This article investigates the shifting meanings of three Balinese socialist realist dance pieces created between 1957 and 1962 that portray fishermen, weavers, and farmers. Based on interviews with performers and analysis of scholarship, ethnographic material, and performances, this article reveals remarkable ironies resonating between the dances’ political origins during the Indonesian Communist Party’s rapid growth and how they have been repurposed since the 1970s to support New Order ideologies and capitalist uses like tourism. The additional use of these dances today in supporting environmental sustainability raises questions about their potential to reclaim aspects of activist intent.

Excavations at the stone sarcophagus burial site of Pangkung Paruk on Bali have yielded the largest collection of Roman gold-glass beads in early Southeast Asia found to date, together with elaborate gold ornaments and two Han Chinese bronze mirrors. Unprecedented in Island Southeast Asia, these artefacts find parallels at Oc Eo in Vietnam, at other sites in the Mekong Delta and on the Thai-Malay Peninsula. Analyses of these new finds and comparison with others from across the region provide insights into the early to mid first-millennium AD trans-Asiatic networks that linked Southeast Asia to South Asia, the Roman world and China.

From horrific accounts of men decapitated to “ordinary” accounts of stolen motorcycles, the routine beating and killing of alleged criminals by mobs (massa) has become common in Indonesia. This article examines the patterns of keroyokan—mobbing—from 1995 through 2004 in four provinces and highlights the temporal, spatial, and substantive variations of this phenomenon. Drawing from a database of provincial and local news clippings in Bali, Bengkulu, West Java, and South Kalimantan and in-depth case studies and interviews, this article shows that mobbing varies considerably. Its causes are national and local. The temporal data show that nationally the most important factor to influence levels of mobbing was the introduction of decentralization. The power vacuum that resulted from the policy decision to transfer authority from the center to localities increased local violence. Yet this macrolevel explanation is inadequate to show the spatial variation and different forms of mobbing violence. To understand the causes of these dimensions of variation, one has to move away from macronational approaches measuring violence and include a more microethnographic local approach. A richer understanding of mobbing must be locally rooted. This article uses three case studies to illustrate the centrality of local factors affecting this form of violence. The case studies suggest that mobbing is shaped by the acquiescence of actors in local communities and local learning. The article draws attention to the need to incorporate local data and methods into an analysis of violence in Indonesia and to appreciate varied daily rituals of violence as reservoirs of conflict.

The controversy over the provincial spatial planning regulation for Bali Province reflects the dynamic of Balinese society in the era of regional autonomy. The dynamic is polarised between expanding the tourism and real estate industry for economic reasons and constraining such expansion for the sake of protecting Bali’s environment and culture. Thus, the law governing space becomes an essential means to intervene in crafting the relations between competing interests over space. The application of the law itself is also complicated by the condition of legal pluralism which provides different and sometimes conflicting sources of legality to be used to justify the interests of legal actors. This article aims at highlighting how space is produced in a pluralistic legal setting and examining whose interests are served by the condition of legal pluralism in contemporary Bali. Employing socio-legal methods with Lefebvre’s conception of space and legal pluralism as an integrating analytical framework, the article contributes to the literature on spatial planning law in Indonesia that is dominated by “legal centralism” and a given notion of space.

Studies of trade routes across Southeast Asia in prehistory have hitherto focused largely on archaeological evidence from Mainland Southeast Asia, particularly the Thai Peninsula and Vietnam. The role of Indonesia and Island Southeast Asia in these networks has been poorly understood, owing to the paucity of evidence from this region. Recent research has begun to fill this void. New excavations at Sembiran and Pacung on the northern coast of Bali have produced new, direct AMS dates from burials, and analytical data from cultural materials including pottery, glass, bronze, gold andsemi-precious stone, as well as evidence of local bronze-casting. This suggests strong links with the Indian subcontinent and Mainland Southeast Asia from the late first millennium BC, some 200 years earlier than previously thought.

The main aim of this study is to overview the past and present situations of human taeniases and cysticercosis in Indonesia and including future perspectives. Through joint projects from 1996, we have confirmed the occurrence of Taenia saginata (beef tapeworm) in Bali, of Taenia solium (pork tapeworm) mainly in Papua and sporadically in Bali, and of Taenia asiatica in North Sumatra. These taeniases were caused through eating uncooked pork and pig viscera for T. solium and T. asiatica, respectively, and beef for T. saginata. The distribution of these tapeworms in Indonesia is basically highly restricted by the traditional cultural and religious backgrounds in each island. T. saginata is relatively common in Bali although people consume pork ‘lawar’ more than beef ‘lawar’. Taeniases due to T. saginata or T. asiatica and T. solium and cysticercosis due to T. solium have also been sporadically reported in some other islands. Among these species, T. solium is exceptional since humans can be infected not only by larval stages (cysticerci) in pork but also by eggs released from human tapeworm carriers. Cysticercosis has been confirmed in Indonesia in humans, pigs and even dogs.

The emergence of human and animal rabies in Bali since November 2008 has attracted local, national and international interest. The potential origin and time of introduction of rabies virus to Bali is described. The nucleoprotein (N) gene of rabies virus from dog brain and human clinical specimens was sequenced using an automated DNA sequencer. Phylogenetic inference with Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis using the Bayesian Evolutionary Analysis by Sampling Trees (BEAST) v. 1.7.5 software confirmed that the outbreak of rabies in Bali was caused by an Indonesian lineage virus following a single introduction. The ancestor of Bali viruses was the descendant of a virus from Kalimantan. Contact tracing showed that the event most likely occurred in early 2008. The introduction of rabies into a large unvaccinated dog population in Bali clearly demonstrates the risk of disease transmission for government agencies and should lead to an increased preparedness and efforts for sustained risk reduction to prevent such events from occurring in future.

On 12 October 2002, two bombs exploded on the island of Bali in Indonesia, destroying two bars in the tourist district of the holiday resort Kuta Beach. The explosions killed 202 people from 21 different countries, and >300 people were injured. A team of observers conducted structured and unstructured interviews, and lessons learned from the experience were identified. This report summarizes various elements of the response including: (1) prehospital care; (2) coordination; (3) hospital response; and (4) Australia's efforts in air evacuation.

Market demand for the orange-headed thrush Zoothera citrina, a prestigious songbird competition species in Indonesia, is supplied by chicks harvested from Bali Island. Using ethnographic and interview surveys conducted during the 2008–2009 breeding season we established the structure and scale of this trade and investigated means to improve its sustainability in two districts of Bali. We found that well-organized agent networks supplied an estimated 116,000 chicks worth EUR 3.175 million from Bali during the 6-month harvest season. Chicks are harvested when 4–16 days old and exported from Bali when 16–18 days old. Of 50 nests followed 60% were harvested and just 6% fledged young. Farmers deploy techniques to improve thrush food supply but lack practices to ensure continued recruitment to the thrush population. The practice of thrush harvesting started in the mid 1990s and is not yet regulated by the traditional institutions (Subak) that govern collective farming practices. Three networks determine the sustainability of the practice: (1) the fraternity of Indonesian songbird keepers, (2) agricultural agent networks, and (3) traditional village institutions. We identify the potential for coordinated forms of self-regulation and thrush population management by Subak and key groups involved in songbird contests. Furthermore, we argue that this would more likely enhance sustainability than interventions by government conservation agencies.

DNA analysis of a tooth found with imported pottery in Bali offers a strong possibility of the presence of a trader of Indian extraction in the late first millennium BC.

Chirita sect. Liebigia (Gesneriaceae), endemic to Sumatra, Java and Bali, is revised, paying particular attention to inflorescence and anther characters, the latter being illustrated. Whereas a previous worker considered the section to consist of the single species C. asperifolia, the present revision recognizes 12 species. Six are newly described (C. adenonema, C. dissimilis, C. leuserensis, C. praeterita, C. tenuipes and C. tobaënsis), and C. blumei var. cordifolia is given specific rank as C. neoforbesii. Notes on the history and nomenclature of sect. Liebigia are given in an appendix by B.L. Burtt.