‘Becoming – An Anthropological Approach to Understandings of the Person in Java’ falls within the long-standing tradition of anthropological theorising regarding the person, and takes inspiration from the philosophical writings of G. Deleuze. It comprises a critical intervention in the said literatures, develops new conceptual tools and reconfigures ‘old’ methodological strategies. As a thought experiment, it foregrounds and advances the concept of the ‘diaphoron’ person – a person who constantly differs from him/herself and who is always already involved in an unlimited process of becoming – as a new figure for considering the problem of the subject in anthropology. In addition, the book breathes new life into one of the most distinctive methodological strategies to be found in anthropology since its inception, re-invigorating the approach of ‘total ethnography’ in such a way that it is able to meet the challenges posed by living in a postmodern world.
The volume is also an ethnographic monograph based upon qualitative research undertaken in the town of Probolinggo in East Java, Indonesia. It is the first book-length ethnographic study of this part of Java and its peoples, who identify themselves as ‘mixed persons’. The volume not only serves as a source of new ethnographic data about a place and a situation we know very little about, but it also re-thinks key categories of Javanese ethnography from a new and unanticipated perspective.
