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The White Edge of the Margin: Textuality and Authority in Biak, Irian Jaya, Indonesia
Author(s) -
Rutherford Danilyn
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2000.27.2.312
Subject(s) - sociology , hegemony , narrative , meaning (existential) , textuality , literacy , law , gender studies , media studies , history , politics , political science , linguistics , epistemology , philosophy
In Biak, Irian Jaya, in the far east of Indonesia, foreign slogans, narratives, and books are considered a crucial source of authority. In this article, I examine how amber beba (big foreigners), the Biak term for respected leaders, harness the potency attributed to distant lands by presenting their words as translations of an alien text. I explore the implications of this strategy for pursuing authority by examining the worldview expressed in big foreigners' translations of the Bible and other imported works. The case of Biak calls into question scholarly treatments that have taken literacy and Christian conversion as setting the stage for the emergence ofpostcolonial forms of hegemony. In valorizing the textual aspects of outsiders' words, Biaks reproduce a boundary between local and national structures of meaning, keeping foreign orders at a distance even as they tap them for authority and power. [leadership, literacy, translation, Christianity, intercultural relations, postcolonial societies, modernity]