During the dramatic economic and social transformation of late twentieth-century Indonesia, theatre performances in Central Java featured a familiar cast of rulers, nobles, clown servants and ordinary people. However, these presentations were not a repetition of age-old cultural 'traditions'. Instead, by stretching the framework of Javanese ......
Are political parties the weak link in Indonesia's young democracy? More pointedly, do they form a giant cartel to suck patronage resources from the state? Indonesian commentators almost invariably brand the country's parties as corrupt, self-absorbed, and elitist, while most scholars argue that they are poorly institutionalised. This book tests ......
Prahus, Timber and Illegality on the Margins of the Indonesian State
The Madurese are one of the great maritime and trading peoples of the Indonesian Archipelago. This remarkable study takes readers into the coastal villages of Madura, where the distinctive traditional vessels were powered by sail until the late twentieth century. It examines informal-sector economic niches, notably the cattle, salt and timber ......
The nature of community in urban Java changed dramatically during the economic and political transition that followed the fall of the Soeharto regime in Indonesia, although the community continues to provide a rallying point for urban low-income residents in the off-street neighbourhoods (kampong) in Yogyakarta and in other cities of Java. Under ......
Indonesians of Chinese descent constitute only two to three per cent of the country's population but dominate the private business sector. Serious acts of violence against this ethnic minority occurred during Indonesia's colonial past, and after a period relatively free of such incidents became increasingly frequent during the final years of ......
Technology and Social Justice in National Development
Electrifying Indonesia tells the story of the entanglement of politics and technology during Indonesia's rapid post-World War II development. As a central part of its nation-building project, the Indonesian state sought to supply electricity to the entire country, bringing transformative socioeconomic benefits across its heterogeneous territories ......
A study of the forces that shaped Jakarta into the city it is today. Indonesian writer Seno Gumira Ajidarma has called Jakarta a city of a thousand dimensions. A megacity of 30 million under threat from rising sea levels and temperatures, Jakarta and its resilient residents improvise and thrive. This book teases out some of the dimensions that ......
Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in Indonesia
Recognizing and addressing enforced military prostitution in occupied Indonesia. The system of prostitution imposed and enforced by the Japanese military during its wartime occupation of several countries in East and Southeast Asia is today well-known and uniformly condemned. Transnational activist movements have sought to recognize and redress ......
Food Security and the Politics of Social Protection in Indonesia
A detailed study of the failure of poverty reduction programs in Indonesia to reduce food insecurity. Economic growth in the middle-income countries of Southeast Asia over the past few decades has been widely praised for reducing poverty in both absolute and relative terms. Indonesia is a prime example. But while poverty has declined in ......
