Punk Space in Bandung, Indonesia : Evasion and Confrontation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Anak punk and kaum pekerja: Indonesian Punk and Class Recomposition in Urban Indonesia
Draft paper from 'Encountering Urban Diversity In Asia: Class and Other Intersections' Workshop (Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore), 2014
Since the 1990s, punk has become an increasingly visible part of urban youth culture in Indonesia. Demonstrating that punk remains more than a mere fashion, Indonesian punks have engaged in diverse forms of contestation, accommodation, and at times open political conflict in order to carve out their own spaces in the urban terrain. They also make assertive claims to a global, modern working class identity, often connected to a combative anti-capitalist political stance as well as a cosmopolitan urbanism which transcends many of the social divides which structure Indonesian cities. The social composition of Indonesian punk is somewhat ambiguous – including urban poor, creative workers, student activists and assorted ‘middle class’ dropouts; however, I argue that the identification of punk as ‘working class’ expresses more than a symbolic political affiliation, and instead constitutes a precarious but potentially powerful class alliance grounded in the neoliberal transformation of urban capitalism in Indonesia. While this alliance incorporates diverse experiences and competing interests, it also serves as a critical response to the dislocating and disempowering experiences of capitalist development, with the potential to contribute to a wider recomposition of working class politics in Indonesia. While they may not be directly engaged in workplace struggles, I argue that Indonesian punk goes beyond subcultural identity politics to enact a form of urban working class politics, organised around autonomous cultural production and reclaiming the urban commons. Yet their spatial and cultural practices contribute to as well as contesting the neoliberalisation of Indonesian cities, demonstrating the weaknesses as well as the strengths of punk’s ‘anti-work’ politics as a form of working class struggle while reflecting the contradictory dynamics of the wider processes of class recomposition within which Indonesian punk is situated.
'Researching "Punk Indonesia": notes towards a non-exploitative insider methodology'
Punk & Post-Punk, 2017
Researching punk from an insider perspective throws up important challenges, and in the context of Indonesia these issues are further complicated and intensified. This article draws on the author’s experience of, and reflections on, the process of researching ‘punk Indonesia’, augmented with reflective contributions from nine other social theorists, ethnographers and anthropologists, to suggest a research methodology that is dialogical and non-exploitative while remaining rigorous, analytical and critical. The academy’s relationship to punk has often been identified as intrusive and exploitative – and with good reason – but it is argued here that academic research into punk can be included within punk’s own tradition of self-critique, especially when that research emerges from insider perspectives. The lessons learned from insider perspectives may also be mapped effectively onto outsider approaches. A non-exploitative methodology is concerned with both research processes and research outputs, and these two aspects are closely entwined. Anarchist epistemological concerns are taken on board, along with engagements with Orientalism and Grounded Theory Method, to develop an approach that gives voice to the punks, involving them in a dialogical research process and creating research outputs that are useful to the scenes, cultures and movements that are being researched, while maintaining a high level of academic rigour, analysis and critique.
Unwitting Dissidents: The Aceh, Indonesia Punk Case
Last December police arrested sixty-four teenagers at a punk concert in Aceh. Their heads were shaved; they were plunged into a nearby lake for a communal bath and sent to a police detainment camp for two weeks of “re-education.” Acehnese authorities claimed the youths were in danger of moral corruption; western imports like punk are invasive, encouraging young people to abandon Muslim customs and values. Outraged human rights advocates, musicians, and journalists in Indonesia and around the globe argued the teenagers were criminalized and psychologically traumatized by their confinement; punk, some suggested, articulates Acehnese youths’ deep-seated estrangement from local ethics. This presentation examines a widely publicized case trapping teenagers in the middle of a debate over moral judgment and the freedom of expression. Punk style is stigmatized as a threat to traditional beliefs, on the one hand, and extolled as a symbol of creative freedom, on the other. I relate my reluctant decision to argue against Acehnese authorities and for free creative expression, as an ethnomusicologist living in Indonesia asked to publicly respond to the case. Finally, I ask colleagues attending this conference how you would respond: Would you condemn music censorship, supporting the individual right to choose what to compose, consume, and wear? Or would you lean toward analytical distance, conceding to local authorities to determine what is best for their people—much as the Indonesian government decided when Aceh was granted territorial autonomy and the right to govern according to sharia. Which side are you on?
2014
This article explores the entangled and contradictory process of territorialisation and deterritorialisation that have shaped the hardcore punk scene in Bandung, Indonesia, while questioning the binary model of globalisation and localisation. The formation of the Bandung scene has certainly involved processes of local adaptation, translation, and territorialisation, but these cannot be disentangled from the global styles, orientations, and networks associated with hardcore punk. Through their active participation in global hardcore, Bandung’s punks adopt a standpoint of underground cosmopolitanism which goes beyond a merely mimetic relationship to Western scenes. Their valorisation of local “Do It Yourself” production and performance reflects the value practices of global hardcore punk, and the social relationships that constitute the local scene extend beyond any straightforwardly spatial definition of the “local.” At the same time, this global orientation takes on particular locally-inflected meanings in the specific cultural and political environment of Bandung, Indonesia.
Punk positif: DIY production and the politics of value in the Indonesian hardcore punk scene
Paper presented to the first Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! International Conference; edited version published in DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes (A. Bennett and P. Guerra eds. 2019), 2014
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with the Kolektif Balai Kota, a DIY hardcore organising collective in Bandung, West Java, this paper explores the value politics of DIY production, both in the specific context of Indonesian hardcore punk and as a more general strategy for creative autonomy and social transformation. These DIY activists position DIY hardcore as a form of " positive punk " , putting into practice the values of community and autonomy which constitute the DIY ethic. Through their non-profit hardcore performances and other practices of DIY production and exchange, they are attempting to sustain an autonomous community outside of capitalist circuits of value. However, while they have been quite successful in establishing a cultural commons of shared value and evading many forms of alienated labour, the autonomy of the DIY hardcore community remains partial, precarious and contested. Furthermore, I argue that this form of " positive punk " remains within a dialectical value struggle connected to an anti-capitalist politics of antagonism and negation.
Punk and Anarchism: UK, Poland, Indonesia
PhD thesis, 2016
This thesis explores the relationships between punk and anarchism in the contemporary contexts of the UK, Poland, and Indonesia from an insider punk and anarchist perspective. New primary ethnographic information forms the bulk of the research, drawing on Grounded Theory Method and an engagement with Orientalism. The theoretical framework is informed by the concept of antinomy which embraces complication and contradiction – and rather than attempt to smooth-out complexities, impose a simplified narrative, or construct a fanciful dialectic, the thesis examines the numerous tensions that emerge in order to critique the relationships between punk and anarchism. A key tension which runs throughout the PhD is the dismissal of punk by some anarchists. This is often couched in terms of ‘lifestylist’ versus ‘workerist’ anarchism, with punk being denigrated in association with the former. The case studies bring out this tension, but also significantly complicate it, and the final chapter analyses this issue in more detail to argue that punk engages with a wide spectrum of anarchisms, and that the ‘lifestylist’/‘workerist’ dichotomy is anyway false. The case studies themselves focus on themes such as anti-fascism, food sovereignty/animal rights activism, politicisation, feminism, squatting, religion, and repression. New empirical information, garnered through numerous interviews and extensive participant observation in the UK, Poland, and Indonesia, informs the thick description of the case study contexts. The theory and analysis emerge from this data, and the voice of the punks themselves is given primacy here.
Researching 'Punk Indonesia' – interview with Marjaana Jauhola
Scraps of Hope, 2017
In preparation for the article 'Researching "Punk Indonesia": notes towards a non-exploitative insider methodology', Jim Donaghey interviewed a number of researchers who have conducted research on punk in Indonesia. This is the full email interview transcript with Marjaana Jauhola.