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Three weddings and a performance: marriage, households, and development in the highlands of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
Author(s) -
Schrauwers Albert
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.2000.27.4.855
Subject(s) - ceremony , performative utterance , livelihood , hegemony , state (computer science) , sociology , constitution , underdevelopment , gender studies , political science , law , history , aesthetics , art , archaeology , algorithm , politics , computer science , agriculture
To Pamona couples are generally married in three ceremonies: traditional, church, and civil. Here, I treat each ceremony as a performative genre that constitutes the household differently. Both church and state actors see themselves as modernist reformers of tradition, which they view as a hindrance to development. I argue, however, that the traditional household form is the product of the modernizing efforts of church and state and hence points to a process of the development of underdevelopment. The wedding has become a key site of cultural contestation in which the constitution of the household is the outcome affecting livelihoods and the distribution of resources. The flows of performative elements from one genre of wedding ceremony to another are thus attempts to assert and resist hegemony. [wedding ceremony, development, household, gender inequality, performance]