Southeast Asian Lives: Personal Narratives and Historical Experience (review)

Intellectual cross-pollination between oral history and anthropology is a long tradition. Editor and contributor Waterson argues that the influence of oral history on life narrative research in anthropology intensified during the 1980s but needs fresh emphasis. A primary goal in Southeast Asian Lives is to promote the thoughtful use of oral history life narratives, especially to explore the influence of twentieth-century dramatic historical changes on individual lives and cultures. Her “Introduction: Analyzing Personal Narratives” is a useful and thought-provoking survey of theoretical issues on oral narratives, especially for anyone doing cross-cultural interviewing.

Southeast Asian Lives presents seven essays written by an international collection of anthropologists using various forms of personal narratives in seven different Southeast Asian locations. Some of the many intertwined issues fleshed out through the stories and analyses are identity changes toward modernity, life narratives as literary forms, those old issues of validity and representativeness, and maintaining respect and subjectivity of narrators.

Waterson’s essay, “A Toraja Pilgrimage: The Life of Fritz Basiang” is one of several exploring identity changes toward modernity from narrators whose lifetime historical context includes political upheaval and social change. Examples include a precolonial rural past, European colonization, Japanese occupation, independence struggles, and emergence of nation-states. Fritz Basiang made exceptional life choices to take advantage of Dutch colonial education opportunities to train as a nurse, travel to Europe, and eventually run a rural hospital in his Indonesian homeland. In his life journey, Basiang adapted his cultural identity to become a Western educated healer and administrator while continuing to belong to and serve his community. This example raises questions of how to think about and explore changing identity experiences of any narrator over a lifetime, but especially immigrants and refugees from third world countries to more developed countries.

Several essays analyze oral history life narratives for literary form. Waterson places oral history within the category of personal narratives developed from Western concepts of individualism. Personal narratives include diaries, letters, biography, autobiography, social performances of life story fragments, and the “dialogic collaboration” of oral histories (17). Waterson argues that oral histories are one of the most effective ways to enter into an understanding of other cultures and also reminds researchers that the fluid nature of identity between the communal and personal in many cultures is a valid kind of truth that can also affect storytelling forms.

The issue of literary forms is addressed extensively in Janet Hoskins essay, “Who Owns a Life Narrative? Scholars and Family Members in Dialogue.” Joseph Malo from Rara witnessed his father’s beheading, was sold into slavery, beheaded two people in revenge, and eventually was appointed a regional leader by the Indonesian government. His dramatic life story is told by himself, his son, Hoskins, and Malo’s selection of an established community storyteller. Literary form, perspective, purpose, and audience change. Even plot interpretations vary from the “return to rightful status” to the oral tradition of the “triumphant orphan story” (90). Presentations vary from traditional performances including ritualized songs to an academic paper. Hoskins concludes that there is no simple answer to who owns the story. Different storytellers have different kinds of ownership and different literary forms of telling. One of many challenges is for different storytellers to respect each other’s approaches.

Raising the issues of validity and representativeness, Waterson refers to Alessandro Portelli as the master of interpreting validity and representativeness in such works as The Battle of Valle Giulia (1997) arguing that authority of oral histories is tied to point of view, as in novels, and understanding from oral histories is deeper than the standard concepts of historical accuracy, expanding into imagined meanings.

Robert Knox Denton’s essay, “Arifin in the Iron Cap: Confessions of a Young Man, Drowning,” deconstructs the scholars’ traditional modes of writing master narratives and conclusions based on fragments of information by presenting narrative fragments from various sources along with cultural insights and possible conclusions. Denton searches...