I kraft av risen. Hverdagsliv og sosial samhorighet blant Bidayuh i Sarawak (The Power of Rice. Everyday Life and Social Belonging among the Bidayuh in Sarawak).

2004, I kraft av risen. Hverdagsliv og sosial samhorighet blant Bidayuh i Sarawak (The Power of Rice. Everyday Life and Social Belonging among the Bidayuh in Sarawak). M.Phil. Thesis, Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway.

This thesis is about the Bidayuh and how they create their own society and life-world through their practices, social interaction, perceptions, and ideas. It is based on an understanding of society as a constructed reality, as a dialectical process between constructing and being constructed. The focus is on rice, dwellings and households, land and village (kampung), as cultural representations in Bidayuh society.

The Bidayuh are one of many Dayak peoples living in Borneo, on both sides of the border between Malaysia and Indonesia. The fieldwork for this thesis was carried out in Sarawak, in Padawan among the Pinyawa group in 1999 and from May to August, 2000. In Malaysia, the Bidayuh live in the First Division in Sarawak. They live in small, scattered villages as swidden horticulturalists, in an area of forested hills. The Bidayuh have strong feelings towards their village, where they have access to land by virtue of being a member of a household. Every household is an economically independent unit, in which most forms of organizing principles are found. I argue that Bidayuh kinship has to be understood in relation to the house and household, in addition to the kinship system. The members of the household and the local village are more important in daily life than relatives from other villages. Locality is of vital importance for the organization of Bidayuh society.

In addition to being their staple food, rice reveals meaningful relations in Bidayuh society. As a norm, rice is eaten within the household to which people belong. However, on special occasions, like funerals and weddings, the whole kampung will eat rice together. How, where and with whom they eat rice communicates social boundaries, as well as social relations between different households and within the kampung as a whole. In their way of thinking about and acting towards rice, Bidayuh create and communicate morality, social norms and ideas about their interactions. The Bidayuh say that rice has a soul (pedi agi simangi), which has to be respected in the same way as people have to be respected. In many ways, Bidayuh create analogies between rice and human beings.

There are ongoing changes in their society, generated by the introduction of education, paid labor in towns, and conversion to Catholicism. At the same time, the Bidayuh maintain the continuity of their society through their daily practices and continuing conceptions of their world based on their cultural tradition as rice farmers. Gawai, a ceremony in which the rice harvest is celebrated, is still one of the most important events in which the Bidayuh maintain the continuity of their society (author).