Religious Conversions and Flexible Spaces in Riung (Flores, Eastern Indonesia)

Nao-Cosme Rémon (Aix-Marseille University)

The Riung people of Flores (Ngada District) is divided into Moslems and Catholics sharing a common local cultural identity. Peaceful interreligious coexistence between these communities can well be observed in the regular intermarriages that take place across religious boarders. This paper will focus on religious conversions occurring mainly in the context of marriage and will show how local notions related to symbolical spaces accompany shifts in religious identity. Religions in Riung are not treated as mutually exclusive categories but as flexible spaces, both symbolical and inscribed in the landscape. Water used by Moslems for ritual and hygienic purpose becomes in this context a critical component in the elaboration of contrastive identity and spaces. Christians are “people of the dry land” while Moslems are “people of the water”. However in Riung the opposing contrast usually found in this part of Indonesia between inland-Christians and coastal-Moslems is upset at some levels. Since the introduction of Islam (in the nineteen century) and Christianity (in the twenty century) religious affiliation is adapted and manipulated by the Riung and religious conversions are integrated and institutionalized in the local custom rules (adat). This general modularity and pragmatic flexibility is analyzed in the light of a distinctive historical context in which the adoption of world religions, dynamics of migrations and settlement processes are closely linked.

Full paper available for download here !