Culture and conflict in Indonesia
B Hough
8 points * 2 hours per week * First semester * Clayton
Rapid social change stimulates existing social and cultural divisions and gives rise to new bases of conflict. Indonesia is a plural society made up of many groups distinguishable on ethnic, religious, linguistic and other cultural grounds. It is also a modern mass society undergoing rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and agricultural transformation. This subject will analyse the processes of class formation and conflict within the context of the political economy of structural change in Indonesia. It will examine the cultural mediation of conflict, the cultural reproduction of group identity, and the dynamics of social movements engendered by modernisation - mass movements which draw on the symbols of Islam, ethnicity, nationalism, and various political ideologies.
Assessment
Class exercise (2000 words): 30% * Essay (4000 words): 70%
Recommended texts
Anderson B Imagined communities 2nd edn, Verso, 1991
Geertz C The religion of Java U California P, 1960
Hart G Power, labour and livelihood U California P, 1986
Kahin A and Anderson B (eds) Interpreting Indonesian politics Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1982
Robinson R Indonesia: The rise of capital Allen and Unwin, 1986
Robison R Power and economy in Suharto's Indonesia JCA Press, 1990
Scott J C Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance Yale UP, 1985
Tanter R and Young K (eds) The politics of middle class Indonesia CEAS, Monash U, 1990