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Singing and Silences: Transformations of Power through Javanese Seduction Scenarios
Author(s) -
Cooper Nancy I.
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.2000.27.3.609
Subject(s) - prestige , singing , harmony (color) , sociology , power (physics) , embodied cognition , ideology , aesthetics , gender studies , femininity , social psychology , psychology , art , epistemology , political science , philosophy , linguistics , physics , management , quantum mechanics , politics , law , economics , visual arts
Glamorous women singers (waranggana) in rural central Java appear ordinary in their everyday lives, but become exemplars of extraordinary femininity in performances where flirtatious interactions may occur between them and male musicians. Although the obvious interpretation suggests sexual promiscuity, my research shows that these "seduction scenarios'' are ways in which women, through their attractive power, help men transform their exuberant power into constructive spiritual potency. More superficially, men use these seduction scenarios to position themselves in a masculine prestige hierarchy.Although women can and do activate their own power through daily activities or, in the case of waranggana, through singing, they more often suppress the signs of their embodied power in favor of men's spiritual and social potency, in keeping with a highly valued ideology of social harmony shared by both. Hence, through singing and silences, waranggana preserve men's prestige and together with them participate in a social construction that usually keeps the peace at local levels, [gender, power, prestige, performance, gamelan, Javanese, Indonesia]