Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia
Author: Chang-Yau Hoon
Publisher: Apollo Books
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845194741

Aims to unpack the complex meanings of 'Chineseness' in post-1998 Indonesia, including the ways in which the policy of multiculturalism enabled such a 'resurgence', the forces that shaped it and the possibilities for 'resinicisation'. This book examines ethnic Chinese self-identify.

Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto Indonesia
Author: Wu-Ling Chong
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9888455990

Selfish, obscenely rich, insular, and opportunistic: these remain how Chinese minorities in Indonesia are perceived by the indigenous population. However, far from being passive victims of discrimination and marginalisation, Chong presents a forceful case in which Chinese Indonesians possess the agency to shape their future in the country, particularly in the changing political, business, and socio-cultural environment after the fall of Suharto. While a lack of good governance that promotes the rule of law and accountability allows or even encourages some Chinese to maintain the status quo by perpetuating corrupt business practices inherited from Suharto’s New Order regime, there are other Chinese Indonesians who make full use of the democratic space opened up under the new administrations, acting as agents of reform by participating in electoral politics and establishing inter-ethnic socio-cultural organisations. Building on Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field, Chong shows that the Chinese minorities have played an active role in the democratic process, even though they continue to occupy an ambivalent position in Indonesia. The Chinese Indonesians’ diverse strategies to safeguard their personal interests and cultural identities make a stimulating case study of what an ethnic minority could do to make a difference. ‘Backed by formidable research, Chong has produced an intriguing and original view of the political, social, and economic activity of the still precariously placed Chinese minority in Indonesia.’ —Donald L. Horowitz, Duke University; author of Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia ‘In this illuminating study, Chong traces the political economy of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority as they navigate the country’s post-1998 politics, which is more free but still lacks strong rule of law. Focusing especially on Medan and Surabaya, she analyses how some have strongly supported reforms while many continue old practices of surviving and profiting by participating in massive corruption and extortion.’ —Jeffrey A. Winters, Northwestern University; author of Oligarchy

Chinese Indonesians Reassessed

Chinese Indonesians Reassessed
Author: Siew-Min Sai
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013
Genre: Chinese
ISBN: 0415608015

The book shows how the Chinese minority is much more diverse, and the picture much richer and more complicated, than previous studies have allowed. Subjects covered include the historical development of Chinese communities in peripheral areas of Indonesia, the religious practices of Chinese Indonesians, which are by no means confined to "Chinese" religions, and Chinese ethnic events, where a wide range of Indonesians, not just Chinese, participate.

Chinese Big Business in Indonesia

Chinese Big Business in Indonesia
Author: Christian Chua
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2008-02-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134106726

The disintegration of Indonesia's New Order regime in 1998 and the fall of Soeharto put an end to the crude forms of centralised authoritarianism and economic protectionism that allowed large Chinese conglomerates to dom- inate Indonesia's private sector. Contrary to all expectations, most of the major capitalist groups, though damaged considerably by the Asian Crisis, managed to cope with the ensuing monumental political and economic changes, and now thrive again albeit within a new democratic environment. In this book Christian Chua assesses the state of capital before, during, and after the financial and political crisis of 1997/1998 and analyses the changing relationships between business and the state in Indonesia. Using a distinct perspective that combines cultural and structural approaches on Chinese big business with exclusive material derived from interviews with some of Indonesia’s major business leaders, Chua identifies the strategies employed by tycoons to adapt their corporations to the post-authoritarian regime and provides a unique insight into how state-business relationships in Indonesia have evolved since the crisis. Chinese Big Business in Indonesia is the first major analysis of capital in Indonesia since the fall of Soeharto, and will be of interest to graduate students and scholars of political economy, political sociology, economics and business administration as well as to practitioners having to do with Southeast Asian business and politics.

Chinese Indonesians and Regime Change

Chinese Indonesians and Regime Change
Author: Marleen Dieleman
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2010-11-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004191216

By taking regime change as its main theme this book offers a new perspective on the multiple roles that Chinese Indonesians played in terms of shaping, moderating, and stimulating social change in Indonesia.

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
Author: Albert O. Hirschman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1970
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674276604

An innovator in contemporary thought on economic and political development looks here at decline rather than growth. Albert O. Hirschman makes a basic distinction between alternative ways of reacting to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations: one, “exit,” is for the member to quit the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product, and the other, “voice,” is for members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change “from within.” The efficiency of the competitive mechanism, with its total reliance on exit, is questioned for certain important situations. As exit often undercuts voice while being unable to counteract decline, loyalty is seen in the function of retarding exit and of permitting voice to play its proper role. The interplay of the three concepts turns out to illuminate a wide range of economic, social, and political phenomena. As the author states in the preface, “having found my own unifying way of looking at issues as diverse as competition and the two-party system, divorce and the American character, black power and the failure of ‘unhappy’ top officials to resign over Vietnam, I decided to let myself go a little.”

Visual Cultures of the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia

Visual Cultures of the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia
Author: Abidin Kusno
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2016-10-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1783487585

Visual Cultures of the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia explores how visual representations shaped and were shaped by how the ethnic Chinese confronted the period of economic dislocation and radical social change during Dutch colonialism and the nationalist struggles in the decolonized Indonesia (including the post-1965 and 1998 social environments). How did the ethnic Chinese communities (re)present themselves to both their domestic and outside world under the changing regimes of representation? How did they visualize, symbolically, their place in Indonesian society? How did the visual shape the “ambiguities” of the Chinese, the perception of the “economic” identity, and the forgetting of their involvement in politics, cultures and histories of the nation? More broadly, how did the visual address the interconnectedness of domestic life, the urban cultural milieu, and ideologies of the state and the ruling class? The book is a response to two paradoxical socio-political phenomena whose convergence is shaping the experience and conceptualization of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. On the one hand, the economic, technological and cultural forces of colonialism and globalization have created conditions for the formation of ethnic Chinese capital(ists), while on the other, the state generated identity and identification constituted the discourses of othering the ethnic Chinese as “foreign” minority.

Bittersweet

Bittersweet
Author: Stuart Pearson
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9789971694258

"The movement of people out of China is one of the largest movements of humanity in modern times, and large numbers of Chinese emigrated to the colony of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. Bittersweet is the poignant story of one Chinese family's life in Indonesia, and of their eventual emigration to Australia." -- BACK COVER.

Media and the Chinese Diaspora

Media and the Chinese Diaspora
Author: Wanning Sun
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2009-03-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134263597

Wanning Sun examines the key role of the media in the Chinese diaspora, especially the media's role in communication, fostering a sense of community and defining different kinds of 'transnational Chineseness'.

The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity

The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity
Author: Aimee Dawis
Publisher: Cambria Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 1604976063

This book examines how the Indonesian Chinese who were born after 1966 negotiate meanings about their culture and identity through their collective memory of growing up in a restrictive media environment that specifically curtailed Chinese language and culture. The restrictive media environment was the result of a series of policies administered during the Suharto era (1965-1998). According to the regulations, the Indonesian government closed all Chinese-language schools and prohibited the use of Chinese characters in public places, the import of Chinese-language publications, and all public forms and expressions of Chinese culture. In the past century, and particularly in the past decade, much attention has been given to China and its rising status as a world economic power. Scholarship on overseas Chinese has also shed light on their relationship with their 'mythic homeland', China. In their work, scholars discovered that the Chinese of Southeast Asia have created a prominent economic, political, and cultural presence in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. In the 1960s, scholars such as George Kahin, Ruth McVey, and Benedict Anderson were drawn to the political upheavals in Indonesia and the various roles that the Chinese of Indonesia have played in the economic, political, and cultural arenas of their country. In later years, Charles Coppel and Leo Suryadinata have published extensively on various aspects of the Chinese in Indonesia, such as their religious affiliations and education. Despite the considerable attention given to the Chinese of Indonesia, scholars have not specifically studied, through the lens of the media, how a certain group of Chinese Indonesians grew up in a restrictive media and cultural environment during the 33 years when Indonesia was ruled by Suharto. This book takes the first step in examining this generation's collective memory of growing up in a state-controlled environment that has had a significant impact on their identity formation, maintenance, and the (re)negotiation of 'Chineseness' in their everyday lives. This book will appeal especially to media, cultural studies, and Southeast Asian studies scholars, researchers, and students.