Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

118 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATIONMethodologyWe did a combination of library research, fieldethnography, animal behavior observations (ethology),surveys and interviews. Photography, videodocumentation, recorded interviews and groupdiscussions were also utilized. We were helped byBalinese and Thai interpreters in most of our interviewsand also by competent individuals, mostly academebased,in the development of our survey instruments, inthe actual conducting of the survey, and in the analysis ofresults. 4 While the main source for the study’s findingsare taken from fieldwork in the sites mentioned above,comparative library information from other areas ofAsia are cited when relevant.FindingsThe complex and ambivalent ways in which SoutheastAsians relate to animals can readily be observed inthe case of monkeys. Monkeys are variously feared,venerated, hated, displayed, disciplined, respected, madeas resources for moralizing, given a sacred space, plus ahost of more ambivalent emotions. 5 Some ethnographicbits from Bali highlight these aspects. Feared: whilewalking with a Balinese mother and her son beside atroop of feeding monkeys in Sangeh Monkey Forest,both of them kept mentioning takut (fear) as their feelingfor the monkey, with the mother even commentingon how I had the nerve to follow them almost everyday; the local pawang bojog (monkey tamer) is alwaysfirst described as one who, while not having ‘fear’ ofthe monkeys, is the one ‘feared’ by the monkeys.Venerated or shown venerating: images of monkeys andtheir leader Hanuman can be found in many templesculptures and paintings; some monkey-figures are alsodepicted as making their own veneration gestures, asin a praying position; their constant association withthe sacred forests also made them “sacred monkeys” tosome folk and tourist imaginations. Hated: both directobservation during our fieldwork and reports by otherobservers found cases in which monkeys roving faroutside of the sacred forest grounds are shot at or stonedby angry farmers for disturbing their fields. Displayed:in various artworks as pop figures; as traveling monkeyperformersin topeng monyet (monkey performances)shows that one could encounter sometimes in the streetsof Denpasar; in one priestly compound in Sangeh, I sawa tied-by-rope pet monkey eagerly shown to us whenwe happened to visit the household. These ambivalentemotions in relating to monkeys can also be found inThailand and in the Philippines.enduring patterns observable, from Bali to Mindanao tosouthern and central Thailand. One broad pattern seenin these diverse contexts is the propensity of monkeys toactively assert themselves, and by their trainability andadaptability, to find niches, or to be forced into them,in the expanding spaces of humans. This is displayed intheir insertion into various aspects of the everyday lifeof the people: as performers in pedestrian topeng monyetin the streets of Denpasar and varied places of Java,as obyek pariwisata (tourist objects) in many “monkeyforests” of Bali and sacred temples of Thailand, as“working monkeys” in the coconut fields of Sumatraand south Thailand, as agricultural “pests” dwelling inthe margins of mountainous settlements of Mindanao,or as conservation targets in the mangrove areas of SuratThani.Image of the Hanuman monkey riding on snakeFrom the Korn Collection printed in Hooykaas (1980)Monkey images in a Balinesemagico-mystic healing bookIn Nala (2006)Through all these, however, there are broad andAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows