From Subjects to Citizens: Balinese Villagers in the Indonesian Nation State

by Lyn Parker

This book analyses the processes by which conservative and introverted Balinese villagers have been incorporated into the Indonesian nation-state. It explores the changing social relations of villagers in their transformation from being subjects of their local "king" to anonymous citizens of the Republic of Indonesia. Although the national unity of Indonesia is now hotly contested, the Suharto regime was long-lived and a development success-story. This book is significant because it shows how we can understand Indonesia in its efforts to become a nation-state. While not in any way attempting to apologize for or glorify the Suharto regime, this study is unusual in showing that the experience of many Indonesian citizens was not of a menacing and coercive state but of a modernizing and developmentalist nation-state.

"In short, this is a welcome and very usable contribution to the anthropology of modern Bali, not Bali as a 'paradise island’, but Bali as a province of Indonesia." - Laura Noszlopy, Aseasuk News no.35

Lyn Parker is an anthropologist whose primary research interests include the anthropology of Indonesia, women and gender relations, adolescence, education, citizenship and Islam. In particular, her key research covers social and cultural anthropology of Indonesia, gender relations and feminism in Indonesia and cross-culturally, and adolescence in Indonesia and cross-culturally.

Publication year: 2003
320 pp / 234mm x 156mm
2 maps, 12 figures, 18 photographs, 15 tables
ISBN: 978-87-91114-04-5, Hardback

NIAS Press