Islam as Drama: Wedding Rites and the Theatricality of Islam in South Sulawesi

This article discusses the prominence of wedding rituals in South Sulawesi to illuminate Islamic development in post-Suharto Indonesia and theatrical expressions of Islam through dramaturgical and social drama analysis. Theatre metaphors help explain the theatricality of Islam and the centrality of wedding rites in social and religious life in South Sulawesi, two social facts not easily understood by people outside this region. Through the performance of wedding rites, Muslims know themselves as Muslims, display social status and transform local politics. Analysis of wedding rites illustrates not only the importance of theatricality in the expression of Islam for the Bugis Makassar Muslims, but also how massive social and religious transformation is structured around a particular life-cycle ritual, namely weddings. Giving emphasis to theatricality, this article nuances recent studies about contemporary Islam, which largely focus upon the importance of discourses in the life of contemporary Muslims.     

On the Performance of Popular Unit-Root Tests Against Various Nonlinear Dynamic Models: A Simulation Study

ABSTRACT

There is a widespread perception that standard unit-root tests have poor discriminatory power when they are applied to time series with nonlinear dynamics. Via Monte Carlo simulations this study re-examines the finite sample properties of selected univariate tests for unit-root and stationarity under a broad class of nonlinear dynamic models. Our simulation experiments produce a couple of interesting findings. First, performance of tests is driven by the degree of underlying persistence rather than the nonlinear dynamics per se. Tests under study exhibit reasonable performance for nonlinear models with mild persistence, while the accuracy of inference deteriorates substantially when the models are highly persistent regardless of the linearity. Second, when it comes to deciding which one to identify first between linearity and stationarity, our results suggest to conduct linearity test first to enhance the reliability of test inference.     

Chinese Indonesians: how many,who and where?

This paper provides new statistics to the debate on percentage of Chinese Indonesians, using the latest 100% data set of the 2010 population census. It reveals that the statistics is closer to the low side of the debate, less than 2.0%, rather than the high side of 3.0% and more. Ethnicity is here self-defined by the respondents. With 1.2%, the Chinese Indonesians ranked as the 15th largest group of more than 600 ethnic groups. This paper also produces statistics at the district level, the first ever statistics on Chinese Indonesians. It finds that some provinces and districts have large percentages of Chinese Indonesians, but the respective total population are relatively small to the total Indonesia’s population. Majority of provinces and districts (25 out of 33 provinces and 415 out of 497 districts) have lower percentage of Chinese than the national figure.     

Intersectional Identities: Influences of Religion,Race, and Gender on the Intimate Relationships of Single Singaporean Malay-Muslim Women

Studies on rising singlehood in Asia have largely focused on the economic dimension. This article widens that lens by examining how religious beliefs influence single Singaporean women’s views toward marriage. Applying the intersectional paradigm expands our understanding of how religion maintains or challenges cultural norms as well as gendered and racial meanings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 27 unmarried Malay-Muslim Singaporean women, it argues that instead of conceptualizing religion as a barrier that hinders the formation of intimate relationships, we can better understand its role in terms of how single Malay-Muslim women appropriate it to negotiate cultural constraints that limit their ability to tie the knot. The research bears important implications on how cultural and religious forces affect marriage patterns in multicultural and multireligious societies.