ed. Delia Falconer. Melbourne: Viking-Penguin Books, 2008. xi-xxvi. Gibson, Ross. South of the West: Postcolonialism and the Narrative Construction of Australia. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992. Godden, Matt. “An Essay on Australian New Wave Cinema.” 9 Jan. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.golgotha.com.au/2013/01/09/an-essay-on-australian-new-wave-cinema/›. Gray, R. “Freud, ‘The Uncanny.’” 15 Nov. 2013. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html›. Kael, Pauline. “Australians.” Review of My Brilliant Career. 15 Sep. 1980. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 54-62. Kael, Pauline. “Literary Echoes—Muffled.” Review of Outback [Wake in Fright]. 4 March 1972. Deeper into Movies. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press-Little, Brown and Company, 1973. 413-419. Kael, Pauline. “Saddle Sore: El Dorado, The War Wagon, The Way West.” Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. London: Arrow Books, 1987. 38-46. Kael, Pauline. “Torrid Zone.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. 21 Feb. 1983. Taking It All In. London: Marion Boyars, 1986. 451-456. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Dir. George Miller. Warner Bros, 1981. Maslin, Janet. “Film: Australian ‘Brilliant Career’ by Gillian Armstrong.” Review of My Brilliant Career. New York Times (6 Oct. 1979.): np. McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism.” Journal of Film and Video 62.1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 52-66. My Brilliant Career. Dir. Gillian Armstrong. Peace Arch, 1979. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Dir. Peter Weir. Picnic Productions, 1975. Rayner, Jonathan. Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Rueschmann, Eva. “Out of Place: Reading (Post) Colonial Landscapes as Gothic Space in Jane Campion’s Films.” Post Script (22 Dec. 2005). 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Out+of+place%3A+reading+%28post%29+colonial+landscapes+as+Gothic+space+in...-a0172169169›. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (4 Feb. 1980): np. Sarris, Andrew. “Films in Focus: Journalistic Ethics in Java.” Review of The Year of Living Dangerously. Village Voice 28 (1 Feb. 1983): 59. Sarris, Andrew. “Liberation, Australian Style.” Review of My Brilliant Career. Village Voice (15 Oct. 1979): np. Sarris, Andrew. Politics and Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. The Last Wave. Dir. Peter Weir. Ayer Productions, 1977. The Proposition. Dir. John Hillcoat. First Look Pictures, 2005. The Year of Living Dangerously. Dir. Peter Weir. MGM, 1982. Tsiolkas, Christos. “Citizen Kael.” Review of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. The Monthly (Feb. 2012): 54-56. Wake in Fright. Dir. Ted Kotcheff. United Artists, 1971.

Liquidate the entire rapacious monstrosity that is the global surf industry. Eradicate the gloating, insolent, overfed, carrion-feeding surf media altogether. Destroy the overweening, insidious and growing attraction that surf fashion is for common landlubbers. Dismantle, annihilate and devastate the whole swelling, putrescent edifice of surfing once and for all. There are too many people in the water and all I want to do is go surfing with my mates goddammit (Breuchie 26). Nick Breuchie’s letter to Tracks reflects an individual’s fight against the popularity of surfing, a popularity that he sees manifested in crowded surf line-ups boosted by the images and rhetoric found in surfing magazines. Beyond surfing magazines, surfing is currently enjoying an ultra-hip status in the world of popular culture: Hollywood has recently reinvigorated the surf movie genre that started with Gidget through putting “chicks on sticks in flicks” in the surfploitation film Blue Crush; surfing scenes open the most recent James Bond film, Die Another Day. Surf fashion is seemingly ubiquitous among youth and their baby boomer parents, and the global surf industry is worth “at least $US7.4bn,” most of which is generated through sales of apparel (Gliddon 20). No longer is surfing for youth; now it is about youth. Most importantly for Breuchie and others like him, surfing saturation in popular culture has resulted in more than an excess of representation: it has resulted in an excess of participation. For the “original” members of surfing subcultures, surfing has simply become too crowded, resulting in a frustration that is too often being expressed in aggressive behaviour and surf rage. >From any point of view, it is clear that surfing has become so popular that it is increasingly difficult to find a non-remote surf break that is not overcrowded. Carrol claims in The Association of Surfing Professionals Media Guide and Statistics Booklet that “everybody surfs – mums, dads, sisters, four-year-old groms, 80-year-old great grandparents” (21). As a result of this demand for waves, surf-travel to remote locations is experiencing massive growth and at the same time, as discussed below, intense localism is rampant. Although waves suitable for surfing in many parts of the world may be considered as a public territory where access is usually on a first-come-first-serve basis, local surfers tend to behave more dominantly at their home breaks. These surfers take what might be referred to in sporting terms as the home ground advantage. Increasingly, however, waves of the ocean are not public access spaces: these surf breaks are for exclusive use by guests of resorts that have negotiated deals with governments, traditional owners or other local authorities. Surfers, frustrated by crowds at breaks in the “surf slums” in the more populated areas of the world, are increasingly prepared to pay to play in such exclusive surf resorts as those now found in the Maldives, Indonesia and Fiji. Local enforcers guard the surf breaks of these resorts and, on behalf of the resort owners, ensure that the guests maintain the privilege of the exclusivity they have paid for. For a long time now, surfers at breaks around the world have been punching each other in the head while surfing magazines have been telling the world about the individuality, the brotherhood, the beauty and the spirituality of surfing as an “art,” “lifestyle,” “religion” and “sport.” One way of maintaining the perception of individualism and freedom of the surfing experience is through protecting the local break from newbies via localism: its advocates justify it as a means of keeping hierarchical law and order in a field where game rules do not officially exist. Viewed anthropologically, localism can be viewed as territorialism important to the self-preservation and well-being of the clan; it can also be a unifying force that may bond communities together to invest in, develop and protect common interests. Localism is one of the defining concepts of modern surfing. The mythology of surf localism is that it exists to instill order and respect in the water and provides people with a sense of belonging. Its main function for surfing communities, however, is to exclude surfers who are not from the immediate vicinity of a surfing spot. This version of localism is characterized by a masculinized, xenophobic territorialism and a hostility to outsiders that can both unite and fracture others through threatened or actual violence: it is about policing and protecting “our” waves and is enacted in the water by dominant males who “hassle” surfers who are not part of the local tribe. Surfing magazines and films often encourage the siege-like tribalism and aggressive expression of localism through advocating 'the rights' of local surfers: for example, the magazines will often not reveal the source location of surfing photographs “out of respect for the locals.” Blue Crush includes the apparently obligatory fight scene found in many Hollywood surfing films: locals who claim exclusivity to the surf fight the outsider—in this case, the kooky love interest of the film’s female star. The masculine aggressiveness of surfing argot that is extensively used in surfing magazines may be better suited to a misogynistic slasher movie than a sport—surfers ride thrusters, they carve, shred, slash, tear, pull out, perform re-entries, crack and rip filthy, sick pits, and request the male surf god Huey to make mother ocean pump. The language is more reflective of a fight with the waves than an expression of how to ride them for leisure and play. In the “age of rage” (Agbayani) localism in surfing at its most extreme is manifested through surf rage. Cralle defines a local as “anyone who’s been there a day longer than you” while localism is “territorial defiance in defence of a surf spot.” Agbayani argues that “the activity was born in 1779 when angry Hawaiians killed Captain James Cook at Kealakekua Bay.” The current CEO and President of the Association of Surfing Professionals and former world champion surfer, Wayne Bartholomew, somewhat confusingly writes that a beating he received from locals in the winter of 1976-1977 on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii reminded him of Captain Cook. “I don’t know what happened to Captain Cook but the scene that confronted me on the beach always reminds me of Captain Cook” (151). Bartholomew claims his selfish behaviour in the water so affronted the Hawaiians that “I was held under water, pounded round the back of the head, then pulled up and pounded in the face. They knocked all my teeth out and just flattened my nose, I had cuts all over my eyes and lips” (151). Discussing a fight with an American opponent during the 1966 world championships at San Diego, Nat Young wrote in his newspaper column: “I am afraid I lost my temper and did what most other Australians would have done—I hit him—and knocked him flat” (980). Young had his own face knocked flat after a fight with another surfer at Angourie in March 2000. Coming in from the surf, he was attacked on the beach by Michael Hutchinson, a rival longboarder, who hospitalized Young with two broken eye sockets, shattered cheekbones and destroyed sinuses. Both Young and Hutchison were locals. The incident was sparked by Young, who admitted to slapping Hutchison’s son for “bad behaviour” while out in the surf. (In a cathartic moment, Young subsequently published a book entitled Surf Rage that told stories of the pointlessness of fighting for waves). Beyond (but not unconnected to) localism, the increase in confrontations, aggression and fighting in the surf may also be partly attributable to the impact of technology upon surfing. Technology is having a significant influence on when and where people can go surfing. Readily available surf craft such as bodyboards and the (rediscovered) Malibu surfboard are allowing learners quick results in developing the ability to ride waves; warmer, more comfortable wetsuits are allowing year round surfing in cold water; and the leg rope allows people to fall off surfboards without having to swim to shore to retrieve rock-damaged foam and fibreglass. In addition to these technological developments, “surfcams” show surf conditions, and non-locals can look at real time conditions all over the world (see, for example http://www.coastalwatch.com, http://www.surf-news.com or http://www.baliwaves.com). These cameras are regularly vandalised to thwart the dissemination of this information to non-local surfers. Meanwhile, surf-forecasting services notify customers via mobile phone, pager or email when the conditions for surfing are good, so there is little chance of lonely surfs. The increasing number of surfboard riders, bodyboarders, windsurfers, surf ski riders, personal watercraft and kite surfers are straining a natural resource that is open to those who can grab a surf craft and get to the beach. The use of personal watercraft in crowded breaks to provide surfers with a technological advantage is also causing uneasiness and resentment in the water, as Chronicles (2003) notes: … I was out at Currumbin Alley the other arvo, sitting among a pack of around 50 guys and girls on shortboards, longboards and the occasional wave ski and bodyboard, when I noticed a group that wasn’t equal. With one guy driving a jet ski, four surfers were getting lifts back into the line up after every wave, doing away with the sometimes horrendous paddle-back at The Alley, which can take as along as ten or 15 minutes to get back to the line-up. After a wave, the surfer was dragged back to the top of the point by the ski. He was then dropped off a few metres from the line-up and rejoined the pack. Guys were, quite rightly, getting pissed off that they were jockeying for position on the next wave with a kid who had caught a wave not even five minutes ago. And all because one surfer could afford $12,000 or whatever it costs for a Yamaha three-seater Waverunner these days. Factors other than technology have also increased the number of surfers in the water. Baby boomers have not retired from the sport, and specialist surfing magazines such as Australian Longboarder and The Surfers Journal cater for those surfers older than thirty-five. News articles and surfing magazines are claiming that more girls and women are taking up surfing for pleasure and personal fitness, although to what degree this has occurred is contestable. Such claims seem to originate largely from the public relations departments of surfing companies, whose worldwide sales of female board shorts have grown significantly in the past three years: it would be interesting to determine whether such sales reflect growth in female participation in the sport or female consumption of its symbolic commodities. No longer viewed as a deviant subculture, surfing is marketed by surfing magazines as a global lifestyle that can be achieved through the consumption of global commodities. While the peak industry and surfing competition bodies continually espouse the need for the sport to grow, the remaining cottage industries creating commodities for use by surfers are being squeezed out by global corporations. Pop-out surfboards are being mass-produced in a Thailand factory to be sold in chain stores throughout the world. Non-paying surfers are excluded from “private” surf breaks, while wave pools and artificial reefs are being created to provide simulations of the “natural” surfing experience. The frustration expressed by Breuchie in relation to the (over)popularization of surfing is being felt in oceans around the world. Additionally, individual surfers fear that the accompanying violence and fighting may result in regulation, discipline and authoritarianism. Such regulation may manifest itself via licenses, liability insurance and other restrictions, and would regulate one of the few “free” activities that remain little affected by law. But continued fighting and surf rage may provide governments with few alternatives. Works Cited Agbayani, Caroline. Annotated Bibliography on the Age of Rage. Accessed 12 January, 2003. Bartholomew, Wayne, and Baker Tim. Bustin’ Down the Door. 2nd Edition. Sydney: HarperSports, 2002. Breuchie, Nick. Tracks, March. Sydney: EMAP Publishing, 2002. Carroll, Nick. The Association of Surfing Professionals Media Guide and Statistics Booklet. Coolangatta: Association of Surfing Professionals and Chilli Industries, 2002. Chronicles, Jonas. To Ski or not to Ski Real Surf. Accessed 9 January, 2003. Cralle, Trevor, ed. The Surfin’ary. Berkely, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2001. Gliddon, Joshua. “Mad Wax.” The Bulletin, Sydney: ACP Publishing, August 13, 2002. Young, Nat. “My punch-up at San Diego.” Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, 1966. ---. Surf Rage. Angourie: Nymboida Press, 2000. Links http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/409as2001/agbayani/report1.htm http://www.coastalwatch.com http://www.realsurf.com.au/news/newsitem.php?id=106 http://www.baliwaves.com http://www.surf-news.com Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Scott, Paul. "We shall Fight on the Seas and the Oceans…We shall " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 6.1 (2003). Dn Month Year < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0302/05-weshallfight.php>. APA Style Scott, P., (2003, Feb 26). We shall Fight on the Seas and the Oceans…We shall . M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,(1). Retrieved Month Dn, Year, from http://www.media-culture.org.au/0302/05-weshallfight.html

About half way through Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film Home (2009) the narrator describes the fall of the Rapa Nui, the indigenous people of the Easter Islands. The narrator posits that the Rapa Nui culture collapsed due to extensive environmental degradation brought about by large-scale deforestation. The Rapa Nui cut down their massive native forests to clear spaces for agriculture, to heat their dwellings, to build canoes and, most importantly, to move their enormous rock sculptures—the Moai. The disappearance of their forests led to island-wide soil erosion and the gradual disappearance of arable land. Caught in the vice of overpopulation but with rapidly dwindling basic resources and no trees to build canoes, they were trapped on the island and watched helplessly as their society fell into disarray. The sequence ends with the narrator’s biting remark: “The real mystery of the Easter Islands is not how its strange statues got there, we know now; it's why the Rapa Nui didn't react in time.” In their unrelenting desire for development, the Rapa Nui appear to have overlooked the role the environment plays in maintaining a society. The island’s Moai accompanying the sequence appear as memento mori, a lesson in the mortality of human cultures brought about by their own misguided and short-sighted practices. Arthus-Bertrand’s Home, a film composed almost entirely of aerial photographs, bears witness to present-day environmental degradation and climate change, constructing society as a fragile structure built upon and sustained by the environment. Home is a call to recognise how contemporary practices of post-industrial societies have come to shape the environment and how they may impact the habitability of Earth in the near future. Through reflexivity and a ritualised structure the text invites spectators to look at themselves in a new light and remake their self-image in the wake of global environmental risk by embracing new, alternative core practices based on balance and interconnectedness. Arthus-Bertrand frames climate change not as a burden, but as a moment of profound realisation of the potential for change and humans ability to create a desirable future through hope and our innate capacity for renewal. This article examines how Arthus-Bertrand’s ritualised construction of climate change aims to remake viewers’ perception of present-day environmental degradation and investigates Home’s place in contemporary climate change communication discourse. Climate change, in its capacity to affect us globally, is considered a world risk. The most recent peer-reviewed Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases has increased markedly since human industrialisation in the 18th century. Moreover, human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and agricultural practices, are “very likely” responsible for the resulting increase in temperature rise (IPPC 37). The increased global temperatures and the subsequent changing weather patterns have a direct and profound impact on the physical and biological systems of our planet, including shrinking glaciers, melting permafrost, coastal erosion, and changes in species distribution and reproduction patterns (Rosenzweig et al. 353). Studies of global security assert that these physiological changes are expected to increase the likelihood of humanitarian disasters, food and water supply shortages, and competition for resources thus resulting in a destabilisation of global safety (Boston et al. 1–2). Human behaviour and dominant practices of modernity are now on a path to materially impact the future habitability of our home, Earth. In contemporary post-industrial societies, however, climate change remains an elusive, intangible threat. Here, the Arctic-bound species forced to adapt to milder climates or the inhabitants of low-lying Pacific islands seeking refuge in mainland cities are removed from the everyday experience of the controlled and regulated environments of homes, offices, and shopping malls. Diverse research into the mediated and mediatised nature of the environment suggests that rather than from first-hand experiences and observations, the majority of our knowledge concerning the environment now comes from its representation in the mass media (Hamilton 4; Stamm et al. 220; Cox 2). Consequently the threat of climate change is communicated and constructed through the news media, entertainment and lifestyle programming, and various documentaries and fiction films. It is therefore the construction (the representation of the risk in various discourses) that shapes people’s perception and experience of the phenomenon, and ultimately influences behaviour and instigates social response (Beck 213). By drawing on and negotiating society’s dominant discourses, environmental mediation defines spectators’ perceptions of the human-nature relationship and subsequently their roles and responsibilities in the face of environmental risks. Maxwell Boykoff asserts that contemporary modern society’s mediatised representations of environmental degradation and climate change depict the phenomena as external to society’s primary social and economic concerns (449). Julia Corbett argues that this is partly because environmental protection and sustainable behaviour are often at odds with the dominant social paradigms of consumerism, economic growth, and materialism (175). Similarly, Rowan Howard-Williams suggests that most media texts, especially news, do not emphasise the link between social practices, such as consumerist behaviour, and their environmental consequences because they contradict dominant social paradigms (41). The demands contemporary post-industrial societies make on the environment to sustain economic growth, consumer culture, and citizens’ comfortable lives in air-conditioned homes and offices are often left unarticulated. While the media coverage of environmental risks may indeed have contributed to “critical misperceptions, misleading debates, and divergent understandings” (Boykoff 450) climate change possesses innate characteristics that amplify its perception in present-day post-industrial societies as a distant and impersonal threat. Climate change is characterised by temporal and spatial de-localisation. The gradual increase in global temperature and its physical and biological consequences are much less prominent than seasonal changes and hence difficult to observe on human time-scales. Moreover, while research points to the increased probability of extreme climatic events such as droughts, wild fires, and changes in weather patterns (IPCC 48), they take place over a wide range of geographical locations and no single event can be ultimately said to be the result of climate change (Maibach and Roser-Renouf 145). In addition to these observational obstacles, political partisanship, vested interests in the current status quo, and general resistance to profound change all play a part in keeping us one step removed from the phenomenon of climate change. The distant and impersonal nature of climate change coupled with the “uncertainty over consequences, diverse and multiple engaged interests, conflicting knowledge claims, and high stakes” (Lorenzoni et al. 65) often result in repression, rejection, and denial, removing the individual’s responsibility to act. Research suggests that, due to its unique observational obstacles in contemporary post-industrial societies, climate change is considered a psychologically distant event (Pawlik 559), one that is not personally salient due to the “perceived distance and remoteness [...] from one’s everyday experience” (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole 370). In an examination of the barriers to behaviour change in the face of psychologically distant events, Robert Gifford argues that changing individuals’ perceptions of the issue-domain is one of the challenges of countering environmental inertia—the lack of initiative for environmentally sustainable social action (5). To challenge the status quo a radically different construction of the environment and the human-nature relationship is required to transform our perception of global environmental risks and ultimately result in environmentally consequential social action. Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home is a ritualised construction of contemporary environmental degradation and climate change which takes spectators on a rite of passage to a newfound understanding of the human-nature relationship. Transformation through re-imagining individuals’ roles, responsibilities, and practices is an intrinsic quality of rituals. A ritual charts a subjects path from one state of consciousness to the next, resulting in a meaningful change of attitudes (Deflem 8). Through a lifelong study of African rituals British cultural ethnographer Victor Turner refined his concept of rituals in a modern social context. Turner observed that rituals conform to a three-phased processural form (The Ritual Process 13–14). First, in the separation stage, the subjects are selected and removed from their fixed position in the social structure. Second, they enter an in-between and ambiguous liminal stage, characterised by a “partial or complete separation of the subject from everyday existence” (Deflem 8). Finally, imbued with a new perspective of the outside world borne out of the experience of reflexivity, liminality, and a cathartic cleansing, subjects are reintegrated into the social reality in a new, stable state. The three distinct stages make the ritual an emotionally charged, highly personal experience that “demarcates the passage from one phase to another in the individual’s life-cycle” (Turner, “Symbols” 488) and actively shapes human attitudes and behaviour. Adhering to the three-staged processural form of the ritual, Arthus-Bertrand guides spectators towards a newfound understanding of their roles and responsibilities in creating a desirable future. In the first stage—the separation—aerial photography of Home alienates viewers from their anthropocentric perspectives of the outside world. This establishes Earth as a body, and unearths spectators’ guilt and shame in relation to contemporary world risks. Aerial photography strips landscapes of their conventional qualities of horizon, scale, and human reference. As fine art photographer Emmet Gowin observes, “when one really sees an awesome, vast place, our sense of wholeness is reorganised [...] and the body seems always to diminish” (qtd. in Reynolds 4). Confronted with a seemingly infinite sublime landscape from above, the spectator’s “body diminishes” as they witness Earth’s body gradually taking shape. Home’s rushing rivers of Indonesia are akin to blood flowing through the veins and the Siberian permafrost seems like the texture of skin in extreme close-up. Arthus-Bertrand establishes a geocentric embodiment to force spectators to perceive and experience the environmental degradation brought about by the dominant social practices of contemporary post-industrial modernity. The film-maker visualises the maltreatment of the environment through suggested abuse of the Earth’s body. Images of industrial agricultural practices in the United States appear to leave scratches and scars on the landscape, and as a ship crosses the Arctic ice sheets of the Northwest Passage the boat glides like the surgeon’s knife cutting through the uppermost layer of the skin. But the deep blue water that’s revealed in the wake of the craft suggests a flesh and body now devoid of life, a suffering Earth in the wake of global climatic change. Arthus-Bertrand’s images become the sublime evidence of human intervention in the environment and the reflection of present-day industrialisation materially altering the face of Earth. The film-maker exploits spectators’ geocentric perspective and sensibility to prompt reflexivity, provide revelations about the self, and unearth the forgotten shame and guilt in having inadvertently caused excessive environmental degradation. Following the sequences establishing Earth as the body of the text Arthus-Bertrand returns spectators to their everyday “natural” environment—the city. Having witnessed and endured the pain and suffering of Earth, spectators now gaze at the skyscrapers standing bold and tall in the cityscape with disillusionment. The pinnacles of modern urban development become symbols of arrogance and exploitation: structures forced upon the landscape. Moreover, the images of contemporary cityscapes in Home serve as triggers for ritual reflexivity, allowing the spectator to “perceive the self [...] as a distanced ‘other’ and hence achieve a partial ‘self-transcendence’” (Beck, Comments 491). Arthus-Bertrand’s aerial photographs of Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo fold these distinct urban environments into one uniform fusion of glass, metal, and concrete devoid of life. The uniformity of these cultural landscapes prompts spectators to add the missing element: the human. Suddenly, the homes and offices of desolate cityscapes are populated by none other than us, looking at ourselves from a unique vantage point. The geocentric sensibility the film-maker invoked with the images of the suffering Earth now prompt a revelation about the self as spectators see their everyday urban environments in a new light. Their homes and offices become blemishes on the face of the Earth: its inhabitants, including the spectators themselves, complicit in the excessive mistreatment of the planet. The second stage of the ritual allows Arthus-Bertrand to challenge dominant social paradigms of present day post-industrial societies and introduce new, alternative moral directives to govern our habits and attitudes. Following the separation, ritual subjects enter an in-between, threshold stage, one unencumbered by the spatial, temporal, and social boundaries of everyday existence. Turner posits that a subjects passage through this liminal stage is necessary to attain psychic maturation and successful transition to a new, stable state at the end of the ritual (The Ritual Process 97). While this “betwixt and between” (Turner, The Ritual Process 95) state may be a fleeting moment of transition, it makes for a “lived experience [that] transforms human beings cognitively, emotionally, and morally.” (Horvath et al. 3) Through a change of perceptions liminality paves the way toward meaningful social action. Home places spectators in a state of liminality to contrast geocentric and anthropocentric views. Arthus-Bertrand contrasts natural and human-made environments in terms of diversity. The narrator’s description of the “miracle of life” is followed by images of trees seemingly defying gravity, snow-covered summits among mountain ranges, and a whale in the ocean. Grandeur and variety appear to be inherent qualities of biodiversity on Earth, qualities contrasted with images of the endless, uniform rectangular greenhouses of Almeria, Spain. This contrast emphasises the loss of variety in human achievements and the monotony mass-production brings to the landscape. With the image of a fire burning atop a factory chimney, Arthus-Bertrand critiques the change of pace and distortion of time inherent in anthropocentric views, and specifically in contemporary modernity. Here, the flames appear to instantly eat away at resources that have taken millions of years to form, bringing anthropocentric and geocentric temporality into sharp contrast. A sequence showing a night time metropolis underscores this distinction. The glittering cityscape is lit by hundreds of lights in skyscrapers in an effort, it appears, to mimic and surpass daylight and thus upturn the natural rhythm of life. As the narrator remarks, in our present-day environments, “days are now the pale reflections of nights.” Arthus-Bertrand also uses ritual liminality to mark the present as a transitory, threshold moment in human civilisation. The film-maker contrasts the spectre of our past with possible visions of the future to mark the moment of now as a time when humanity is on the threshold of two distinct states of mind. The narrator’s descriptions of contemporary post-industrial society’s reliance on non-renewable resources and lack of environmentally sustainable agricultural practices condemn the past and warn viewers of the consequences of continuing such practices into the future. Exploring the liminal present Arthus-Bertrand proposes distinctive futurescapes for humankind. On the one hand, the narrator’s description of California’s “concentration camp style cattle farming” suggests that humankind will live in a future that feeds from the past, falling back on frames of horrors and past mistakes. On the other hand, the example of Costa Rica, a nation that abolished its military and dedicated the budget to environmental conservation, is recognition of our ability to re-imagine our future in the face of global risk. Home introduces myths to imbue liminality with the alternative dominant social paradigm of ecology. By calling upon deep-seated structures myths “touch the heart of society’s emotional, spiritual and intellectual consciousness” (Killingsworth and Palmer 176) and help us understand and come to terms with complex social, economic, and scientific phenomena. With the capacity to “pattern thought, beliefs and practices,” (Maier 166) myths are ideal tools in communicating ritual liminality and challenging contemporary post-industrial society’s dominant social paradigms. The opening sequence of Home, where the crescent Earth is slowly revealed in the darkness of space, is an allusion to creation: the genesis myth. Accompanied only by a gentle hum our home emerges in brilliant blue, white, and green-brown encompassing most of the screen. It is as if darkness and chaos disintegrated and order, life, and the elements were created right before our eyes. Akin to the Earthrise image taken by the astronauts of Apollo 8, Home’s opening sequence underscores the notion that our home is a unique spot in the blackness of space and is defined and circumscribed by the elements. With the opening sequence Arthus-Bertrand wishes to impart the message of interdependence and reliance on elements—core concepts of ecology. Balance, another key theme in ecology, is introduced with an allusion to the Icarus myth in a sequence depicting Dubai. The story of Icarus’s fall from the sky after flying too close to the sun is a symbolic retelling of hubris—a violent pride and arrogance punishable by nemesis—destruction, which ultimately restores balance by forcing the individual back within the limits transgressed (Littleton 712). In Arthus-Bertrand’s portrayal of Dubai, the camera slowly tilts upwards on the Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest human-made structure ever built. The construction works on the tower explicitly frame humans against the bright blue sky in their attempt to reach ever further, transgressing their limitations much like the ill-fated Icarus. Arthus-Bertrand warns that contemporary modernity does not strive for balance or moderation, and with climate change we may have brought our nemesis upon ourselves. By suggesting new dominant paradigms and providing a critique of current maxims, Home’s retelling of myths ultimately sees spectators through to the final stage of the ritual. The last phase in the rite of passage “celebrates and commemorates transcendent powers,” (Deflem 8) marking subjects’ rebirth to a new status and distinctive perception of the outside world. It is at this stage that Arthus-Bertrand resolves the emotional distress uncovered in the separation phase. The film-maker uses humanity’s innate capacity for creation and renewal as a cathartic cleansing aimed at reconciling spectators’ guilt and shame in having inadvertently exacerbated global environmental degradation. Arthus-Bertrand identifies renewable resources as the key to redeeming technology, human intervention in the landscape, and finally humanity itself. Until now, the film-maker pictured modernity and technology, evidenced in his portrayal of Dubai, as synonymous with excess and disrespect for the interconnectedness and balance of elements on Earth. The final sequence shows a very different face of technology. Here, we see a mechanical sea-snake generating electricity by riding the waves off the coast of Scotland and solar panels turning towards the sun in the Sahara desert. Technology’s redemption is evidenced in its ability to imitate nature—a move towards geocentric consciousness (a lesson learned from the ritual’s liminal stage). Moreover, these human-made structures, unlike the skyscrapers earlier in the film, appear a lot less invasive in the landscape and speak of moderation and union with nature. With the above examples Arthus-Bertrand suggests that humanity can shed the greed that drove it to dig deeper and deeper into the Earth to acquire non-renewable resources such as oil and coal, what the narrator describes as “treasures buried deep.” The incorporation of principles of ecology, such as balance and interconnectedness, into humanity’s behaviour ushers in reconciliation and ritual cleansing in Home. Following the description of the move toward renewable resources, the narrator reveals that “worldwide four children out of five attend school, never has learning been given to so many human beings” marking education, innovation, and creativity as the true inexhaustible resources on Earth. Lastly, the description of Antarctica in Home is the essence of Arthus-Bertrand’s argument for our innate capacity to create, not simply exploit and destroy. Here, the narrator describes the continent as possessing “immense natural resources that no country can claim for itself, a natural reserve devoted to peace and science, a treaty signed by 49 nations has made it a treasure shared by all humanity.” Innovation appears to fuel humankind’s transcendence to a state where it is capable of compassion, unification, sharing, and finally creating treasures. With these examples Arthus-Bertrand suggests that humanity has an innate capacity for creative energy that awaits authentic expression and can turn humankind from destroyer to creator. In recent years various risk communication texts have explicitly addressed climate change, endeavouring to instigate environmentally consequential social action. Home breaks discursive ground among them through its ritualistic construction which seeks to transform spectators’ perception, and in turn roles and responsibilities, in the face of global environmental risks. Unlike recent climate change media texts such as An Inconvenient Truth (2006), The 11th Hour (2007), The Age of Stupid (2009), Carbon Nation (2010) and Earth: The Operator’s Manual (2011), Home eludes simple genre classification. On the threshold of photography and film, documentary and fiction, Arthus-Bertrand’s work is best classified as an advocacy film promoting public debate and engagement with a universal concern—the state of the environment. The film’s website, available in multiple languages, contains educational material, resources to organise public screenings, and a link to GoodPlanet.info: a website dedicated to environmentalism, including legal tools and initiatives to take action. The film-maker’s approach to using Home as a basis for education and raising awareness corresponds to Antonio Lopez’s critique of contemporary mass-media communications of global risks. Lopez rebukes traditional forms of mediatised communication that place emphasis on the imparting of knowledge and instead calls for a participatory, discussion-driven, organic media approach, akin to a communion or a ritual (106). Moreover, while texts often place a great emphasis on the messenger, for instance Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, Leonardo DiCaprio in The 11th Hour, or geologist Dr. Richard Alley in Earth: The Operator’s Manual, Home’s messenger remains unseen—the narrator is only identified at the very end of the film among the credits. The film-maker’s decision to forego a central human character helps dissociate the message from the personality of the messenger which aids in establishing and maintaining the geocentric sensibility of the text. Finally, the ritual’s invocation and cathartic cleansing of emotional distress enables Home to at once acknowledge our environmentally destructive past habits and point to a hopeful, environmentally sustainable future. While The Age of Stupid mostly focuses on humanity’s present and past failures to respond to an imminent environmental catastrophe, Carbon Nation, with the tagline “A climate change solutions movie that doesn’t even care if you believe in climate change,” only explores the potential future business opportunities in turning towards renewable resources and environmentally sustainable practices. The three-phased processural form of the ritual allows for a balance of backward and forward-looking, establishing the possibility of change and renewal in the face of world risk. The ritual is a transformative experience. As Turner states, rituals “interrupt the flow of social life and force a group to take cognizance of its behaviour in relation to its own values, and even question at times the value of those values” (“Dramatic Ritual” 82). Home, a ritualised media text, is an invitation to look at our world, its dominant social paradigms, and the key element within that world—ourselves—with new eyes. It makes explicit contemporary post-industrial society’s dependence on the environment, highlights our impact on Earth, and reveals our complicity in bringing about a contemporary world risk. The ritual structure and the self-reflexivity allow Arthus-Bertrand to transform climate change into a personally salient issue. This bestows upon the spectator the responsibility to act and to reconcile the spectre of the past with the vision of the future.Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. Angi Buettner whose support, guidance, and supervision has been invaluable in preparing this article. 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