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Jean Couteau's essential new volume describes the modern Balinese dilemma
Bali, 50 Years of Changes: A Conversation with Jean Couteau by Eric Buvelot examines Bali's transformation – from a traditional agrarian to a capitalist service society. This enthralling exchange reveals complex and often paradoxical scenarios. The book is a quantum leap forward in comprehending modern Balinese.
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All about Bali: Eric Buvelot and Jean Couteau (right) pose with their book, first published in France in 2021, now available in English published by Glass House Books. (Courtesy of Buvelot Couteau) (Courtesy of Buvelot Couteau)
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ali, 50 Years of Changes: A Conversation with Jean Couteau by Eric Buvelot examines Bali's transformation – from a traditional agrarian to a capitalist service society. This enthralling exchange reveals complex and often paradoxical scenarios. The book is a quantum leap forward in comprehending modern Balinese.
"During the past century, the world has invited itself to Bali, and in doing so, has broken the society's traditional balance," says Jean Couteau, a well-known multilingual writer (Indonesian, French, English), specialist of Bali and national columnist for Kompas newspaper.
Most of Bali's transformation has occurred since the 1970s when the island opened to tourism. In this book, an edited 270-page transcript of 20 hours of interviews granted to Buvelot over seven months, Couteau does not limit himself to statements. Instead, he delves into the multifaceted and often problematic dynamics that deeply impact Balinese culture and people's psyche.
"In the 1970s until the mid-1980s, there was a low level of urbanization; intellectual formation was based on religious symbolism rather than on strict religious tenets," Couteau said.
"[Tourism] was still ‘bringing something’ more than ‘taking something’, land had not yet become a commodity, and homogeneity in cultural life and behavior prevailed," Couteau adds. It was a change he had witnessed directly for over 40 years.
A lecturer at the Denpasar Institut Seni Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of the Arts) and graduate of the prestigious EHESS in Paris, Couteau's sphere of knowledge spans history, religion, politics, economics, nationalism, sexuality, women's rights, identity, the environment, invented traditions, ethnocentrism and more.
The book's dynamic to-and-fro, question-and-answer conversation engages from cover to cover. Buvelot's distinct ability to ask prying questions and intuitively respond to Couteau's insights enables the discussion to venture into ever deeper territory.
