Subandri, a researcher at the Radboud Laudato Si’-institute, started his academic career in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, where he finished his master’s degree in religion and ecology, after which he moved to Kalimantan to start teaching. Soon thereafter, however, he noticed that this was not enough for him. During his master’s degree, he had focused on the relationship between religion, ecology and indigenous people, which was not just an academic interest, but a personal topic of connection as well. ‘I am indigenous, but also Catholic, so when I did my master research, I learned to understand how my own ancestors related to the land.’ To further develop these insights, he applied for a scholarship in Indonesia and went on to become an external PhD candidate at Radboud University, where he is currently working on his dissertation.
Currently his research focuses on the relationship between Catholicism and Indigenous cultures in Indonesia, specifically the Dayak Iban in the Sungai Utik community. Being raised in an indigenous community that had been converted to Catholicism, Subandri has a personal connection to the subject of his research.
‘Being indigenous and Catholic, this interest brings me to the story of my life. My parents converted to Catholicism as children. The first to convert in my family was my grandpa. It was a curious thing that happened in my community.’
Subandri explains how this conversion changed their culture with an anecdote about his mother taking him to the land after school. ‘When we would harvest rice, sometimes my mother would use a different term. Sometimes we would leave a bunch of rice in the field and then she would use a different word. She would refer to it as a “much” rice.’ This much rice had feelings and needed to be respected. The specific terms for their surroundings like these were something that would gradually be lost after they converted to Catholicism. Subandri explains how there were ways to acknowledge the surroundings in their indigenous culture, ways to, for example, account for the rice’s feelings. In the language, traditions, and habits, the people were taught how to interact with the land, with the rice. Catholicism didn’t offer this framework when the people converted. ‘We are missing a lot of knowledge now that we have converted to Catholicism.’ This is what drives Subandri’s research. The Dayak Iban that he researches show him how they combine their Catholic and Indigenous identities in their daily ecological practice.
The struggle between Catholic and indigenous notions
This struggle between Catholic and indigenous notions is also interesting when focused specifically on the Laudato Si’ encyclical that was published by pope Francis in 2015. In one paragraph, pope Francis mentions indigenous people as a principal dialogue partner in efforts to handle to ongoing ecological and social crises. For Subandri, this passage is illustrative for how the Catholic church interacts with indigenous people.
‘The Catholics, they embraced the indigenous culture, art, buildings etc. They built the church in an indigenous way, for example. For me, however, it’s not enough. Do they also accept the beliefs? How indigenous people relate to nature, to their surroundings? Do they recognize the paradigm? That’s what I try to search for when I read Laudato Si’.’
According to Subandri, pope Francis used a Catholic paradigm when he spoke about indigenous people and therefore didn’t recognize their belief. He recognizes that pope Francis tried to reach out to indigenous people in his encyclical, but that he does not regard them on equal terms. There is a subject-object relationship between the Catholic Church and Indigenous people, as well as between the Catholic Church and nature. In the encyclical, pope Francis urges people to “take care of our common home”. Subandri explains that “to take care of something” places the “something” in an inferior position, as something that can be handled. This is where there is much room for the Catholic Church to improve, according to him. ‘When the Catholics came, they changed the paradigm to the catholic paradigm. A more anthropocentric paradigm. After my people converted, we didn’t see nature, rice, as a subject, but as an object. Something we need, we can use. We don’t care anymore what the rice feels, what the forest thinks.’ But Subandri also warns us not to romanticize the indigenous perspective. There are many indigenous peoples and all of them are different, and most importantly, all of them are local. Many indigenous beliefs are about connecting with your surroundings, the nature around you, which means you can not take an indigenous paradigm and use it elsewhere, just as you can not take the Catholic paradigm and use it on indigenous lands. When I asked him whether it is at all possible to find a fruitful combination of the Catholic faith and the indigenous paradigm, he said:
‘We have to listen. They have to listen. Without trying to change their paradigm. Caring is not sufficient without respecting the other.’
Interview: Vivian Weijland