Beyond Fortress and Flow Through Ratu Gede Macaling and the Ethics of Permeable Protection in Anthropocene Contexts

Abstract

This study interrogates the exhausted binary between fortress mentality and neoliberal permeability by theorizing liminal interiority through the Balinese figure of Ratu Gede Macaling (RGM). The objective is to demonstrate how indigenous cosmologies articulate spatial and ecological ethics that remain underexplored in global debates on the Anthropocene. Drawing on comparative hermeneutics of myth, ethnographic documentation, and ritual practice, the analysis reveals that RGM embodies threshold immunity: a mode of protection contingent upon ethical reciprocity rather than territorial sovereignty. The findings show that RGM’s guardianship operates through calibrated mediation, ritualized protocols that regulate circulation between order and chaos, human and more-than-human domains. This framework enables protective cohabitation, where ecological stewardship emerges from contractual engagement with spiritual sovereignties, contrasting with Western conservation models premised on exclusion. The implications extend beyond Balinese contexts: first, by positioning mythological literacy as an epistemic practice for navigating ontological pluralism; second, by offering “calibrated openness” as an alternative paradigm for border ethics, environmental governance, and intercultural dialogue. Yet the study also cautions against the commodification of RGM within tourism economies, which risks stripping guardianship of its ecological epistemology. Future research should pursue comparative inquiries into liminal guardians across Asia-Pacific traditions, investigate institutional designs that integrate myth-sensitive governance, and empirically assess how ritual authority mediates conflicts between ecological protection and capitalist extraction. Ultimately, the study argues that sustainable futures may depend less on universalist principles than on cultivating the capacity to learn from civilizational narratives encoding millennia of experimentation with dwelling across difference.