Indonesian Gamelan Ensembles: Relational Conservation Ontologies

Gamelan ensembles from Indonesia and located worldwide are collective instruments that perform religious rites, cultural narratives, and hold significance as part of their dynamic musical relationships with people and place. This paper reflects on situated conservation practices through a case study of three gamelan orchestras and their human and performative relationships. It examines ways of knowing gamelan orchestras when collaborating with source communities and considers relational ontologies as a methodological tool. Three case study gamelan projects involving the authors are examined, including the gamelan Digul in Melbourne, Australia, and gamelan orchestras at the SAKA Museum and the Sidha Karya Gamelan Foundry in Bali, Indonesia. Our critical reflections on the case studies lead to a framework for relational ontologies informed by ‘knowing, being and doing’ through processual actions to keep the instruments alive. Presented alongside are our thoughts on how conservation practices and learning to know gamelan ensembles encourage transformative spaces for change, processual knowledge and actions, ontological understandings, and serve as a site for cross-cultural competency building.