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P A R T O N E Fluid Personhood: Conceptualizing Identities We begin with a section on “Conceptualizing Identities” because the definition of the “self” in Southeast Asia is one of the startlingly different elements that intrigue observers from other regions of the world. In the West, particularly the United States, there is a pronounced emphasis on the self as a bounded unit, autonomous, self-actualizing, and independent. We are taught (if not completely or successfully) not to define ourselves in terms of others but to be “our own selves.” This is not the dominant norm in Southeast Asia. For instance, Kathleen Gillogly vividly remembers the ways in which her “self” was redefined by friends in Vietnam over the years. When they understood her to be married, they expected one kind of personal style; when they later found her to be single, their conversational assessments of her changed. As a “single” woman, she was to be an open, vivacious person, sporting dangling earrings and bright colors, and wearing her hair down. As a “married” woman, she was held to a standard of quiet calm and reticence , and was to have her hair bound and wear darker colors. She was the same person—but what had changed? Her social role vis-à-vis the social group. This fluidity of self is marked in Southeast Asian cultures in many ways, as discussed in the readings in this section. More often than not, in this region conceptions of the self entail multiple aspects: the self, traditionally, is not a unitary concept. This can be seen in underlying (pre–world religion) cultural ideas of the soul, as well as in language and behavior. The notion of multiple and overlapping identities is a theme in Andrew Causey’s essay (chapter 2) on the Toba Batak of Sumatra, Indonesia. As Causey notes, the Toba Batak idea of the person entails several different dimensions: the 10 / Part One “self,” a complex conflation of individual personality, the particular spirit, and the collective group. The “individual personality” is based on a combination of one’s physical quirks and character, whereas one’s particular spirit (or tondi) has a will of its own and must be respected and humored lest it wreak havoc on one’s well-being. Finally, the collective group dimension of the Toba Batak self pertains to one’s membership in an array of broader groups: family, peer group, profession, clan, ethnicity, and nation. Naming is one marker of personhood, beginning the process of incorporating a child into the community. In chapter 5, by Harold Conklin, we see one example of this when the new baby is not named immediately at birth; rather, the family waits for the grandparents to come from another village to name him. Traditionally on Bali, there are only four names for children, based on birth order. If a family has more than four children, the cycle of names is repeated again, and it is possible to have several children with the same name in a single family. The names can be assigned to girls or boys; what is important to mark is one’s birth order. Lisu children are named by birth order and gender—which caused Gillogly much confusion (since there are many people named “First Daughter” and “First Son” in the village) until she discovered each person’s personal nickname. Balinese also use nicknames to navigate the vagaries of these birth-order names. However, on Bali both nickname and birth-order name recede in importance once one becomes a parent. At that point, one is called “Mother of Wayan” or “Father of Ketut,” a practice known as teknonymy. This name shift reflects both a change in status and the idea that all are expected to become parents. Finally, when one becomes a grandparent, one’s name changes yet again, to “Grandmother of Made” or “Grandfather of Wayan.” In her languageoriented contribution to this volume, Lorraine Aragon (chapter 1) also notes the importance of teknonymy among the Tobaku people of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Just as the practice of teknonymy in many Southeast Asian societies underscores the importance of being immersed in webs of kinship, and of linguistically underscoring one’s connections to others, so do everyday conversational styles convey similar themes. Aragon’s contribution cogently illustrates that the absence of indigenous words for please and thank you in Central Sulawesi languages reveals much about social relations. Among other things, she underscores that the fact that so many indigenous languages in the archipelago...

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