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Talking Heads: Capturing Dayak Deathways on Film
Author(s) -
Schiller Anne
Publication year - 2001
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.2001.28.1.32
Subject(s) - filmmaking , politics , indonesian , elite , sociology , tourism , face (sociological concept) , media studies , national identity , representation (politics) , gender studies , political science , social science , law , history , movie theater , linguistics , philosophy , art history
In 1996, an elite group of Ngaju Dayak religious activists invited National Geographic Television to film their rites of secondary treatment of the dead in the village ofPetak Putih, Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. In this article; I explore activists' efforts to engage the National Geographic Society and their attempts to exert a high degree of control over the manner in which local traditions were portrayed to the filmmakers. I focus in particular on how representations of specific local practices figure in the recasting of a contemporary Dayak face, and on questions concerning religious authenticity and authority. I argue that the activists' interest in making a film, and their decisions during its shooting were part of their larger organizational strategies, with potentially far‐reaching political and economic consequences. [Indonesia, Dayaks, religion, identity, tourism, filmmaking]