Re-imagining 'the West' and performing 'Indonesian modernities': Muslims, Christians and "paranormal" practitioners

This paper explores the connections of attitudes towards the West in contemporary Indonesia to concepts and performances of modernity and to religious identification. Anthropological fieldwork was conducted on Java and Sulawesi using an innovative methodological approach to combine the results of differently positioned researchers. It turned out that most Indonesians constitute their Selves by differentiating between positive and negative aspects of Western Others as counter-images that reveal either weaknesses or strengths within their own society. Yet, the West is no longer the ultimate frame of reference. Since the polarity of Orient and Occident is losing its significance, orientations are shifting towards new imagined centres.