Nathan Porath
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 79698 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Nathan Porath |
| NOMBRES | Nathan |
| APELLIDO | Porath |
| FIRMA | PORATH N |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Southampton |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 40 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 32 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 40 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2002 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Pain, Play and Music
Pain, Play and Music: Death and Healing Rites Among the Wana. 2024. By Giorgio Scalici. London: Bloomsbury. 256pp. $115 (hardcover), $39.95 (paper), $103.50 (e- book)
The Relational Horse
Lansia Awareness' and the Challenges Faced by Community Volunteers (kader) Servicing Indonesian Elders during the First Year of the Covid-19 Pandemic
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Indonesia had a strong focus on supporting older adults through community involvement and health initiatives. The development of this support, which occurred over a period of 25 years, we call 'lansia awareness'. During this period, older adults were encouraged to exercise and actively participate in their communities. Community health volunteers and non-governmental organizations (NGO s) proliferated throughout the …
The Ensoundments of the Materially Ethereal in Indigenous Riau (Sumatra)
This chapter is focused on sounds associated with ethereal matter (semanget) and its embodied manifestation that vitalizes human, animal, and material physicality.I discuss the therapeutic sounds which are humanly generated to mobilize the materially ethereal to "repair bodies" in the Sakai shamanic healing rituals called dikei.The Orang Sakai lived on the edge of the Malay kingdom of Siak.Most Sakais are animist.Dikei is an ensounded performativ…
The Ensoundments of the Materially Ethereal in Indigenous Riau (Sumatra)
The Ensoundments of the Materially Ethereal in Indigenous Riau (Sumatra)
This chapter is focused on sounds associated with ethereal matter ( semanget ) and its embodied manifestation that vitalizes human, animal, and material physicality. I discuss the therapeutic sounds which are humanly generated to mobilize the materially ethereal to “repair bodies” in the Sakai shamanic healing rituals called dikei . The Orang Sakai lived on the edge of the Malay kingdom of Siak. Most Sakais are animist. Dikei is an ensounded perf…
Voluntary Care for Older People
Community healthcare in Indonesia relies on volunteer workers who engage their clients outside fixed health facilities with limited resources and formal training. These volunteers are called cadres who learn their tasks to improve community wellbeing through ongoing engagement and without prior skills. They are drawn from the community to serve the community. This paper is based on field research carried out with cadres through interviews and vis…
Vulnerable, Heroic … or Invisible? Representations Versus Realities of Later Life in Indonesia
Indonesia, like many rapidly ageing lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), tends to portray older citizens as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘dependent’; yet the country has few public policies to support them. To this discourse, an alternative stereotype is emerging, influenced by notions of ‘successful ageing’, which promotes models of older people as healthy and contributing to families and the nation state. In this article, we argue that both stereotypes i…
Body Modification in East Asia
This short article introduces the special issue “Chasing Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery and Skin Lightening in East Asia”. It highlights the scale of and interest in the current boom in these procedures across Northeast and Southeast Asia, and outlines some questions of causality and interpretation arising from that boom. It then summarises the contents of the other five contributions to the collection, and identifies a number of common themes and conc…
Body Modification in East Asia
This article outlines the long-term historical development of body modification in East (Northeast and Southeast) Asia, from the intentionally transformative practices of prehistory, such as tattooing and tooth blackening, to the “naturalistic” practices of the 20th century, such as cosmetic surgery, which aim to leave no visible evidence of change. Attention is also paid to the recent postmodern revival of transformative body fashions. Asian dev…
Bangkok Is Ringing
Hjorleifur Jonsson. Slow Anthropology
Understanding the Importance of “Patient’s Choice” in the Early Environmental Justice Activism of the Karen of Klity Creek (Thailand)
During the latter half of the twentieth century the small Karen community of Klity Creek (Thailand) suffered from industrial lead pollution. With the help of an NGO, members of the community started a civic campaign demanding environmental justice and raised public awareness about their exposure to lead pollution. The Thai Ministry of Public Health offered them medical treatment, but they rejected it. Instead, the patients/activists requested ano…
L. Ayu Saraswati. Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia
on Southeast Asia.The authors' general advice is to leave ASEAN members alone to work out their own internal political problems, as interference is simply too un-ASEAN.One exception to this general rule is Cambodia, where the authors come close to suggesting the Association might expel Cambodia for its sacrifice of ASEAN unity to please China (p.143), a surprisingly un-ASEAN threat.In a book full of ironies, Mahbubani and Sng point to ASEAN's sen…
Dhamma Detox at a Thai Buddhist (Asoke) Community. Merit-Making, Colon-Cleansing, and Excrement
In Thailand there is a Buddhist movement called Santi Asok. In recent years one of its lay communities has developed a five-day bodily detoxification course for the good of the Thai public as a form of merit making. Participants who refrain from eating food and drink other than the intake of herbal tonics, undergo various forms of detoxification procedure and particularly colon cleansing. The course culminates in the inspection of the participant…
A Meeting of Masks
Siamese Melting Pot
Holt, John Clifford
Anthropos , Seite 312 - 313
Contesting Medical Treatment
Since the mid-1970s the forested area of Klity Creek, northwest of Bangkok, suffered from one of the worst cases of industrial pollution in Thailand caused by a floating lead mine that operated in the area. Toxic waste found its way into the stream, used for daily food and water consumption by the local (Pwo-) speaking Karen villagers. After an NGO came to their aid, introducing the Karen villagers to the environmental justice movement of Thailan…
Stodulka, Thomas
Anthropos , Seite 347 - 348
Lead-polluted water changed our lives’
At the turn of the millennium, inhabitants of a small Karen village situated in one of Thailand’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites sought access to environmental justice in the Thai courts over industrial pollution that had contaminated their local stream with lead and caused them years of degraded health and social misery. The Karen villagers were only able to gain access to justice with the help of NGOs that served them as a support group during a p…
Animism and Personal Religion in Southeast Asia
Water Politics and Spiritual Ecology, Custom. Environmental Governance and Development, written by Lisa Palmer
Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird; Exploration In the Folk Zoology of an Eastern Indonesian People, written by Gregory Forth
Temiar Religion 1964–2012. Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Re-enchantment in Malaysia’s Uplands, written by Geoffrey Benjamin
Seeing sound
This article explores therapeutic shamanic sounds in relation to Orang Sakai ideas of (altered) consciousness. The argument given is that within a shamanic epistemology the very idea of producing sound involves an assumption of the material existence of non-physical beings as sound-makers. Such sounds are conceived to be as materially real as are ordinary physical sounds. The article argues further that sound is not only experienced through heari…
Body Modification in East Asia
This article outlines the long-term historical development of body modification in East (Northeast and Southeast) Asia, from the intentionally transformative practices of prehistory, such as tattooing and tooth blackening, to the “naturalistic” practices of the 20th century, such as cosmetic surgery, which aim to leave no visible evidence of change. Attention is also paid to the recent postmodern revival of transformative body fashions. Asian dev…
A river, a road, an indigenous people and an entangled landscape in Riau, Indonesia
In Riau, connecting the provincial capital Pekanbaru with the small market town of Duri and the coastal town of Dumai is a two-lane high road.1 The road runs through an area that once was dense forest accessible only by river. The road was built during the second half of the twentieth century, following the discovery of oil in the area. Part of the territory the road passes through is the traditional area of an indigenous people officially called…
Creating medicine on a swing
This article focuses on a healing technique to facilitate childbirth performed by the Orang Sakai, a Malayan-speaking indigenous people of Sumatra (Indonesia). It explores the sensoriality of mimesis, mirroring, and embodiment through the works of Taussig, Girard, and others. It further makes a comparison between recent mimetic phantom-limb somatic therapy and shamanic ritual, focusing on the idea of mirroring and mimetic touching without making …
The naturalization of psychiatry in Indonesia and its interaction with indigenous therapeutics
Psychiatry developed as a modern branch of medical knowledge in Western societies and arrived in Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth century. Dutch colonialism brought psychiatry and psychology to the Dutch East Indies as part of the development of European therapeutics in that part of the empire. During the twentieth century, psychiatry was naturalized in Indonesia (and other Southeast Asian countries) and integrated into the national health c…
Muslim Schools ( Pondok ) in the South of Thailand
This paper focuses on the ponoh/pondok Muslim schools of the south of Thailand. These schools, which are traditional institutions of religious learning and places of religious piety, have experienced conflict and contestations throughout the twentieth century. Pondok have been pulled by different modernizing forces including separatist violence. The paper concludes that the contestations and negotiations with the Thai government are about the dev…
Freud among the Orang Sakai. The Father Archetype, the Talking Cure, and the Transference in a Sumatran Shamanic Healing Complex
This article provides a detail description of a Sakai shamanic healing ritual session. The aim is to show that certain therapeutic techniques and themes associated with Freud are prevalent in indigenous form within the shamanic healing "tool kit." These Freudian themes are a) recognition of the therapeutic force of the word, b) the healing qualities of the father archetype, c) recognition of transference type phenomena, and d) recognition of the …
Body Modification in East Asia
This short article introduces the special issue “Chasing Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery and Skin Lightening in East Asia”. It highlights the scale of and interest in the current boom in these procedures across Northeast and Southeast Asia, and outlines some questions of causality and interpretation arising from that boom. It then summarises the contents of the other five contributions to the collection, and identifies a number of common themes and conc…
Lead-polluted water changed our lives’
At the turn of the millennium, inhabitants of a small Karen village situated in one of Thailand’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites sought access to environmental justice in the Thai courts over industrial pollution that had contaminated their local stream with lead and caused them years of degraded health and social misery. The Karen villagers were only able to gain access to justice with the help of NGOs that served them as a support group during a p…
Physicalising the spirit-dimension by song, dance and ‘fakery’ in indigenous mainland Riau, Indonesia
The Orang Sakai of Mainland Riau, on the east coast of Sumatra, have an elaborate performing art genre through which they physicalise the unseen spirit-dimension in a shamanic ritual called dikei . Their shamanic ritual utilises songs, dance as well as comedy. This article elaborates on how songs and dance visualise the unseen beings and provides detailed examples of Sakai performances during which shamans ‘dance with’ or ‘move with’ the spirits.…
They have not progressed enough’
This paper is ethnographically concerned with two different orang asli communities: the Meniq living in Southern Thailand and the Orang Sakai in Riau, Indonesia. The focus is on the different discursive rhetorics of development in the two nation-states. These rhetorics have been absorbed by the two indigenous groups to form part of their own modern cultural discourses within their respective countries. These rhetorics of development define the in…
Race, Ethnicity, and the State in Malaysia and Singapore
A river, a road, an indigenous people and an entangled landscape in Riau, Indonesia
In Riau, connecting the provincial capital Pekanbaru with the small market town of Duri and the coastal town of Dumai is a two-lane high road.1 The road runs through an area that once was dense forest accessible only by river. The road was built during the second half of the twentieth century, following the discovery of oil in the area. Part of the territory the road passes through is the traditional area of an indigenous people officially called…
The naturalization of psychiatry in Indonesia and its interaction with indigenous therapeutics
Psychiatry developed as a modern branch of medical knowledge in Western societies and arrived in Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth century. Dutch colonialism brought psychiatry and psychology to the Dutch East Indies as part of the development of European therapeutics in that part of the empire. During the twentieth century, psychiatry was naturalized in Indonesia (and other Southeast Asian countries) and integrated into the national health c…
Seeing sound
This article explores therapeutic shamanic sounds in relation to Orang Sakai ideas of (altered) consciousness. The argument given is that within a shamanic epistemology the very idea of producing sound involves an assumption of the material existence of non-physical beings as sound-makers. Such sounds are conceived to be as materially real as are ordinary physical sounds. The article argues further that sound is not only experienced through heari…
Race, Ethnicity, and the State in Malaysia and Singapore
They have not progressed enough’
This paper is ethnographically concerned with two different orang asli communities: the Meniq living in Southern Thailand and the Orang Sakai in Riau, Indonesia. The focus is on the different discursive rhetorics of development in the two nation-states. These rhetorics have been absorbed by the two indigenous groups to form part of their own modern cultural discourses within their respective countries. These rhetorics of development define the in…
Civic Activism Continued Through Other Means
This article explores the relationship between civil society and terror-violence. It argues that terrorism should be understood as “civic activism continued through other means.” This allows us to distinguish it from state-terror. The article then explores the theme with data drawn from the political situation in the south of Thailand focusing on some recent events in which local Thai Malay-Muslims have protested against military presence. The pa…
The Hikayat Patani
This paper looks at the Hikayat Patani as a mimetic text. It tries to capture Patani‘s power relations with neighbouring kingdoms. From the perspective of mimesis the text expresses similarity with Ayutthaya even as it describes the Patani sultan and sultana’s rebellions against Ayutthaya. In relation to the surrounding Malay kingdoms and fiefdoms the text expresses Patani’s superiority. In relation to Johor it fractures mimetic similarity. Build…
The terrorist insurgency in the South of Thailand
Review of: Zachary Abuza, Conspiracy of silence: The insurgency in Southern Thailand. Duncan McCargo (ed.), Rethinking Thailand's southern violence
Creating medicine on a swing
This article focuses on a healing technique to facilitate childbirth performed by the Orang Sakai, a Malayan-speaking indigenous people of Sumatra (Indonesia). It explores the sensoriality of mimesis, mirroring, and embodiment through the works of Taussig, Girard, and others. It further makes a comparison between recent mimetic phantom-limb somatic therapy and shamanic ritual, focusing on the idea of mirroring and mimetic touching without making …
Freud among the Orang Sakai. The Father Archetype, the Talking Cure, and the Transference in a Sumatran Shamanic Healing Complex
This article provides a detail description of a Sakai shamanic healing ritual session. The aim is to show that certain therapeutic techniques and themes associated with Freud are prevalent in indigenous form within the shamanic healing "tool kit." These Freudian themes are a) recognition of the therapeutic force of the word, b) the healing qualities of the father archetype, c) recognition of transference type phenomena, and d) recognition of the …
Not to Be Aware Anymore
Anthropologists working on altered states of consciousness (ASC) have suggested that we should do away with psychologizing concepts and use people's own terms for these experiences. With material drawn from the Orang Sakai of Sumatra this paper shows that practitioners who utilizeASCdo recognize the alteration of states of awareness as preconditions for numinous interactions. Also critically discussed is the termASC
Muslim Schools ( Pondok ) in the South of Thailand
This paper focuses on the ponoh/pondok Muslim schools of the south of Thailand. These schools, which are traditional institutions of religious learning and places of religious piety, have experienced conflict and contestations throughout the twentieth century. Pondok have been pulled by different modernizing forces including separatist violence. The paper concludes that the contestations and negotiations with the Thai government are about the dev…
Maya (Image) in Indigenous Riau World-view
The early literature on Malay animism and magic includes a passing reference to a concept called maya . This reference is hardly noticeable in the literature, and when Kirk Endicott wrote his Malay Magic , he omitted the word altogether. In this article the author uses ethnographic material from the Malayan-speaking Orang Sakai of Riau to examine the concept of maya (image) as it relates to a ‘lifeless soul’ inherent in material objects, giving p…
Physicalising the spirit-dimension by song, dance and ‘fakery’ in indigenous mainland Riau, Indonesia
The Orang Sakai of Mainland Riau, on the east coast of Sumatra, have an elaborate performing art genre through which they physicalise the unseen spirit-dimension in a shamanic ritual called dikei . Their shamanic ritual utilises songs, dance as well as comedy. This article elaborates on how songs and dance visualise the unseen beings and provides detailed examples of Sakai performances during which shamans ‘dance with’ or ‘move with’ the spirits.…
Water Politics and Spiritual Ecology, Custom. Environmental Governance and Development, written by Lisa Palmer
Why the Porcupine Is Not a Bird; Exploration In the Folk Zoology of an Eastern Indonesian People, written by Gregory Forth
Temiar Religion 1964–2012. Enchantment, Disenchantment, and Re-enchantment in Malaysia’s Uplands, written by Geoffrey Benjamin
The Hume/Tylor Genealogy and Andrew Lang. Of Miracles and Marvels, Animism, and Materialism
This article focuses on the influence of David Hume’s writings and particular the Natural History of Religion on Edward B. Tylor’s “Primitive Culture” highlighting the Hume/ Tylor genealogy in the foundation of the discipline. It further argues that Tylor developed his argument through three interrelated meanings of the word animism (primitive animism, animism as religion, and animism as ontology/philosophy). Andrew Lang launched his critique aga…
Lead-polluted water changed our lives’
At the turn of the millennium, inhabitants of a small Karen village situated in one of Thailand’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites sought access to environmental justice in the Thai courts over industrial pollution that had contaminated their local stream with lead and caused them years of degraded health and social misery. The Karen villagers were only able to gain access to justice with the help of NGOs that served them as a support group during a p…
Animism and Personal Religion in Southeast Asia
Understanding the Importance of “Patient’s Choice” in the Early Environmental Justice Activism of the Karen of Klity Creek (Thailand)
During the latter half of the twentieth century the small Karen community of Klity Creek (Thailand) suffered from industrial lead pollution. With the help of an NGO, members of the community started a civic campaign demanding environmental justice and raised public awareness about their exposure to lead pollution. The Thai Ministry of Public Health offered them medical treatment, but they rejected it. Instead, the patients/activists requested ano…
L. Ayu Saraswati. Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia
on Southeast Asia.The authors' general advice is to leave ASEAN members alone to work out their own internal political problems, as interference is simply too un-ASEAN.One exception to this general rule is Cambodia, where the authors come close to suggesting the Association might expel Cambodia for its sacrifice of ASEAN unity to please China (p.143), a surprisingly un-ASEAN threat.In a book full of ironies, Mahbubani and Sng point to ASEAN's sen…
Dhamma Detox at a Thai Buddhist (Asoke) Community. Merit-Making, Colon-Cleansing, and Excrement
In Thailand there is a Buddhist movement called Santi Asok. In recent years one of its lay communities has developed a five-day bodily detoxification course for the good of the Thai public as a form of merit making. Participants who refrain from eating food and drink other than the intake of herbal tonics, undergo various forms of detoxification procedure and particularly colon cleansing. The course culminates in the inspection of the participant…
A Meeting of Masks
Siamese Melting Pot
Sociology (19 obras) · Political science (18 obras) · Asian Studies and History (15 obras) · History (14 obras) · Philosophy (14 obras) · Law (13 obras) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (11 obras) · Geography (10 obras) · Indigenous (10 obras) · Politics (10 obras)