ABSTRACT
This final substantive chapter links the politics of becoming indigenous with the dynamism of youth as ‘chance-creating’ ethnic entrepreneurs. In the quest for land rights and entitlements, notions of adat are being deployed in a deliberate manner by a variety of local actors. In an early study, van Zanen (1934) observed that the rigid clan structures of traditional Batak hoeta villages in Sumatra were transcended by young entrepreneurs, those risking everything to found new hoeta in order to create economic opportunities (land, resources, plantations) and new social alliances. Thus the ‘aura’ of the traditional village is used in support of a new, youth-oriented entrepreneurial dynamism (Kroef 1954: 300). As this chapter demonstrates, a similar situation has recently unfolded in Bulukumba, a district in South Sulawesi known for lucrative trade in rubber, strong Islamic values, shari’a regulations and the spirit cult of the Amma Toa (Buehler 2008; Bush 2008; Tyson 2009).
