‘Ghosts Are About Time’: How Indonesia’s Spirits Challenge Our View of Modernity

A new essay by anthropologists Emmelia Helkins and Ronald A. Lukens-Bull argues that ghost stories in Indonesia are not just about the supernatural—they are about time.

The authors contend that ghosts appear in places where different temporal layers meet: colonial and postcolonial, rural and urban, traditional and modern. For example, a university rector encountered a ghost in a colonial hotel, and students on rural postings report strange figures.

Modernity, the essay suggests, does not erase the past. Instead, it unfolds as negotiation. Older practices are reinterpreted, sometimes uneasily, and ghosts are one way people talk about that lingering presence.

Helkins herself experienced a shift: she began saying ‘yes’ to ghosts in Indonesia, not as a literal claim but as an acknowledgment that the past remains active. The essay challenges universal narratives of progress, arguing that multiple ways of understanding the world can coexist without being resolved.

Article and image source: insideindonesia.org