W. Berenschot

In search of middle Indonesia: middle classes in provincial towns

Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Contributors Introduction, Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman Section 1: Caribbean Encounters 1 Curacao as a Transit Center to the Spanish Main and the French West Indies, Wim Klooster 2 Paramaribo as Dutch and Atlantic Nodal Point, 1640-1795, Karwan Fatah-Black 3 Anglo-Dutch Trade in the Chesapeake and the British Caribbean,1621-1733, Christian Koot Section 2: European Encounters 4 The French Atlantic and the Dutch, Late Seventeeth-Late Eighteenth Century, Silvia Marzagalli 5 Anglo-Dutch Economic Relations in the Atlantic World, 1688-1783, Kenneth Morgan 6 A Network-Based Merchant Empire: Dutch Trade in the Hispanic Atlantic (1680-1740), Ana Crespo Solana 7 A Public and Private Dutch West India Interest, Henk den Heijer Section 3: Intellectual and Intercultural Encounters 8 Adultery Here and There: Crossing Sexual Boundaries in the Dutch Jewish Atlantic, Aviva Ben-Ur and Jessica V. Roitman 9 The Scholarly Atlantic: Circuits of Knowledge Between Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Americas in the Eighteenth Century, Karel Davids 10 The Dutch Atlantic and the Dubious Case of Frans Post, Benjamin Schmidt Section 4: Shifting Encounters 11 The Eighteenth-Century Danish, Dutch and Swedish Free Ports in the Northeastern Caribbean: Continuity and Change, Han Jordaan and Victor Wilson 12 Dutch Atlantic Decline During The Age of Revolutions, Gert Oostindie Section 5: Perspectives on the Dutch Atlantic 13 The Rise and Decline of the Dutch Atlantic, 1600-1800, Pieter C. Emmer 14 Conclusion: The Dutch Moment in Atlantic Historiography, Alison Games Bibliography IndexCitation for published version (APA): van Klinken, G. (2014). Introduction: Democracy, markets and the assertive middle. In G. van Klinken, & W. Berenschot (Eds.), In Search of Middle Indonesia: middle classes in provincial towns (pp. 1-32). (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde; Vol. 292), (Power and place in Southeast Asia; Vol. 4). Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004263437_002

Informality and citizenship: the everyday state in Indonesia

Abstract For many citizens in postcolonial states like Indonesia, the reality and experience of citizenship depend not just on the content of laws and regulations but also on the strength of their personal social networks. In this introduction to the special issue, we argue that instead of being antithetical to citizenship, this reliance on personal connections to deal with state institutions should be seen as a constitutive dimension of citizenship. Drawing on the articles in this issue, we illustrate this argument by discussing how informality in its three dimensions – mediation, the invocation of social norms and the use of social affiliations – shape the character of everyday state–citizen interaction in Indonesia. The cultivation of personal connections constitutes an important form of political agency. It enables citizens to deal with the unresponsive and unpredictable nature of Indonesia’s state institutions.

In Search of Middle Indonesia

The middle classes of Indonesia’s provincial towns are not particularly rich yet nationally influential. This book examines them ethnographically. Rather than a market-friendly, liberal middle class, it finds a conservative petty bourgeoisie just out of poverty and skilled at politics. Please note that Sylvia Tideys article (pp. 89-110) will only be available in the print edition of this book (9789004263000).

Brokers and citizenship: access to health care in Indonesia

Abstract Faced with unresponsive and intimidating bureaucracies, citizens across particularly the global south regularly rely on intermediaries to gain access to public services. Focusing on how such brokers arrange access to health care in Indonesia, this essay discusses the impact of brokered state–citizen interaction on the character and experience of citizenship. On the basis of extensive fieldwork in both urban and rural Java we argue that brokers not only enable the realization of citizen rights, they also transform the experience and interpretation of these rights. Brokers ‘vernacularize’ citizenship, in the sense that citizenship comes to be experienced and interpreted not just in terms of a formal relationship with a national state, but also in terms of the character of personal relationships and attendant obligations that exist between citizens, brokers and power holders.

Introduction: Citizenship and Democratization in Postcolonial Southeast Asia

Citation for published version (APA): Berenschot, W., Schulte Nordholt, H., & Bakker, L. (2017). Introduction: Citizenship and Democratization in Postcolonial Southeast Asia. In W. Berenschot, H. Schulte Nordtholt, & L. Bakker (Eds.), Citizenship and Democratization in Southeast Asia (pp. 1-30). (Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia; Vol. 115). Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004329669_002

Everyday citizenship in democratizing Indonesia

Democratization in 1998 gave Indonesian citizens many more rights on paper than before. Yet their daily lives remain dominated by powerful elites. Why is this so? What we call post-colonial citizenship studies aim to bring the everyday lives of large numbers of ordinary citizens back into the picture. They call for some critical distance from conventional images of the autonomous, rights-claiming citizen. Instead, they highlight political economy, the history of state formation, and informality. Citizenship in Indonesia is highly informal, personalized, and mediated. State institutions are weak and socially embedded. Citizens regularly depend on personal connections to gain services. This mutes their experience of “rights.” We explain this pattern of citizenship historically. The latest “critical juncture,” in 1998–1999, was largely won by predatory provincial elites, who captured state resources and controlled their flow to local clients. Decentralization thus seriously impaired the quality of citizenship, particularly for the poor majority.

Digital media and Malaysia’s electoral reform movement

On the sunny afternoon of April 28, 2012, more than 200,0002 protesters hit the streets for the largest street demonstration in Malaysia in decades. The protest that day was held under the banner of Bersih 3.0, which is the third in a series of rallies that started in 2007 and reoccurred in 2011. Bersih, which is what the movement has been popularly called, comes from a Malay word that literally means ‘clean’. It is a nickname for the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections attempting to reform the existing electoral system in Malaysia by addressing pervasive electoral misconducts to ensure a free, fair and ‘clean’ election. The first Bersih rally in 2007 was commonly attributed to the shift in political landscapes in the 2008 general election where the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (bn)3 failed to obtain two-thirds of the super majority for the first time since 1969. The third and the largest rally, Bersih 3.0 in 2012, was held a year before the 2013 general election. Accordingly, it can be credited not only for mobilizing the highest voter turnout in the Malaysian history, but also for the relative success of an oppositional coalition Pakatan Rakyat (pr).4 Although the ruling

Citizenship and Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia

In July 2009, an Islamic court in the Malaysian federal state of Pahang sentenced Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a nurse and part-time model, to a punishment of six strokes with a rattan cane (besides a fine of five thousand Malaysian ringgit [ca. 1000 euro]) for drinking beer in public.1 Police, assisted by officials of the State Religious Department, had arrested her during one of their regular raids of holiday resorts in the region. The punishment was later upheld by the Pahang Syariah High Court. According to the judge, it was meant ‘to make the accused repent and serve as a lesson for Muslims’.2 The case led to public outcry, both in Malaysia and abroad. Partly in response to this, the Sultan of Pahang interfered. The verdict was commuted, in early 2010, to three weeks of community service. Had the original sentence been carried out, Kartika would have become the first woman in Malaysia to be caned under Islamic (syariah) law. Instead, this doubtful honour went to three, less famous young women, who, after being sentenced for having pre-marital sex with their boyfriends, were caned between four and six times in a prison in the state of Selangor in February 2010. They had turned themselves in after realizing that they were pregnant. In the Malaysian Islamic legal system, which exists side by side with the civil judiciary, caning may be meted out as a punishment for (particular) breaches of Islamic (syariah) law, including adultery, the use of intoxicants (such as alcohol) and apostasy. At present, three federal states (Pahang, Perlis and Kelantan) have implemented such punishments. Hudud laws, which enable Quranic (corporal) punishments, were first formulated in the states of Kelantan (1993) and Terengganu (2002), where the Islamic party pas formed the local government. They were heavily contested from the beginning. Except for the punishment of caning, law enforcement institutions (which are controlled by the federal government) have refused to enforce syariah criminal enactments. However, at present, the United Malays National Organisation (umno) – the ruling party at the national level since independence in 1957 – is considering the implementation of hudud laws at both state and federal levels. A similar pattern can be