The contestation of social memory in the new media: A case study of the 1965 killings in Indonesia

Q1 Social Sciences

Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies Pub Date : 2019-06-28 DOI:10.14764/10.ASEAS-0010

Hakimul Ikhwan, V. I. Yulianto, Gilang Desti Parahita

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引用次数: 10

Abstract

While today’s Indonesian democratic government remains committed to the New Order orthodoxy about the mass killings of 1965, new counter-narratives challenging official history are emerging in the new media. Applying mixed-methods and multi-sited ethnography, this study aims to extend our collaborative understanding of the most recent developments in this situation by identifying multiple online interpersonal stories, deliberations, and debates related to the case as well as offline field studies in Java and Bali. Practically and theoretically, we ask how the tragedy of the 1965 killings is contested in the new media and how social memory plays out in this contestation. The study finds that new media potentially act as emancipatory sites channeling and liberating the voices of those that the nation has stigmatized as ‘objectively guilty’. We argue that the arena of contestation is threefold: individual, public vs. state narrative, and theoretical. As such, the transborder space of the new media strongly mediates corrective new voices to fill missing gaps in the convoluted history of this central event of modern Indonesian history.

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新媒体下的社会记忆之争:以1965年印尼大屠杀为例

虽然今天的印尼民主政府仍然致力于1965年大屠杀的新秩序正统，但挑战官方历史的新的反叙事正在新媒体中出现。本研究采用混合方法和多地点人种学，旨在通过识别与该案例相关的多个在线人际故事、审议和辩论，以及在爪哇和巴厘岛的线下实地研究，扩展我们对该情况最新发展的合作理解。从实践和理论上讲，我们要问的是，1965年大屠杀的悲剧是如何在新媒体中受到质疑的，以及社会记忆是如何在这种质疑中发挥作用的。研究发现，新媒体潜在地充当了解放网站的角色，引导和解放了那些被国家诬蔑为“客观上有罪”的人的声音。我们认为，争论的舞台是三重的:个人、公共与国家叙事和理论。因此，新媒体的跨界空间有力地调解了纠正性的新声音，以填补这一印度尼西亚现代史中心事件的复杂历史中缺失的空白。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies Social Sciences-Social Sciences (all)

CiteScore

2.20

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

45 weeks

期刊介绍： The Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies (ASEAS) is an international, interdisciplinary and open access social sciences journal covering a variety of topics (culture, economics, geography, politics, society) from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Topics should be related to Southeast Asia, but are not restricted to the geographical region, when spatial and political borders of Southeast Asia are crossed or transcended, e.g., in the case of linguistics, diaspora groups or forms of socio-cultural transfer. ASEAS publishes two focus issues per year and we welcome out-of-focus submissions at any time. The journal invites both established as well as young scholars to present research results and theoretical and methodical discussions, to report about on-going research projects or field studies, to publish conference reports, to conduct interviews with experts in the field, and to review relevant books. Articles can be submitted in German or English.