great performances: Toraja cultural identity in the 1970s

Abstract

“Ethnicity” and “identity” do not refer to fixed realities; their construction is a social process. This paper examines Toraja cultural identity as it has been shaped in recent years by the complementary movements of out‐migration of Toraja youth and transient in‐migration of Western tourists. For different reasons both movements have led to a focus on ritual as the defining feature of “Torajaness,” and to a tendency to reify Toraja culture as ritual. This reification poses new problems, leading to further transformations of both ritual and identity . [ethnicity, cultural identity, ritual, migration, tourism, Indonesia]