Orang Indonesia Tionghoa Mencari Identitas

The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity:

The Relationship Between Collective Memory and the Media

Aimee Dawis

BOOK DESCRIPTION

CONTEXT

This book examines how the Indonesian Chinese 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, prohibited the use of Chinese characters in public places, the import of Chinese-language publications, and all public forms and expressions of Chinese culture.

Through a series of focus group sessions conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, the author found that despite the restrictions, the Chinese-Indonesians she interviewed still found ways to seek and/or practice aspects of Chinese culture.  She also learned that all of her respondents enjoyed watching Chinese films/series as they were growing up.  These media provided her respondents with a common cultural reference that allowed them to connect to a ‘mythic homeland’ that they would never have experienced otherwise.  By watching the Chinese films/series, they could escape to the ‘imagined dreamland’ where they were able to borrow fragments of identity from Chinese role models (such as the heroes and heroines from martial arts serials) that were suppressed and therefore absent from the Indonesian media landscape.  In this way, the media provided them with the role models they needed as they searched to comprehend their identity as young Chinese individuals.

REASON FOR STUDY

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 to examine this generation’s collective memory of growing up in a state-controlled environment that has a significant impact on their identity formation, maintenance and the (re)negotiation of ‘Chineseness’ in their everyday lives.

IMPORTANT INSIGHTS AND BOOK CONTRIBUTION

As the author delved into her respondents’ memories of living during Suharto’s New Order, she discovered the frequent intersections between the micro politics of everyday identity struggles and the macro politics of structural change. Despite the constraints the government placed on Chinese culture, they were still able to seek Chinese films and series.  It was through these films and series that her respondents found the Chinese role models that were absent from their childhood and adolescence in the restrictive media environment where they grew up.  In this respect, this study contributes a way of understanding how the media can be a bridge to connect the sociological tension between structural constraints and human agency.

This study also shows the immense power of the media to convey feelings of pride, awe, and desire for things that media consumers such as the author’s respondents have never actually experienced.  In listening to her respondents’ stories, the author discovered her respondents’ “kalah dan salah” (always losing and being in the wrong) mentality whereby they consider themselves to be truly Indonesian, but are still discriminated against in times of political upheavals and on a daily basis.  The imported media thus presented them with a form of ‘imagined security’ where China and other places such as Taiwan and Hong Kong become a ‘desired other’ where they would not have to fear for their safety. They also looked to these media with a longing to live in an environment where their safety may be assured and their Chinese identity is unquestioned.

INTERESTED GROUPS

Everyone who is interested in China, Overseas Chinese, minority groups, Southeast Asian Chinese communities, Indonesia, the media, collective memory, diaspora and identity issues.  This book will appeal especially to Media, Cultural Studies and Southeast Asian Studies scholars, researchers and students.

Aimee Dawis, Ph.D.

Aimee Dawis received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, with a minor in Asia-Pacific Studies from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) at Los Angeles, California, USA.  It was also at LMU where she received a Most Outstanding Graduate in Communication Studies award.  She continued to pursue her interest in Communications, deepening her understanding of Mass Communications, by attending Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  After earning her Master’s of Professional Studies from Cornell, she completed her Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) in Media Ecology at New York University.

Upon her return to Indonesia, Aimee started teaching at the University of Indonesia’s Department of Communication and the Department of Humanities (FIB-UI).  Her Ph.D. dissertation on collective memory, the media and the search for Chinese-Indonesian identity has been published by Cambria Press, New York in 2009.  This book has been translated into Indonesian and will be released by Gramedia on April 15, 2010. She currently writes and publishes her work on China and the cultural identity of the Chinese in Indonesia, Chinese education in Indonesia, the evolution of Chinese organizations in Indonesia, and the changing role of Chinese-Indonesian women.  Her research interests also include the interdisciplinary nature of Cultural Studies (e.g. the intersections between Cultural Studies and Architecture) and the impact of Korean popular culture in Indonesia.  She also conducts research on the Indonesian film industry and the social impact of mobile communication (e.g., BlackBerry Smartphones) in Indonesia.  She is now completing her second book on inspiring Chinese-Indonesian women.