Mediated Urban Creativity in Southeast Asian Cities

This doctoral research aims to understand the everyday media-related practices of individuals in creative collectives that are situated in emerging creative/heritage cities in contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia. The research enriches academic discussions on everyday life, culture and the city, within media and cultural studies. This research gives priority to the voices of the city dwellers from a bottom- up approach, looking at their material and embodied practices within the making of creative collectives. Their voices, bodies and material conditions, as city dwellers offer an alternative perspective than the top down state-led and global strategic initiatives for the branding of Bandung (Indonesia) and George Town (Malaysia) as UNESCO cities. The research draws upon the intersections between media and cultural studies, everyday life studies and urban studies, to understand how the tactics of individuals within the creative collectives disrupt, or counteract, official narratives and the top-down strategies of Bandung and George Town as global creative and heritage cities. The empirical work is based on the field research conducted from 2016 to 2017 and follow-up digital observations in 2018-2019. Methodologically, this research uses a combination of ethnographic observation and interviews, and visual methodology in the form of photo-documentation.