NARRATING RITUAL, PERFORMING IDENTITY: READING OKA RUSMINI’S EARTH DANCE AND JASMIN HAKES’ HULA

Apstrakt

This paper examines how Oka Rusmini's Earth Dance and Jasmin 'Iolani Hakes' Hula explore women's identities within island societies shaped by caste, kinship, and colonial legacies. Drawing on Mary Douglas’ theory of pollution, the analysis shows how Earth Dance uses sebel and purification rites (menakwangi, patiwangi) to discipline women's bodies while policing caste boundaries. Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the subaltern illuminates how female protagonists navigate silence and constraint as sites of limited resistance. In parallel, the paper uses J. Kēhaulani Kauanui’s critique of blood quantum and Amy Stillman’s reading of hula as a living archive to interpret Hula’s portrayal of dance as embodied resistance to colonial definitions of Hawaiian identity. Both novels position women’s cultural roles as paradoxical sites of control and survival, where kinship and custom can marginalize and empower. While Earth Dance exposes how caste hierarchy persists through ceremonial discipline, Hula highlights performance as a counter-narrative that restores genealogy and belonging beyond colonial categories. These texts reveal how cultural practices are powerful sites for negotiating identity within postcolonial island contexts.