Recently Indonesia experienced a transition from centralized authoritarian rule to electoral democracy and far-reaching decentralization. At the same time clientelism, which has deep roots in Indonesian politics, survived in a new context, giving way to forms of patronage democracy. Against the background of these developments I aim to investigate what forms citizenship takes. I will first look at various forms of cultural citizenship at the regional level in which cultural identities are emphasized. Rooted in the colonial past notions of communal identity have recently been reinforced within the context of decentralization and serve particular forms of patronage politics. Next, I will briefly contrast this form of cultural citizenship with a quest for a new ‘urban authenticity’ among younger members of the middle class. Their search for identity is focused on a revival of colonial heritage which can ironically be traced to a quest for modernity - and a particular form of cultural citizenship - in the late colonial period among the urban middle classes. Finally, I will turn to the nation-wide phenomenon of civil militias which should also be seen in the context of clientelism. Following an alternative approach to the state by anthropologist Christian Lund I propose to see to what extent these militias have certain ‘state- like qualities’, which will then be linked to the fragmented nature of citizenship in present day Indonesia. These different approaches are part of a large Dutch-Indonesian research project on citizenship which started this year.
18.10.2012
