The present research programme is aimed at unravelling the intricacies and resilience of Indonesian Chinese family and business networks during periods of (violent) regime change, with a focus on the everyday-life experiences of the people involved. It re-examines political stereotypes, which have shaped both state attitudes and popular sentiment towards the ethnic Chinese through different regimes and periods of cataclysmic change in Indonesian society.
A stepping out of these frames is crucial to understand the long-term significance and roles of Indonesian Chinese in Indonesian society, culture and economy. The participants in the programme believe a more holistic and deeper understanding of the business, cultural, and social life of the Chinese in Indonesia, drawing parallels and comparisons across ethnic lines, and a re-consideration of the broader frames of Indonesian history (including its regional and global contexts, especially Japan and China), conjures important possibilities for re-thinking Chinese-ness in and outside Indonesia and the place of the Chinese in Indonesian and Asian history.
The programme is built around five research clusters and executed within a global research network. All projects will center around the broad themes regime change and cultural dynamism . The research clusters are:
1. Elite business and family networks
2. Visualizing ethnic Chinese
3. Small traders, peasants and fishing communities
4. Politics, policies and state formation
5. Transnationalism: states and markets.
The projects for this multi-disciplinary and comparative research- and documentation programme are currently being developed in close cooperation with the partner-institutes in the programme.
In October 2005 the programme was officially launched with the start of the NIOD Indonesian Chinese Afternoon Meetings (NICAM work-meetings). These meetings are held at regular four-weeks intervals and provide an informal and intellectually challenging discussion platform for (under)graduate students and post-doc researchers interested in the development of Indonesian Chinese culture and society, business and politics, and its visual representation inside and outside Indonesia. |
