Abstract
In post-conflict Maluku, there has been renewed interest in redeveloping the Banda Islands as a major tourist attraction for the region, and as a world heritage site. As practices of tourism represent culture for diverse audiences, they also inform how local inhabitants conceptualize their identities, as well as influence the processes of collective memory. The Indonesian concepts of culture draw on relationships to land, community and cosmology referred to as adat that have a dynamic and complex relationship to people’s religious identifications. In this talk, I’ll explore how Christians displaced from the Banda islands during the conflict are being “re-membered” as outsiders in the process of reconstructing culture for the consumption of tourists, and consider how representations of culture for the tourism industry can potentially strengthen exclusive versions of local identity.
Speaker
Kelli Alicia Swazey is a faculty member at the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Hawai’i Manoa. Her research focuses on identity in the public sphere, representation and the media, minority religions in Indonesia, and religion and tourism. She has designed several programs on diversity in Southeast Asia, and has been a featured TED speaker and a fellow of the INK (Innovation and Knowledge) program. 
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Abstract
Conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims has taken place in Madura, particularly in Sampang, for many years, triggered typically not in relation to different interpretations of the Islamic faith but rather by clashes between the various personal and political interests of the local religious elites. This study examines the opinions, beliefs, and experiences of the communities of Sunni and Shia adherents in Madura using a communication-cultural studies perspective in order to explore the contestation of meanings of local religious and ethnic identities. This perspective can provide an alternative for unpacking the everyday lives of the Sunni and Shiites and understanding the conflict through their local cultural backgrounds and religious experiences.
Speaker
Prof. Rachma Ida, Ph.D. is a lecturer at the Department of Communication Studies, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, and a member of Indonesian Communication Bachelor Association. She earned her Ph.D. from Curtin University of Technology, Australia. Her research interests are in the studies of media and culture, gender studies, and Islam/Muslim identities.
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