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Paper short abstract:

By expanding on how mistrust is being expressed more for performative purposes in Parigi, a coastal Muslim village of North Seram, eastern Indonesia, I shall ruminate on the limit of our modern expectation of ideal relationship based on sincerity and transparency.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I wish to expand on the expressions of mistrust in Parigi, a coastal Muslim village of North Seram, eastern Indonesia. I shall show how Parigi villagers’ expressions of mistrust are performative rather than illustrative. Mistrust is commonly being addressed toward the generalized others (the other villagers, the Christians, the Chinese) while, noteworthily, it does not immediately affect one’s actual relationship with a particular person from the groups he mentioned. Such expressions of mistrust help to shape favorable atmospheres and narratives in conversations, allowing better engagements between interlocutors. While indeed my ethnographical reflection is critical toward the notion of mistrust as socially counterproductive, the main purpose of this paper is evaluative. As an outsider, I was constantly baffled by how Parigi villagers’ mistrust did not fit with how they engaged with the objects of their mistrust. Nevertheless, this was so because we require relationships to be grounded on sincerity and authenticity. In our modern worldview, selves are buffered. They are constituted not only of minds that are separate from the external world but also of several different layers. As such, in ideal relationships, the partaking subjects are expected to engage with the inner selves of the others as well as be transparent to each other. This is contrastive to what happens in Parigi wherein relationships are maintained through the theatrics of “superficial” mistrust.