Nation, City, Arena: Sports Events, Nation Building and City Politics in Indonesia

by Friederike Trotier

In her new study, Friederike Trotier draws on the examples of Palembang and Jakarta to map the evolution of Indonesia’s sporting history, then uses her analysis as a lens to reflect on the country’s transformation since 1998. Here, she considers political aspirations and changes, power structures and global influences in the host country and its cities. She also scrutinizes the role of sports events in relation to national and local politics and links them to the increase in city marketing, local agency and inter-city competition in post-Suharto Indonesia. A key argument is that sports events reflect the country’s development in the past two decades from being nation-centric – where Jakarta had a dominant place – to being far more decentralized; here, in the new structure of regional autonomy, cities have a heightened role as arenas of representation. The result is an impressive revisualization of Indonesia’s recent sociopolitical transformation.

“Nation, City, Arena is an important addition to the study of the intersection of sports, urban space, and politics. The book is thoroughly researched and complemented by the incorporation of various maps, tables, glossaries, and imagery.” - Andy Fuller, Asian Journal of Social Science 50 (2022)

Friederike Trotier is Assistant Professor in Comparative Development and Cultural Studies (Southeast Asia) at the University of Passau. Her research interest concentrates on sports, urban geography and popular culture in Southeast Asia and especially in Indonesia. She is building a solid publication record in this area with articles in the International Journal of the History of Sport and Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science and a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Sport in Asia. Dr Trotier is an editorial board member of the Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture.

Publication year: 2021
348 pp / 229mm x 152mm
39 figures (15 in colour), 3 maps, 3 tables
ISBN: 978-87-7694-293-9, Paperback
ISBN: 978-87-7694-292-2, Hardback

NIAS Press