With deep interest I have followed the Indonesian people's fight for freedom and independence from 1945 onwards. This interest has come to be centred in particular on the question of how religions, especially Islam, were involved in this struggle, and what role they would fulfil in the new Indonesia. After having lived and worked in Indonesia from 1946 to the end of 1960, I was twice more enabled to visit Indonesia thanks to grants from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO). It was during these sojourns in particular, from May to October 1966 and from...

Forgotten People deals with people living at the fringes of the Indonesian society. It describes and analyses their livelihoods and styles of making a living from an insider perspective. While Indonesia has experienced steady economic growth for more than a decade, the livelihoods and lifestyles of poor people and migrants confronted with poverty and insecurity have received less attention. This book describes and analyses diversity in livelihood strategies, risk-taking and local forms of social security (social welfare) of people living below or close to the Indonesian poverty line....

This Festschrift is dedicated to Prof. Dr. J. van Baal on the occasion of his retirement from the chair of cultural anthropology at the University of Utrecht. The essays presented here are written by fellow scholars in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of anthropology. In order to arrange the papers araund a theme that has never ceased to fascinate van Baal, we have asked the contributors to concentrate on a rel igious subject. Within this broad area no specific topics have been solicit ed, and the authors-- mainly fellow anthropologists and students of relig ion--...