Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Description

Open lecture with Charlotte Setijadi, Assistant Professor of Humanities at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
The ethnic Chinese have had a long and problematic history in Indonesia. Commonly stereotyped as a market-dominant ethnic minority, Chinese Indonesians were also accused of having divided national loyalties between Indonesia and China. Under the pretext of ‘naturalizing’ them, throughout Suharto’s New Order regime (from 1966-1998), Chinese Indonesians were subjected to a targeted assimilation policy where Chinese languages, cultural expression, schools, media, and organizations were banned. This assimilation policy was only abolished in 1998 following the political riots and anti-Chinese attacks that led to the fall of the New Order. In the post-Suharto era, Chinese Indonesians are finally free to ‘be Chinese’ again. However, how does one recover from the trauma of assimilation and try to ‘recover’ a lost Chinese identity?

Period	2022 Jan 28
Event type	Seminar