Uniting the bodies and cleansing the village': Conflicts over local heritage in a globalizing world

Abstract

The Indonesian government has recognized tourism as an important source of not only foreign exchange earnings, but also nation-building, for some time and much effort has gone into socializing peoples to consider their 'tourist charms'. Tourism, I contend, has come to the fore considerably in the post-Suharto era, because of decentralization efforts and the concern with fiscal balance that has emerged with the new regional autonomy laws implemented in 2001. Leaders in a region such as Nusa Tenggara Timur, the province of Eastern Indonesia, without the abundant natural resources of some other regions in the country, see tourism as one very important way of generating more fiscal self-reliance. I have found that in the regency of Manggarai, located within this province, this concern about fiscal responsibility and the emphasis on tourism as a revenue generator has been percolating down to the village level, as well as up to the national urban centres, where people who have originated from Manggarai see regional autonomy as a potential threat, but also as full of opportunity, and tourism as one way of possibly realizing this opportunity. It is domestic tourism that is in fact the largest segment of the Indonesian tourism market, and it is very influential in shaping peoples' ideas about culture and heritage, 1998).