VOICING SELVES: ETHICS, MEDIATION, AND THE POLITICS OF RELIGION IN POST-AUTHORITARIAN BALI A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Nicole Joanna Reisnour August 2018 © 2018 Nicole Joanna Reisnour VOICING SELVES: ETHICS, MEDIATION, AND THE POLITICS OF RELIGION IN POST-AUTHORITARIAN BALI Nicole Joanna Reisnour, PhD Cornell University 2018 This is an ethnographic study of the voice as a resource for forming devout Hindu selves in contemporary Bali, Indonesia. Through case studies of three forms of Hindu chant, I show how vocal performance has been taken up—by the state, by religious authorities, and by vocalists themselves—as a tool of ethical reform and a technology of ethical striving. I argue that the voice has become a privileged medium for imagining and inhabiting new subjectivities in Bali. I contextualize my study of voice within a broader investigation of religion as both a disciplining force and an enabling resource in the lives of Balinese Hindus. Bringing ethnographic attention to a variety of practices through which Balinese Hindus interact with the world they call niskala, the world of invisible deities, and spirits—including ritual exchange, prayer, and the study and performance of religious texts, among others—I show how human-niskala relationships are constituted through, and structured by, hegemonic institutions and discourses, while at the same time, they create spaces of possibility for individuals to engage in creative forms of self-making iii and world-making. By examining how these relationships are imagined and manifested across different spheres of religious authority, I shed light on the ethical pluralism of religious life in contemporary Bali. This study focuses on religious pedagogies of voice as a particularly productive site for investigating the coming-into-being of new kinds of selves. Because of its connection to language, and, by extension, to texts, the voice has been deployed as both an object and a tool in state-sponsored projects of religious reform in Bali, which emphasize interiority as the core of religious selfhood and foreground texts as the proper source of religious knowledge and moral guidance. Religious forms of vocal performance and training are also an important space in which sensory and affective dispositions are formed. Highlighting the sonic and bodily materiality of vocal expression, as well as its linguistic and textual aspects, I argue that the semiotic, sensory, and affective affordances of vocal performance and training play an important role in shaping the kinds of ethical selves that are imagined and cultivated in Bali today. iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Nicole Reisnour was born in Minneapolis, MN but spent most of her childhood in Grand Forks, ND. She holds degrees from Bard College (B.A. Music, 2003) and Mills College (M.A. Composition, 2007), where she studied composition with Kyle Gann, Joan Tower, Annie Gosfield, and Alvin Curran, and piano performance with German Diez. She has been performing Balinese music since 2000, during which time she has had the privilege of working with many master Balinese musicians and dancers, including I Gusti Nyoman Darta, Ida Ayu Ketut Suciawani (alm.), I Putu Putrawan (alm.), I Gusti Ketut Bajra, Ida Ayu Werdhi, I Nyoman Saptanyana, I Wayan Suweca, I Made Terip, and I Nyoman Windha. As a member of Gamelan Dharma Swara (2009-2012) and Gamelan Sekar Jaya (2004-2008), she has performed on numerous concert series and festivals in the U.S. and Bali, including Wordless Music, MoMA Nights, Performa, Cal Performances, and the Festival Gong Kebyar. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research project has benefitted from the generous support of many people and institutions, too many to mention here. The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research funded a year of ethnographic research in Bali through a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant. The American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) provided a CAORC Research Fellowship, which supported six months of preliminary dissertation research. I also received grants from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. I would especially like to thank Dr. Tony Rudyansjah, as well as his students at the Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, Universitas Indonesia, for sponsoring my research and giving me the opportunity to present my work to them. The RISTEK office in Jakarta was helpful in guiding me through the research permit process. I would also like to thank the staff at Radio Republik Indonesia, Denpasar— especially I Ketut Candra—and the faculty at Institut Hindu Dharma Negeri—in particular, I Made Surada—for meeting with me on several occasions and fielding my many questions. My thinking has been immeasurably enriched through my interactions with faculty members at Cornell, including, above all, the members of my dissertation committee. They have been unwavering in supporting my seemingly endless stream of fellowship and job applications, often on short vi notice, and they have also been instrumental in shaping this research project (though I take full responsibility for its shortcomings). Andrew McGraw, who was a visiting fellow at Cornell in 2011, has been a longtime friend in the world of Balinese music. He was my first gamelan teacher back in 2000; he let me tag along with him to rehearsals and performances during my first trip to Bali in 2007; and he has been a partner in countless conversations about Balinese music (and so much more). His balanced critiques and praise of my ideas and writing, and his willingness to go along with some of my more far-fetched arguments, have given me the courage to pursue this unusual project. Marina Welker was the committee member who delivered the most brutal critiques of my work. She always presented these with a friendly and supportive demeanor, which meant that sometimes it wasn’t until I returned home after one of our meetings that I realized how truly withering, but also how revealing and transformative, her comments were. These, of course, helped make my writing so much better. Marina’s feedback and guidance were particularly crucial in helping me develop and hone my research grant applications. I would also like to mention that Marina’s Proseminar on Social Organization— my first foray into anthropology—was life-changing. Alejandro Madrid joined the music faculty at Cornell when I was already embarking on my fieldwork and only joined my dissertation committee after I had finished my research. In spite of this, and despite claiming to know almost nothing about Indonesia, he has given me incisive and helpful feedback on every chapter of my vii dissertation, at every stage of revision, and has probably done more than anyone else to help tame my ramblings into a coherent piece of writing. He also met with me every week during my final semester of writing, and I credit those meetings for helping me see, and eventually reach, the light at the end of the tunnel. Martin Hatch became my advisor when I first arrived at Cornell, and even after retiring he remained involved in my project. Marty has helped me in numerous big and small ways over the course of my studies, from sending me home from meetings in his basement office at the Kahin Center with piles of books, CD’s, and videos from his personal collection, to refusing to write a letter of support when I wanted to spend a summer in Bali, encouraging me instead to focus on my exams and dissertation proposal, an intervention which, though frustrating at the time, ultimately paid off. If I were to mention only one thing about how Marty has influenced and continues to influence my research, it would be his role in keeping me accountable for the ethical and political implications of my work. As my research wandered into thorny terrain with respect to the ethics of representing the lives of others, I have often remembered Marty’s admonition to be “simpatico” with the people about whom I write. I am not sure whether the current project has succeeded in this, but it has certainly been on my mind, and it is a commitment and goal that I will take with me into my future work. In addition to my dissertation committee, I am also grateful to the other faculty with whom I studied during my coursework at Cornell. I would viii especially like to thank Chris Miller, director of the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble; while I still derive more pleasure from playing Balinese gamelan, Chris’s masterful teaching and musicianship opened my ears to the incredible beauty of Javanese music. Jolanda Pandin’s engaging Indonesian language classes were a pleasure to attend and essential for honing my speaking and reading skills. The language faculty at SEASSI, and especially my Balinese teacher Ketut Edy Danusugita, also deserve special thanks. In addition, I would like to thank Jeanette Jouili, a visiting fellow at Cornell in 2012, whose course “Islamic Aural Cultures” opened my eyes to the fascinating possibilities of studying religion through sound and voice. Judith Peraino’s course “Vocality and Embodiment” provided grounding in the vast literature on voice, and her insightful feedback on my final paper was especially helpful. I have also benefitted immensely from fellow graduate students, both at Cornell and beyond. Anaar Desai-Stephens, the other ethnomusicologist in my cohort, has been an amazing person to think and write with over the years. With the depth and extent of her feedback on my work, she was virtually a fifth committee member. Anaar was also the instigator and frequent host for two of the writing groups in which I participated: I’m grateful to Erica Levenson, Mia Tootil, and Annelise Smith for being my regular writing companions—I never would have gotten through it without them—and I would also like to thank Yun Emily Wang and Amanda Modell for reading and giving feedback on my rough early chapter drafts, and for sharing theirs with me.