From Rebellion to Riots
Collective Violence on Indonesian Borneo
Davidson, Jamie S.
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BOOK SUMMARY
From Rebellion to Riots challenges popular explanations of the origins and persistence of ethnic violence in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan with new evidence and a multidimensional analysis.
BOOK SYNOPSIS
From Rebellion to Riots is a critical analysis of the roots of contemporary violence in one of Indonesia’s most ethnically heterogeneous provinces, West Kalimantan. Since the late 1960s, this province has suffered periodic outbreaks of ethnic violence among its Dayak, Malay, Madurese, and ethnic Chinese populations. Citing evidence from his research, internal military documents, and ethnographic accounts, Jamie S. Davidson refutes popular explanations for these flare-ups. The recurrent violence has less to do with a clash of cultures, the ills of New Order-led development, or indigenous marginalization than with the ongoing politicization of ethnic and indigenous identity in the region. Looking at key historical moments, markedly different in their particulars, Davidson reveals the important links between ethnic violence and subnational politics. In one case, army officers in Soeharto’s recently established New Order regime encouraged anti-Chinese sentiments. To move against communist-inspired rebellion, they recruited indigenous Dayaks to expunge tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese from interior towns and villages. This counter-insurgent bloodshed inadvertently initiated a series of clashes between Dayaks and Madurese, another migrant community. Driven by an indigenous empowerment movement and efforts by local elites to control benefits provided by decentralization and democratization, these low-intensity riots rose to immense proportions in the late 1990s. From Rebellion to Riots demonstrates that the endemic violence in this vast region is not the inevitable outcome of its ethnic diversity, and reveals that the initial impetus for collective bloodshed is not necessarily the same as the forces that sustain it.
BOOK REVIEWS
“Path-breaking. Davidson assesses the prior scholarship on ethnic violence and challenges much of the conventional wisdom, in a manner that has both insight and considerable value.”—Michael Leigh, University of Melbourne
Submit a book reviewFOR RELATED BOOKS
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 0299225844
ISBN(13-digit): 9780299225841
Dewey Decimal: 305.89009598/3
Library of Congress: 2007039161
Book Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 287
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