Figures in the May 1998 riots: Imagining the state in post -new order Indonesia

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" Figures in the May 1998 riots: Imagining the state in post -new order Indonesia "
Fadjar Ibnu Thufail K. M. George

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	55183
Doc. No	:	TL25137
Call number	:	‭3278897‬
Main Entry	:	Fadjar Ibnu Thufail
Title & Author	:	Figures in the May 1998 riots: Imagining the state in post -new order Indonesia\ Fadjar Ibnu Thufail
College	:	The University of Wisconsin - Madison
Date	:	2007
Degree	:	Ph.D.
student score	:	2007
Page No	:	236
Abstract	:	Indonesia witnessed explosions of unprecedented urban riots in Jakarta and Solo from May 13 to May 15, 1998. The riots eventually led to a historic political transformation when the authoritarian regime of President Soeharto crumbled a week later. This dissertation attempts to understand how people use stories of the riots to imagine the state. It argues that the discourses of the riots extend beyond accounts of the violent event. They signify modalities of imagining the forces and limits of state power, depicting the state as a fantasized entity continuously feared and desired in post-authoritarian Indonesia. The dissertation elaborates three modalities of social imagination, embodied in three social figures found in the stories of the May 1998 riots. The first one rests on the figure of "provokator" (agent provocateur). In the stories of the riots, the figure emerges as a reminder of the state's authoritarian power which works on the border of legality and illegality. The second one presents the figure of "ethnic Chinese." The discourse of anti-Chinese riot proliferating in the transnational space of media and advocacy work draws on this figure to expose the fracture and limit of state power. The third one constructs the figure of "victim." The growing advocacy movement in post-Soeharto Indonesia to strengthen social justice and demand more accountability of the state over past violence has allowed the discourse about riot victim to emerge. This discourse mediates the desire among NGO activists to recuperate the sovereign role of the state to uphold law. I argue in this dissertation that the stories of the May 1998 riots found in media reports of the violence, in investigative documents of state-sponsored and NGO-sponsored fact-finding bodies, and in eyewitness accounts tell more than descriptive narratives of the event. Social actors work through the representational forms to illuminate ideas of the state with its imagined and fantasized power and presence.
Subject	:	Social sciences; Indonesia; May 1998 riots; Social conflict; Solo; Urban riots; Cultural anthropology; 0326:Cultural anthropology
Added Entry	:	K. M. George
Added Entry	:	The University of Wisconsin - Madison