Changing Places: Relatives and Relativism in Java

This article examines the social context of conceptual and moral relativism; more specifically, it explores links between religious orientation and experience in an ideologically plural setting. I argue that cultural models of ‘changing places’ serve to guide a number of Javanese practices: child–borrowing, gender–switching, language use, and even religious conversion. These models, formed in childhood experience, engender and express a relativism which is highly valued in rural Java.