Chinese identity in the diaspora: religion and language in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Abstracts).

Somer Heidhues, Mary. 1997, Chinese identity in the diaspora: religion and language in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. IN: Sri Kuhnt-Saptodewo, Volker Grabowsky, and Martin Grossheim, eds. Nationalism and cultural revival in Southeast Asia. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 201-210.

Departing from the viewpoint that identity is a kind of vessel, whose contents may vary over time, yet which signifies to members the essentials of their ethnicity, the author discusses the nature and development of Chinese identity in West Kalimantan, which has been home to a substantial minority of ethnic Chinese since the late eighteenth century. Following an outline of the background to the ethnicity of the region, she explores two facets of identity, namely language and religion, showing how they may change without a "loss" of identity. She also deals with the issue of state intervention in ethnic identities, and examines the issue of "lost" identity. A tendency shows in the discussion of Southeast Asian Chinese minorities to reify identity, especially Chinese identity, and to see it as a cultural whole. The concern with identity loss reflects a contradiction between the view of Chineseness as external, reified, and holistic, and the cultures ethnic Chinese experience in their personal lives. If identity is seen as an object, instead of a dynamic process, it can be "lost". Ethnic identities are constantly changing, and multiple identities are not contradictory or schizophrenic. They represent complex personal biographies (Youetta M. de Jager).