Ms Rebecca Meckelburg1
1Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
Current explanations of social and political change in Indonesia since Reformasi largely focus on the mixed outcomes of decentralisation and democratisation of state power for elite actors. These explanations provide little or no framework for conceptualising popular political action in the context of this institutional restructuring. Based on a longiterm ethnographic study, this paper examines some of the diverse outcomes of political decentralisation in Indonesia since Reformasi focusing on the actions, ideas and experiences of subaltern actors. These outcomes are examined at the level of local and regional political economies which demonstrate a strong correlation with the historical development of class struggle politics within different regions and more local village societies. This examination considers how highly varied local experiences of mass violence and repression in 1965-66 strongly influenced subsequent expressions of social and political ideas under the New Order regime which continue to impact on the formation of local political claims, cultural identities and society-state relations until today.
Biography
Rebecca Meckelburg is a Doctoral candidate at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University. Her dissertation examines the persistent, often fragmented, popular struggles of rural subaltern groups to secure control of resources and shift social relations of power in favour of subaltern and other non-elite classes in Indonesia since Reformasi.