MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Graduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

ASM4230

Culture and conflict in Indonesia

Brett Hough

Synopsis 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 (3000 words): 30% + Essay (6000 words): 70%

Recommended texts

• Anderson B Imagined communities 2nd edn, Verso, 1991
• Bourchier D and Legge J (ed.) Democracy in Indonesia 1950s and 1990s Monash University CSEAS, 1994
• Bresnan J Managing Indonesia: The modern political economy Columbia University Press, 1993
• Budiman A (ed.) State and civil society in Indonesia 3rd edn, Monash University CSEAS, 1994
• Geertz C The religion of Java University of California Press, 1986
• Hart G Power, labour and livelihood University of California Press, 1986
• Hill H (ed.) Indonesia's new order Allen and Unwin, 1994
• Kahin A and Anderson B (eds) Interpreting Indonesian politics Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1982
• Legge J Indonesia 3rd edn, Prentice-Hall, 1980
• Robison, R Indonesia: The rise of capital Allen and Unwin
• Schwarz A A nation in waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s Allen and Unwin, 1994
• Tanter R and Young K (eds) The politics of middle class Indonesia Monash University CSEAS, 1990
• Vatikiotis M Indonesian politics under Suharto 2nd edn, Routledge, 1995