Ritual persistence, ideology, and renewal of social categories: The case of Javanese kanuragan initiation

Abstract

The kanuragan initiation rite is readapted in the course of a social opportunism alternatively developed by organized groups: nobility of blood and of dress, traditionalist or progressive Islam, nationalists, military, civil society. These groups rely on preconceived value systems and rework the existing cultural, conceptual, technical, and organizational elements. The ritual perspective splits by adapting its form and its object. The social structure which underlies it is conjuncturally exceeded by the analogical, anthropomorphic, Muslim, nationalist, and ultra-secular referents in question. The competition that opposes these different collectives follows a logic of distinctive ideological accumulation that comes to produce a form of uncontrolled and uncontrollable ideological saturation.